so, i owe everyone a post about california... so, here goes.
first, once i get my act together, wait, that will take too long...
once i get my photos organized, i will be able to direct you to an album where you can see pictures. but at the moment, that's not possible...
if i'm with it, i can even make it like one of those old school filmstrips where there was a *beep* when you switched to the next photo...
my travelling companion's name has been changed to protect the innocent... or guilty... (and she'd use it as a username if she ever got around to joining livejournal...)
my godson's name has not been changed, because, well, langston is just too cool of a name...
so, i headed over to jifse's house friday night after getting home and trying to repack to accommodate a hairdryer that i had forgotten to include in the game of tetris that was my suitcase...
it was raining and crappy when i drove over, but all was well. langston was already asleep, the portable dvd player jifse had purchased that day was charging, and she had yet begun to pack. luckily she had a really big suitcase that doesn't make suitcase tetris necessary.
so, at the ungodly hour of 8am our flight left. of course we had to get to the airport much earlier. and then, two women, one two year old, two large suitcases, four carry-on bags (bag-o-langston distractions of the book, crayon and food kind, dvd player and associated crap, my carry-on necessities including appropriate drugs, and jifse's purse/diaper bag), one carseat and one stroller needed to check in. here at o'hare, american airlines has this weird check-in: everybody checks in on little screens (like e-ticket check in), then if you're checking bags you wait for them to call your name; you step up with said bags, place them on a scale to make sure they're not too heavy (for which they will charge you more money), they tag the bags, then make you carry them over to the x-ray area for checked luggage. man that was annoying. not to mention fighting through the hoards with said people and bags in tow just to get to the screaming american airlines personelle. horrible system that.
so, we finally dump the large bags and find our way to the gate, which means encountering the security check. again with the stupidity. take langston out of the stroller, try to shove carseat through x-ray machine, realize that we have to adjust the seat so it's low enough to fit, put stroller in x-ray machine, along with bags, jackets and everything else while also trying to wrangle a two year old who is starting to wake-up and want to run around. now i know from experience why jifse didn't want to do this alone.
so, we make it to the gate, make a pile of stuff. i head off to grab some breakfast because now on american the snacks are for purchase. screw that. got some bagels and chocolate milk. then took a walk with the fuzzball (ie- langston, thanks to disney girl for that notation) oh- and there's no special pre-boarding for passengers with small children. so we again have to make our way through the normal people thronging around the gate. so, we head towards the gate, and ask if there's a passenger in the row with us (the father-in-law, purchaser of the tickets, did not purchase a ticket for the small child). the stewardess, flight attendant, whatever, informs us that there is, so we check the stroller and carseat. onto the plane we go. get into the seat, cram appropriate bags above and below, and wait. the stewardess lied, there was no one else in our row. life was good.
so, we begin our journey. i'd like to say it was a three-hour tour, but the flight is four hours. luckily we had langston's favorite movie (monsters, inc), and the dvd player to watch it on (although he won't listen using the headphones, so we just tried to keep the volume low). well, he didn't watch the whole thing and kept wanting to push all the buttons, and take out the dvd. i think all electronics should have either locking keypads or locking keypad covers.
the rest of the flight was fairly uneventful, involving only one minor breakdown on langston's part which was quickly followed by a nap. during naptime i gazed out the window, got some cool views of mountains and the grand canyon
and as we decended into los angeles, i saw for myself that wonderful orangeish-brown layer of smog that everyone talks about. ew.
we were met at the airport by the father-in-law and the step-mother-in-law (herein referred to as "in-laws"). as one could expect they were more excited about seeing the grandchild than us. we all piled in the car for the two-and-a-half hour ride to indio, where they live. indio is a few towns east of palm springs. on the way we stopped for lunch, during which time langston announced to basically the entire dining room, "i pooped!". if nothing else the restaurant had one of the best bananna-oat muffins i have ever had. hot from the oven, even.
on we drove to the residence. we actually were staying in the in-law's second house. we went there to put langston down for a nap, to unpack and generally relax after the traveling. we finished the day with dinner at the in-laws, yay for home cooked food, and a relatively lazy evening.