Traveling light...

I find it quite odd that the night before we left several light bulbs burned out in our home. Then as we were leaving for the airport we noticed the headlight on dh’s car was out. I mentioned it to my mother and asked her what she thought about the lack of light in our life currently, but she reminded me that God’s love will never leave us in the dark.

There was a small child probably a little older than # 3 on our flight to Denver. She was a cutie. It made me think of my own babies and how lucky I am to be a mommy.

The Rocky Mountains are amazing. As exhausted as we were we couldn’t sleep as we were flying over the ridge. We were at 36,000 feet and the ground felt and looked really close. The snow capped peaks were unreal. When we were completely over the range the ground was barely visible.

We gained an hour on the trip to Denver. By the end of today we will have added 2 extra hours onto an already long day. Not having a watch is driving dh bonkers. He keeps asking me what time it is as if I have some sort of intuition of time zones or something. First purchase of unnecessary item will be a watch. Dh has been listening to the chatter of the pilots on the radio channel and he keeps loudly telling me useless information like the air traffic is really busy right now and there’s a plane flying right over us. Like I really want to know all that.

The plane toilet was an experience. It smelled like a portapotty. My tennis shoes stuck to the floor and I had to listen to the sound of them peeling off some sticky substance every time I moved. Which, by the way, wasn’t much. There isn’t a lot of room to turn around in there. I managed to figure out how to flush the toilet but couldn’t understand how to drain my soapy water from the sink. Oh well, I could have left something worse for the next person…

The weather has been great for flying. The sun is shining so much we have pulled the shades so we can have some shade to nap in. Combined hours of sleep between the two of us last night was less than 5 hours. It will be an extra long day.

We called Grandma at the Denver airport and we talked to #2. He was really excited that we rode on a plane and kept asking what else we did. I told him about how daddy was randomly chosen to be frisked by security and I heard him tell Grandma. “Daddy had to go through a special medical detector.”

The actual flying part leaves much to be desired. The seats are really close together and with the laptop dh has no leg room. I, being the more stout one of us, feel like I have no elbow room. The first flight we had an empty seat next to us. The second one a quiet lady sat and read her American Buddhist Women binder while I tried to sleep. I think she was chanting and humming most of the trip.

When we landed in Oakland it felt like we were gonna put our wheels down in the water, but as the last minute the land appeared under the wings of the plane and my faith in the woman captain reappeared.
The hotel here is nothing fancy but they have free WIFI and every room has a door outside, heck the ice machine is outside. That is weird. We took an elevator to our 3rd floor room and the elevator was outside…

We took a walk around the neighborhood. We admired some nasty graffiti and a few shopping carts full of items before we decided perhaps we would just cough up the cash and call a shuttle for transportation instead of taking the pubic BART train. Although the thought of a train that takes you underwater to the San Francisco Airport did intrigue us. I think we’ll play it safe and pay the man to carry our luggage instead of dragging it three blocks to the bus stop in a neighborhood that may not be agreeable.

The Coliseum is sort of in the middle of a train station a used car lot and lots of industrial business. In Kansas City we walked across the parking lot to enter the stadium. Here there are 2 gated entrances and everything is all fenced in.

Just got off the phone with my children and I almost lost it. Just over 12 hours into the journey and I am already homesick. Grandma is getting along fine without me. My son thinks it’s so cool that we are going to a ballgame. I can’t help thinking how much fun the kids would have seeing the ocean.

Tomorrow we will be in Hawaii.