September 28 - Calgary to Los Angeles, CA

Weather – 19º when we arrived in Los Angeles, with just a touch of humidity

Steps – 20,517. I have to admit, most of these were accumulated before the vacation started…walking to and from Renfrew.

We made it to Los Angeles with very little excitement. Our evening flight was delayed a bit, but nothing terrible. Once we lifted off Chris and I toasted vacation with a bit of bubbly and beef jerky! I figured I needed a bit of protein to get me through the 3-hour flight sitting behind 2 howling gifts from God. These kids were something else! I assume their parents were mortified and did all they could and didn’t want their kids wailing for 3 hours, but WOW! We’ve been on flights with screaming kids, but never with the stamina of these kids. I wonder if they were missing their mommy-night-nights?

bedtime snack

I was prepared for a nightmare at the LAX airport. I had heard that it was huge and hard to navigate. It was huge, but in the end fine. Definitely not the worst airport experience – talking to you São Paolo. Only having carryon may have smoothed the experience…the freedom of just walking off of a plane and out of the airport is glorious!

We had a bit of a hike (10 min) to the Uber pick-up spot, but we could have taken a shuttle. Finding an Uber at the Vegas airport is harder on the head than this was. This was pretty well organized with different waiting spots indicated by letters and numbers…made finding the driver pretty easy.

Speaking of Uber…we had a wonderful Uber driver. Hendra, our driver from Indonesia, talked just the right amount, which for us is lots. Especially in a new place, drivers have plenty to share about what’s what. Hendra has family in Montreal, so we talked about Canada. We’ve been to Indonesia, so we talked about that, and he was adamant that we knew about pickpockets and bag snatchers – I think we are always aware, but it was sweet to hear him remind us. 30 minutes after we left the airport, we arrived at the hotel around 11:45, checked in, dodged the partiers spilling out of the hotel’s club, showered, ate the welcome chocolates and plum and passed out.

I might have passed out because of the cloud I slept on…this was the softest hotel bed I’ve ever slept in – softest mattress, softest sheets, softest duvet. Based on the softness of the bed I expected cloud-like pillows…nope, they were fine, but the bed oversold the pillows. Nevertheless…I may have woken up once in the night, or I might not have, I can’t remember…that is rare for me.

PS…happy birthday MOM!!