LOST

Congrats to American Airlines for being the first airline to loose my luggage. Technically, it is only "delayed", but since we are approaching 24 hours after my arrival and I have yet to hear from them, I gonna call it lost until proved wrong.

And what the heck was that craptastic display of airport operations in DFW yesterday? We arrive and are headed to our gate. Oops, gate change. Now lets taxi to the other side of the airport. Opps, there is still a plane in our gate. Wait. Wait. Wait. Oops, the plane has left but where is the crew to tow the airplane into the gate? Wait. Wait. Wait some more. Oops, where is the gate agent to bring out the jetway to meet the airplane? Wait. Wait. Wait some more. Finally get off the airplane with about 5 minutes to catch my connecting flight and I am directed to the tram to go across the airport (our original gate was only 4 away from my connecting gate). Get on the tram and go one stop. Oops, this tram is going out of service.... please get off the the next stop. Crap!

By some miracle, I made the flight just in time (I was paged with a "last call"), but needless to say, my luggage did not make the flight.

So, I already HATE United Airlines and American Airlines certainly did nothing to endear it to me yesterday. Which US airline am I supposed to fly now?

Lift Off!

The Space Shuttle lifted off from Florida yesterday at 2:45pm eastern time. Poop! That will probably be the closest i'll ever get to seeing a shuttle take off.

Oh well. I leave for Miami tomorrow bright and early. Pray for a smooth transfer at DFW cause I only have a 45 minute layover. Yikes! Also pray my luggage also makes the transfer, cause Miami without clothes could be interesting.

A few of my co-workers and I still plan on driving up to Kennedy Space Center on Sunday to see the site and take a tour. Should be a fun way to spend the day.

Homeward Bound

I am sitting at the Hartford, CT airport awaiting my flight home. It was a great weekend spent with Joy cheering on the Red Sox and touring around Cape Cod. We had a very good time, took some photos, shopped, and ate some good (and bad) food. I tried bush tea for the first time at the Dunbar Tea Room. Very good.

It's a long flight home (through Chicago) and they are calling our flight to board so talk to y'all later....

Off I Go!

Ahhh... I LOVE air travel. Crowded airports, whiney kids, cramped seats, and long days in a dry-aired, uncomfortable seat, in a high altitude pressure barrel. YAY!

I am off tomorrow to visit my bestest buddy Joy, which makes all the toils of the trip worth it. We are going to Cape Cod, do some photography, and probably shop a bit.

It should be a geat weekend and I am so looking forward to seeing Joy (it's been about a year since I moved from NYC). The added bonus is that I get away from the freaky weather we are having here in Seattle. It hailed today and seemed to be raining non-stop for the last week. Ugh! I need some sun and warmth.

So, off I go tomorrow. Wish me safe travels.....

And GO RED SOX!

In the Event of a Water Landing.....

I spent the last two days at a Advanced Cabin Safety Training class. This class is basically a simplified version of the 5 week class that Flight Attendants go through before starting their jobs.

We got to use crash axes to puncture holes through closets, put out real & fake fires with fire extinguishers, slide down an 737 escape slide, jump into and out of a huge aviation life raft at a nearby pool, and run through several emergency scenarios in airplane cabin mockups.

It was very educational and certainly builds your confidence if ever in a situation were any of this was needed, but it was also very fun. Its not every day you get to jump in a 48 person aviation life raft and float around a pool in a life vest. Very cool!

Famous Last Words...

I know a long time back in a blog post far far away I said I would NEVER fly United Airlines again. Well, never say never!

Apparently I had some long leftover United Frequent Flyer miles I had totally forgetten about and they were about to expire. Just enough miles to use to go visit my friend Joy. YAY!

More Airshow Photos

Here are some more photos from the Seattle SeaFair Airshow.....


You can see all my airshow photos on my smugmug site.

All Work and No Play

For the two people who read this blog, you might have noticed that I am not posting as much right now. Sorry about that, but things have been awful busy at work without much exciting happening. Lots of overtime so getting on the computer at home after 10-11 hours of work is not something I am wanting to do. Plus, it is hard to post when your life consists of wake, work, eat, sleep, repeat.

This weekend has been catchup time; laundry, vacuuming, grocery store and getting cat food (I was wondering what my little sweethearts were complaining about so loudly!). :-)

Oh.... and I found friggin' ants in my kitchen. Traced their little trail to the back door, so its also off to Home Depot for some bug spray to toxic-fy their little asses so they won't ever want to come back.

And after passing up a trip with the family to Gatlinburg, TN, I discovered that i have enough United frequent flier miles for a free round trip and they expire at the end of this month. GAH! Why didn't I discover that sooner so I could have used it for the family trip to TN. So, I need to find a use for those frequent flier miles pronto. My friend Joy may be moving off to England at the start of the year, so maybe I will use the miles to head to her place in the fall to see her before she leaves. Not a big fan of United Airlines, but a free ticket is a free ticket.

Blue Angels

This weekend is the annual Seattle SeaFair event to celebrate summer here in the Pacific NW. As part of the celebration, SeaFair puts on a fabulous airshow complete with the Blue Angels, the US Navy's elite formation flying squad.

Yesterday, they were out practicing and getting acquainted with the area and I was lucky enough to have a front row seat of their takeoffs from the local airport here in Seattle. Standing on the roof of my building at work, we had an eye level view of the Blue Angels as they past by us. The smoke, the roar of the engines, and the precision formation flying was awesome to see.

I am volunteering in the Air Operations group for SeaFair over the weekend so hopefully I will have other opportunities to see the Blue Angels takeoff and land as well as all the other airshow participants.

Today however, I am taking a vacation day and heading down to the hydroplane race area as my volunteer credentials get me into the pit area. Should be a fun day.... if it stops raining!

Mom Touches an Airplane

Here is my mom touching the bottom of the first ever 787 airplane. We were two of the lucky ones with tickets to the 787 roll out festivities this past Sunday here in Washington State.

It was a beautiful day and a nice ceremony and we got to wander about underneath the airplane afterwards. And we even got souvenirs.

YAY for new airplanes!

Mom is Almost Here!

This afternoon, I have been watching my mother fly across the country. See.... there she is in the image on the left. Flying at 38,000 feet over Idaho.

This image comes from a nifty website called FlightAware. Plug in any flight number and it will show its progress in route.

I guess I better get dresses and get ready to head to the airport to pick mom up.

Africa Trip Report - Part 3

MAY 11th
The next morning, it was moving day again, so we packed up the bags and had a game drive on our way out of Nxai Pan. More bat-eared foxes and then the amazing giraffe sighting. Once we were done counting, we had spotted 36 giraffe in the one group. From little baby giraffe (well, little is relative) to older darker spotted giraffe. Amazing!

It was fun to watch them watch us. Out of all the animals we saw, the giraffe were by far the most interested in us. They almost always stopped and stared at us as we had stopped to take photos of them.

On the way out of Nxai Pan, we spotted more jackels and Oryx and then came the large bull elephant in musth. He was lumbering down the right side of the road and Richard could tell he was in musth from the droplets around his footprints. Once spotted, Richard drove quickly and careful around him so we would be positioned in front of of the elle (he told us later you don't want to be in position of having to back up from a charging elle... always in front of it so you can drive away from it). We then slowed down, but never stopped, enough to take some photos. We saw so many elles later that it is kinda funny now looking back at all the clamoring we did to get some photos of this one guy.

We drove back to Maun and stopped off at the WS HQ there. We had some time before our flight into the delta, so we got to take showers and eat lunch in there beautiful facility there. If you ever have a chance to spend some time in their lounge, do so. We also met Christo, one of the WS managers who asked us how things were going so far.

All clean and refreshed, we headed to the airport and climbed into our Cessna Caravan for the flight to Xijera. I love the flights, not only cause I work in aviation, but also because you get a great and different perspective of the landscape and the delta from the air.

The flood had not reached Maun yet, but soon after getting airborn, we could see the first portions of the flood approaching. By the time we approached the Xijera landing strip, we were surrounded by beautiful blue water and wonderful green foliage. We also noted that the edge of the Xijera landing strip was underwater and sandbags and berms were being built to try and save the runway. Definately a good flood year.

We departed and hopped into a new truck and drove a short distance to the mokoros. All our luggage was loaded into one mokoro which Richard poled. Our guide/poler was Cedric, who manages the Mokoro Trails camp. He was so nice and funny. We set off in the mokoros and what an amazing experience... floating along the lily pads and through the reeds. Looking down into water so smooth and clear. It was late afternoon and everything had this wonderful golden glow to it.

Cedric pointed out the tiny tiny reed frog (they also call them bell frogs) which we later understand is responsible for the wonderful chime sounds at night. Cedric also lost his pole twice during the trip. Good thing we had other boats behind us to retrieve the pole. He explained that sometimes the forked end of the pole gets stuck in the reeds and grass below the water and that polers are not supposed to try and yank the pole out cause it could tip the mokoro. So we let another mokoro's poler do the yanking of the pole out of the grass for us. Very smart that Cedric.

We soon spotted our tents nestled on the banks of an island and were greeted by the staff on our arrival. The bush loos and showers here were a little different. Instead of the loo or shower bucket being surrounded by a open-roofed tent, they were only separated by a wall of tall reeds; the toilet paper roll on the branch outside the only signifier as to the occupancy of the loo.

Another great day in Africa!

Calgary, eh?

I have been a bit deliquent on my Africa postings. Mainly due to the fact that I was in Calgary visiting a friend this past weekend. It was a last minute trip. I have never been up that way and I wanted to take advantage of my friend being up there (that sounds way worse than I meant it!).

So, on Friday afternoon, I took the short flight up there, met up with said awesome friend and we enjoyed the wonderful weekend in and around Calgary. Saturday was a walk around downtown Calgary complete with a Carribean parade down the main street and an adventerous outing to Sushi Boat where little boats with sushi make their way around the tables and you select from the boats. Fun!

Sunday, we headed the 120km to Banff. Beautiful little town surrounded by snow-capped mountians. After finding the info center, we headed for the gondola that took us up one of the mountains, hiked along a stair-filled boardwalk up top, then relaxed our sore muscles in the hot springs pools nearby (a treat!). Afterwards, we drove by the famous Banff Springs Hotel complete with bagpiper out front and then back into downtown for a long but fun fondue late lunch/early dinner. Finsihed off with some shopping before heading back to Calgary.

Monday morning was an early day as I woke up, got to the airport, flew back home and was at work all before 7:30am. Whew, I am tuckered out!

Photos to follow in the near future.

Africa Trip Report - Part 1

Here we go.....

GETTING THERE
Started out on May 3rd with a flight to NYC. To get myself in the African mood, read the No 1 Ladies Detective Agency book on the flight. I already love Botswana and I haven't even gotten there yet. Landed in NYC with the sunset out our window. Very pretty.

Overnighted in NYC thanks to lots and lots of Marriott Reward points. After spending the following morning walking around NYC, I took a cab back to JFK and took the EOS flight from NYC to Stansted, UK. Phenomenal flight! 48 seats in a 757... that is the way to travel. Despite the comfy seats, I had problems falling asleep. I think this had more to do with stress and nerves than the airplane or the seats.

Arrived at Stanstead airport outside of London and quickly found the bus terminal. It is not a large airport so there is not many places to get lost. Took the National Express bus from Stansted to Heathrow and which was a nice drive through the countryside. 90 minutes later, we were at Heathrow Airport. Finally found South African Airways, but their counters were not open yet. Bummer. I was tired and sweaty and I would have loved to get into the First Class lounge as soon as possible. So, I found a chair and waited and doozed and talked with some nice older ladies on their way to Romania. Eventually SAA opened their counters and I got checked in after a longer than should be necessary wait. What a mess that was. Totally unorganized.

In the SAA first class lounge, I got a shower (such a nice luxury) and was able to sit in some comfy chairs and relax. I had some time before my flight, so the lounge was well worth blowing all the mileage points on. Flight to Joberg was on a beautiful 747 and first class was in the nose on the main deck. Very nice large seats with this large side credenza. It was nice, but not quite as nice as the EOS flight. Again, I had problems getting to sleep, but eventually managed to get some zzzzs. Got to Joberg on the morning of the 6th and was picked up by our friends. They took me to their house where I meet up with my 3 other traveling companions who all arrived prior to me. After a brief nap, we had lunch which consisted of a game skewer of Ostrich, Kudu, Impala, and Warthog at some outside mall restraunt and later, BBQ and drinks at said friends house. This was so much better than a hotel near the airport. The next morning, we loaded into the car and were dropped off at Tambo International Airport for our Botswana Air flight to Maun.

MAY 7th
At the Maun airport, we meet our guide Richard A. and our two other traveling companions for the tour. Joining the four of us girls was Paul, an Aussie from Cairns, and Jim, another Aussie from Melbourne.

We climbed into the large Toyota Landcruiser with open sides and back and headed off for Camp Kalahari in the Makgahdikgahdi Pans. This was a very long drive. We saw our first Zebra and learned quickly that jokes and subsequent laughing scare off wildlife. At one point, Richard indicated there was a leopard under a tree along side the road. We all quickly got out the cameras and were waiting in anticipation as we approached the spot Richard had indicated.... only to discover the leopard was on a road sign. HA HA!

Box lunches were had in a nice shaded spot along the road, as were the first of many many many bush loo breaks.

We got to Planet Baobob as sunset was nearing and picked up our camp guide, O'Yapo, for the next two days. We followed him through the dusty roads, stopping a few times to get photos of the amazing sunset.

We arrived at Camp Kalahari after dark with the camp lit up with lanterns. We were escorted to our tents. I have camped quite a bit in my life, and this was certainly way nicer than what I was used to. Cots with large comfortable duvets. Mats on the floor with baggage racks and a night table with cans of Doom (bug spray) & Peaceful Sleep (mosquito repellent).

We had our first showers which was a bit surreal... warm water bucket showers surrounded by a open-roofed tent looking up at the night sky filled with so many stars. It was the only timed we showered at night and I am glad we had the opportunity.

The bush loo was also an experience. A toilet seat connected to a wooden box over a hole in the ground surrounded by a smaller open-roofed tent. Our first experience would have been fine except that the hole was dug at the same width at the box. I made the mistake of moving slightly and the whole box tilted. My friends got a laugh out of it as I screamed "I'm going in" when it happened. That camp staff was great and re-dug the hole for a better fit and that was the only drama.

Our campfire was called the bush TV. Loved that. We meet the rest of the great staff, had our first incredible meal, more bush TV and drinks, and eventually headed off to our tents for our first night on safari.

MAY 8th
We started off early with a quick breakfast of fruits and cereals. This would be the standard breakfast for the entire safari tour. We had a busy day in front of us.

We started with a safari drive looking for the meerkats. It seemed that we drove around forever with LOTS of stops to view ground squirrels. This probably sounds bad, but squirrels just don't excite me and we kept stopping to look at them. The multitude of *bleeping* ground squirrels quickly became a running joke for us.

Finally, we spotted the guy in the red stocking cap which marked the den the meerkats were staying at. And OMG, they were just adorable. We quickly climbed out of the vehicle and carefully walked closer to their den. This is apparently a newer group so they are not habituated to humans so we kept our distance.

There were 6 of them (apparently there had been 8 but two had been taken by snakes very recently) and we watched as they came out of their dens, warmed themselves in the morning sun, dug around for food, and generally were as cute as could be. They are a lot smaller in size than they appear on TV (Meerkat Manor). I was just so happy to see them in the wild. I just clicked away with photos.

One by one, the meerkats headed off for the morning hunt. It was cute that one little guy just didn't seem to want to leave the den and join the others. All the rest had moved on and we could see them in the distance as they kept stopping to look back at this one meerkat still at the den. We were all silently encouraging him as well to move along and join the safety of the rest of the group. Finally, after some trepidation, he quickly ran to join the others.

We also followed as they didn't go far... to another set of holes nearby. We watched for just a short while before leaving them to their day and heading back to the truck.

We continued on with the drive, seeing zebras and ostriches until we got to Chapman's Baobob. You could see it in the distance as we approached and it didn't look that big... that is until you got up to it. It is frickin' HUGE! I really loved the baobob trees... nothing like them in the US.

We drove back to camp along a large grassy plain. The roof was opened up by this time and we all stood on our seats to enjoy the fantastic view out the roof (and to escape the endless dust). Next thing we know, we are suddenly back at camp and ready for lunch.

After lunch, we had a wonderful walk with some San Bushmen. It was a young boy (around 16 years of age) and his uncle. They were amazing. When they spoke in their language with all the clicks and sounds, you didn't really care what they were saying, you just wanted to listen to them speaking in their wonderfully strange language.

They dug up a scorpion in its hole and held in in their hand. Why did they dig up the scorpions we asked? For food? No, they responded.... the kids usually dug them up to play with the critters. Yikes...digging up scorpions for the fun of it! I would never make it as a bushman.

They also started a fire the old fashioned way... twisting the stick and dumping the smoldering embers in some dried zebra dung (since it is mostly just dried grass). Then they yelled at the pile of dried grass and lo an behold... five minutes later, they had a nice little fire going. Somehow I don't think that yelling part will help me any the next time I am working on a fire on my next camping trip.

Finally, the bushmen showed us this game they played. It is hard to even describe it other than it is a form of Paper, Rock Scissors, but with lots of had movements and lots of sounds, clicks, and yelling. It is apparently called Lightning and Springbok. Each person would try to get the other person to make a certain hand movement. The kid bushman won both rounds at which point his uncle exclaimed that he doesn't play as much now as the kids do. Hee. Seems excuses like that are universal.

We got back to camp, had our 3:30 showers and were told were would be heading out to the pans for our ATV ride. We were told to dress warm and bring any necessary medicines with us. That should have been our first clue....

We drove to the edge of the pans, put on our colorful kikoys, got our instructions, and off we went. I was paired with my tent-mate and friend Diane and she started off driving. I just hung on the back trying to take photos of the vehicles in front of us and the pans with the setting sun. There is no amount of wide-angle lens that can adequately capture the vast expanse of those salt pans.

We stopped in the middle of nowhere for our sundowner. Amarula in the middle of the pans as the sun sets... is nothing better? As it got dark, we were told to walk 500 feet in varying directions from each other and to take in the stars and the pans alone. I set off to find my patch of solitude and laid down to watch as the stars appeared in the darkening sky. Someone here had mentioned once that out here, it seemed as if the stars had stars. What an apt description. The stars were as endless as the pans themselves.

After enjoying some time by ourselves, we got back on the ATVs, thinking we were headed home. Our second clue should have been that we didn't turn around, just kept heading future into the pans with only the lights of the vehicle lighting the way. We could see some lights way ahead of us, which I initially thought was maybe some lights from Jacks or San Camp. We got closer and eventually saw a campfire in the middle of the pans along with our dinner table. We were to eat dinner out in the middle of the pans. Awesome!!! They even brought out a bush loo tent.

We enjoyed a wonderful dinner under the stars and to warm us up, they put hot coals from the fire under our camp chairs. What a wonderful luxury. Warm bums while dining. Hee. After dinner, as we were all seated around the fire, we suddenly heard singing off in the distance. What was up?

We followed the singing past the bush loo out into the darkness. Suddenly a flashlight lit up a cot... just a single cot with bed coverings out on the pans. One by one, more cots were discovered. YAY... we were sleeping out on the pans overnight. I had heard about this, but was not sure if we would get to do it or not. I was beyond excited.

However, one of our group (Aussie Jim) was not pleased. He was actually upset about this and after talking with the guides and staff, they agreed to take him back to the regular camp. They later told us that in all they years they have been doing this, this was the first time anyone ever refused to sleep out on the pans.

We enjoyed some more campfire before heading to our solitary cots with the stars and clouds as our view. I couldn't get to sleep right away as this whole experience was just amazing. I just laid there in my cot soaking up the entire night trying to embed every little detail of the pans, the stars, the moonlight, and the lack of any noise in my brain.

What an awesome day!

We're Off!

This morning at o'dark thirty, I dropped off two of my African traveling companions at the airport. It has finally started.... this great big 'ol African Adventure. It seems like yesterday we were all on the phone and someone innocently mentioned "I have always wanted to go to Africa". That started the ball rolling and now ten months later, we are almost there. I have been speding the day checking my friends UAL flights and right now they are in the air over Canada on their way to London.

Me, I am still here in Seattle, working away and stressing out. Trying to wrap up work stuff, move my office to a new location, take training classes for the new job I get when I get back, and get packed and organized for a 20 day trip. ARGH!!!

After dragging me across the coals this past weekend, my cold has finally ended. This is one of the few times I will thank the stars for having a auto-immune condition and the superman immune system that comes with it. Instead of colds lasting 7-10 days, mine last 4 days. Blessings and curses and all that.

Anyways.... 2 more nights!

Learn To Fly....

Hee.