Travels with The Rayman

Yesterday we drove south to Buellton to spend the night with our friends at Flying Flags RV park.  What a splendid time we had Coverting with our friends, the animal bicyclists we know and whom I have spoken of in past blogs.  A fine group that thinks nothing of riding 41 miles one day, followed by 35 miles the next while pedaling up mountains, descending into valleys, and back up the mountains, stopping for refreshments, turning around and riding back, then fixing food for a potluck barbecue and cranking open copious amounts of wine bottles to wash down all the delicious food.

To put things into prospective, I would have retreated to my room for a long nap if I had done what they did.  Then would probably not wake up until the next morning.   Just sayin.

Most of this group is retired.  Ron and Elizabeth from Ashland, OR were there.  They have biked across America.   He wrote a book about their trip.  Across and Down by Ronald Zell.  It’s on Amazon.  They also rode from the Canadian border to Mexico. OMG.  Super hero’s to me.   

Ron, Elizabeth in the center. Old friend, Charlie on the left. Our RV hostess, K.C.

But I digress.

We had a blast and we spent the night in the Covert’s RV.   They are our RV muses and they hail from Sacramento.  They excel at entertaining.  And that included cooking us breakfast this morn. Before we took off for our trip to Italy.  

Let me speed ahead and replay our trip to LAX.  We left about 8:45 a.m., turned left and headed to the freeway on ramp. It was closed.  So, we turned around in a state of panic ( traveled less than a mile and this?).  We went north on the freeway and ran into a backup.  We sped pass the off ramp becuz it was backed up and drove to the next off ramp.  Got off only to discover that the southbound entrance was also closed.  What the f&$k?  As the minutes ticked by, our panic increased.  It wasn’t pretty.  So we made a decision to go north to highway 154 and go the back way.   We still have no idea what the problem was but we couldn’t risk sitting in traffic. 

It worked.  We went up over the hill and dropped down to Santa Barbara to merge onto 101.  And to keep ourselves “under control”, we listened to a Pod Save America podcast.  That helped immensely and we arrived at the Van  Nuys Flyaway garage where we parked our car in covered parking for $4.00 a day, bought two round trip tickets to LAX for 19.50 each.  The day was cloudy and very cold.  We nearly froze to death wbile we stood outside checking our bags.  Ice. That’s  what my hands felt like when they finally let us board.  And did I mention it was drizzling?  Yes it was.  We had to laugh. How many ovies have you seen that were shot on L.A. where it was raining?  It hardly ever rains there and yet Hollywood embellishes with the rain.  L.A. Confidential comes to mind.  

 If I digress

Rayman with women.

We arrived at the airport, checked in, and headed to our gate. It was a very long walk that took us to gate 142.  We didn’t know there were that many gates.  And get this. When we finally were called for boarding, they put us on a bus.  Yes.  A bus.  And they drove us to the further point west where our plane was located. All by itself like a lonely stepsister apart from all the major happenings of all the terminals.  Why?  We do not know.  

So here we are, well fed, two glasses of wine consumed flying high just north of Columbus, Ohio.   The sun is waning and so am I.  Rayman plans a movie.  I plan an ambien for sleep a bye time.  We are on  777 in row 14 which affords us a view of the clouds blanketing the nation and the left engine of the aircraft.  We have a bulkhead Seat which features a tv screen mounted on the wall.  It reports that we are traveling 640mph, 35,000 feet and it’s 62 below outside.  Amazing stuff, this air travel.   

So, travel tidbits.  1.  Our Chase Sapphire Reserve issued us a priority pass that got us into an airport lounge where free food and drink were available.  We called Chase a couple of weeks ago and they sent us a card to flash.  2.  Just because you have TSA preapproval does not mean you get it every time.  It randomly selects people.  We were not selected so we had the distinct honor of paddling around without shoes (barefoot in my case) thru security.  Grumble, grumble.  And age was not a disqualifier.  3.  If you have euro coins, no one will convert them to paper money.  So Rayman has 40eros of heavy coins in his carry on.  4. Not all planes have wi-fi on board.   5.  Alitalia served us Mac and cheese with a chocolate mousse and raspberry coulis and they have loads of foreign movies as well as U.S. movies.

IMore to come. Nightly night.