Get all sunburnt and footsore at four in the afternoon. ‘cmon, the museums are open ’till five!
Balboa Park zoo is magnificent. Definitely worth it.
The Natural Sciences Museum is well thought out, well laid out, damn interesting, but IMO not that interesting. Kids enjoyed it, so hey.
Aerospace Museum is, like last time, great. This time they also have one of the Apollo crew capsules on display. Three people went to the moon and back in that thing. Dayumn. The rest of the NASA display is not worth the surcharge, I don’t think.
I was still game for a visit to the automotive museum, but the wuss-esses they were not. Headed to the car via the carousel which is fluppin gorgeous.
Hit the corner store for beer and bubbly. The beer is good :-)
0600 and I couldn’t sleep any longer. Got the hairy eyeball from Tanya. Hey, it’s a new day filled with boundless possibilities!
Mission Valley Resort is great. Sure, it’s a bit run down and we have at least one blown light bulb and one mains outlet that’s not working, but there’s also a pretty good diner, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale on tap, a store that sells everything including bubbly, wine and beer, a swimming pool, and free internet. A bargain at the price, recommended.
Landed in San Diego right on time. Found the Hertz shuttle, found that they had assigned an Eclipse Spyder. Cute car for two people with one set of clean underwear between them, but it’ll never take four people comfortably.
Asked about the Mustang (seeing how I phoned from SA, making sure they knew that’s my preference, they said our luggage would never fit (one not too big suitcase, four carry-ons). I figured it would, but also realised I still have to pick up two tents and a bunch of other stuph from Phillip. Settled on the Sebring. Which comes with satnav. At $12.99 a day. But the nice lady in the dashboard helped me find the hotel so we’re friends now.
Had fun driving an automatic on the wrong side of the road at night after 27 hours in the air. Fortunately the other people on the road are good at avoiding collisions…
Had supper at the diner, a Reuben and SNPA for me, toasted cheese and fish and chips for Tanya, Tamsyn and Jessica. Slowly training Tanya to drink Cali chardonnay.
Tanya worked out she’d been without sleep for around 48 hours, so we hit the bed, hard.
So right now it’s around four in the afternoon back home, seven in the morning here, and we’re off to Balboa park.
Very nice airport. Great food, but expensive. R31 for 500 ml sport drink.
Also got probulated by first USA style scan. Tanya with the metal in her wrist is the only one passing the backscatter scan, rest of us got patted down as well.
Y’all might have noticed that we’re preparing for a 25 day trip to the USA. Today’s my first day of leave, we fly out tonight.
So this morning 08:30 my boss phones, tells me that a customer is having problems, and that I need to go visit them while I’m in Los Angeles (we’re there for two nights and one day, which is a Sunday) to see if I can help.
I’ve been plotting on Google Maps, and we need 5 1/2 hours to drive from the customer’s place to where we’re sleeping on Monday evening.
Working in Kuwait. Blogging from the eee (running puppeee BTW).
Flew out of Cape Town on Saturday with 90kg of equipment. Between three of us, with a few items of clothing added, and after weighing the carry-on (which was about 5kg less than the allowed 21kg for three people) and subtracting that, we were 10kg overweight, for R3000.
That’s a lot cheaper than couriering the stuff
Plane left at 1800 or so so we got supper. Then at 0100 SA time they woke us up for breakfast, because we were about to land in Dubai.
Dubai International reminded me of that scene in Men in Black. If you know the movie you’ll know which scene I’m referring to.
After a few hours got on another plane for the short (< 2 hour) flight to Kuwait, and we got fed again.
So I’m not hungry.
Worked in 36 degree heat (OK, I lie, they do have aircon but outside is… interesting) from about 11 to about 5. Apparently 36 is a nice day and it occasionally hits 60+. Thanks but no thanks.
Fellow driving us around had to fill up. R1.30 a litre. That’s not quite one tenth of what we pay back home, but it’s not far off. He couldn’t get four Dinar (R100) into a bone dry Dodge Charger…
Now sampling alcohol free beer, trying to determine which is best (Insert joke about the tallest midget competition here).
Internet is also interesting. I can receive mail but I can’t send. I know neither of my mail servers will tell me “Connection refused” when I try to telnet into the SMTP port, so I guess it’s blocked. MSN also doesn’t work. IRC does, but I want to chat to my wife not #GBC.
(Incidentally, here’s a picture for the #GBC guys)
So apologie to all of y’all (if there’s more than three of all of y’all) iff’n you get bored being cc’ed on sitreps to home.
Airlines in American are mercenary. And I say this with respect. They will sell you a cheap ticket and for that you get the flight and that’s it. If you want to take your luggage… … that’s extra.
But it means I can save money by taking less luggage, and I’m cool with that.
Carry on (free)
Virgin (San Francisco to Las Vegas) : One bag (127cm H+W+D, 7kg) + one personal item (handbag, coat, camera, laptop)
Delta (Salt Lake City to New Orleans) : One bag (56 x 36 x 23 cm) + one personal item (purse, briefcase, camera bag, laptop)
AirTran (New Orleans to Atlanta to Orlando) : One bag (60 x 45 x 33 cm) + one personal item (43 x 30 x 21cm)
Checked
Virgin: 157cm H+W+D, 30kg, $25
Delta: 153cm H+W+D, 23kg, $25
AirTran: 155cm H+W+D, 50lbs (22.7kg), $20
So my current thinking is that we can get away with one carry-on each, and two checked bags, one of which will be a soft bag holding the camping gear that I bought online and had shipped to Los Angeles. Once we’re done camping it might pay to mail the camping stuff home separately… dunno.
Update 2011-05-14: We ended up buying three Roncato Runner 50cm Carry-On bags (in three different colours) from Luggage Warehouse. Inexpensive, smaller than the most restrictive dimensions (Delta), smooth wheels, not too bad zips. I’ll be carrying my Caterpillar notebook rucksack, and we have a few standard suitcases. I probably still need a soft bag for the camping gear, one that can go inside the main luggage when not used.
When I was in Dallas in 2005 I saw the then new Mustang. When I started browsing rental cars (about two years ago, because we wanted to go last year already) I saw that Hertz offered the convertible Mustang, and I was in lust.
Hertz’ web site made it clear that I’d be lucky to actually get the Mustang, the convertible of choice was the Sebring. I booked one in any case. Well, the new line up is out, and I now have a booking for a Eclipse Spyder for the low price of $413… not bad, but while two adults and two kids will fit in the ‘stang, I don’t think I can fit four people in an Eclipse Spyder. And because it’s now so much closer to the date, even a Camry will now cost me $860. Bastards.
Fox has a slightly tarnished reputation*, but… they also have the Mustang.
Fox only has a few locations for returning the car — while I can drop of a Hertz rental in the middle of San Francisco I will have to drop the Fox rental at the airport. This is either a pain in the arse or a blessing — if I keep the car while we’re in San Francisco, I have to pay for parking ($20/24 hours), but we won’t need to pay for transport ($8/head Powell Street to SFO on BART, one way) to town after drop-off and back to the airport when we leave — that more than breaks even IMO.
* Two stars on Yelp, while Avis and Hertz have three. National has five starts, but wants $1600 for the week.
