LA Sunrise

If Those are Palm Trees, This Must be LA

The sun is shining in the hotel window and those really are palm trees so we must be underway. We are at the LAX Airport Hilton this morning—which of course lists a best internet price of $239 so the Princess booked it at $50—and are relaxing from what turned into a pretty long day.
We had booked this stay-over because we were very concerned about weather conditions flying through the Midwest in January so therefore it was 30 something when we left Minneapolis, 60-something in Dallas and sunny and 60 in LA. It was a perfectly uneventful trip until…. the airline baggage handlers could not get the baggage compartment open on our plane. After prying and pulling for over an hour they pulled the plane from the ramp and hauled it to a maintenance facility where they had "bigger" tools. After two hours they suggested we file a "lost" baggage claim which involved a very long line and two very disgruntled clerks. About half-way to the front of the line they announced that the luggage was now arriving at carrousel 3.

The Princess was "medicated" for flying, and while not being much help in this process, was indeed a source of entertainment. We got to the hotel at about 7:00 PM local time so it had turned into a 14 hour day and the National Championship football game was virtually over. A pizza and beer in the hotel sports bar and early to bed was just what was needed.

We took a one hour walk this morning and John was waxing nostalgic about his early childhood in California and the familiar smells that had lodged themselves in the lizard part of his brain. Then we looked up and saw 6 lanes of "the 405" stopped and looked down and saw some locals sleeping under the bridge. Enough of the nostalgia.

We have a 4:20 flight this afternoon on Air Tahiti Nui so a relaxing day and a late lunch at the airport is in store. We get into Papeete at 10:55 local time tonight so hope our host Beni is there to meet us and the baggage doors open.

If there is never another entry in this blog, we at least did it once.

Today's Local Headline... "Golden Globes Crippled by Strike" LA Times