Aaaah, so where to start. Well let’s start with the crazy December trip. First off, I’m quite lazy so to me vacation is sitting around in my sleepy pants reading and playing games. So this was no vacation to me, it was like a more relaxed work….sort of. Don’t get me wrong, it was great to see everyone in the states, but this trip made me not want to EVER travel again.

Now I’ve always gotten stressed when it comes to flying. Not because I’m afraid of heights (well a little) but because…well let’s face it, people are retarded. If I could take my luggage down to the plane myself and throw it in there it would be so much better. I know 99.4% of the time nothing happens, but it’s the possibility that it could happen. And what if we miss our connection and then what of our luggage?! Now this is the only thing that I’m like this with, I’m not this paranoid….really. Wait! Who was that!?! AAARGH?!

Ehem…anywho. I’m gonna write about every leg in it’s own little paragraph starting with the Tokyo to L.A. and Cali leg. First off, the trains in Japan are great! The best travel part of the whole trip. Although, arriving at Tokyo I realized I had lost the Baby Hawk that we had for Rhino, but luckily the cleaning folks took it to the lost and found and we got it back. PHEW, that was close! Oh by the way, we had gone to bed at five at night in preparation for the time shift and our plane was going to leave at four something so we were just going to sleep on the plane. So…we arrive at the airport and find out we are delayed for two hours, meh no big deal. We are waiting for the lady to print up the tickets when we hear “and where is your infant ticket?”. Me and Mel just look at each other dumbfounded. We had no idea what she was talking about… “yes, you need to purchase a ticket for your son”. “Even though he’s in our lap?”. Yep, and we almost die. We could not afford another ticket, but then she told us it was just 10% of our ticket price or something like that. Fine we go get the ticket which didn’t break us and finally get through the gate and security with tons of time to spare. At around five we go for a walk to spend some of this time and also Mel was a little restless. When we get back it says indefinite. It turns out the wind was so bad that the plane could not land and had to fly to a different airport, refuel, and then return. So we finally get on around nine and are underway. Rhino is a little goober and wont stay asleep or even hang out with me, he just wanted mom. We land and find out it’s Friday, instead of Saturday. We ended up having to get a motel when we got down to lompoc for the night because the folks we were staying with were gone for the night. Next!

L.A. to Dallas
I’m not even really going to mention the horror of shuttles and hotels….it was just bad. Anyway, we arrive in LAX with about an hour to get checked in, through security, and to the gate. We check in and find out one of our bags is 53 lbs or something so we had to pay $125 because we couldn’t put anything into the other bag that was 49 lbs. Anyway, we check in and go towards security and the lady says we need the infant boarding pass. We say here it is, showing her a ticket shaped piece of paper with Rhino’s name and boarding pass on it. This is apparently not a boarding pass but a boarding pass coupon. FANTASTIC! So we cut in line back to where we were. The lady yells at us saying “I asked if you had a boarding pass!” to which I showed her the ticket stating “Tada, it states boarding pass”. Anyway, after some huffing from the overworked lady we get his ticket. That was actually all that happened. Onward!

Dallas to Buffalo
Ah…the calmest of all. The only thing that actually happened was we had a hour or so delay from O’Hare to Buffalo and we were starving….um that’s it haha.

Buffalo to Denver
Okay so here goes. We went up there to get on the plane to find out that our plane is going to delayed an hour…well our connecting flight originaly left less than an hour after we arrived so we would miss it. We could either be on standby or stay overnight at O’Hare or get a whole new flight. Third option it is, and so we go back to my folks home and sleep then get up at two in the morning to catch our flight through Airtran Air instead of United. We found out that we had to pay for baggage since we signed up for the flight the day before. So we shelled out $55 dollars. We also had to go through the special “you are suspicious” line because our day before purchase. Oh we went through Atlanta instead of O’Hare…so no weather. Anywho, we got on the plane in Buffalo and start pulling out when the pilot say “Oh whoopsie, I forgot to get them to de-ice the plane”. So we sit on the plane for over an hour while it gets de-iced and we freak out because we are going to miss our connecting. We finally get to Atlanta and find out that the plane we came in on is the same we are taking to Atlanta! PHEW!

Denver to Holy Cow, we are finally home
So…first off I lost the printed version of Rhino’s ticket on the Dallas to Buffalo trip. We get to the Denver Airport and it is packed…so we are worried about getting in on time. We finally get the automated terminal and find out that we need Rhino’s ticket. We don’t have it. We get shuffled over to the ticket issue counter, all the while I’m fuming and I think the lady escorting us was afraid for her life :p The lady checks us in so we don’t miss the flight then checks us in, but she is unable to print Rhino’s LAX to Tokyo ticket again for some horribly stupid reason. So she says just get it when we get to LAX. Well…when we get there we don’t have time to fill out all this stupid paperwork to print the ticket I already payed for so we just bought another infant ticket. The kicker is it was almost the same amount as the one we bought for the WHOLE trip. At this point I’m seriously wanting a punching bag to appear so I can pummel the crud out of it. Now, I have to actually leave the Airport and go to another section for international flights and check back in. I made it apparently just in time and we were just able to squeeze in and make our flight. We land and hear that I need to talk to someone about something. Turns out they forgot to put our carseat in the plane. More awesomeness!!! Anyway, we get that worked out and they will ship it to our door within a few days (which turned out to be a week from the New Year). We stressfully get our shinkansen (bullet train) tickets and head in to wait for our first train. We call Nicole (the lady watching our car and picking us up) and say we need to use someone elses carseat. Okay, we got that under wrap. And from here on out it was just me being paranoid, but it was very smooth. And then with a big sigh, we got home.

Later on I’ll post more on non-travel stuff but for now this is all. Afterwards.

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