Living at the Airport

Due to an unfortunate pair of connections, we have a seven-hour layover in the Rome airport. It's just long enough to be tempting to leave the airport and do something else, but not actually long enough to go somewhere. So we have some time to kill here. Thanks to a data plan purchase for the iPad, we have Internet access at the airport, but I am approaching "the end of the Internet". I've read up on all my email and current news items, and sadly forgot my barnes and noble password to buy new books with.

Joahnna and Luc both have the right idea, as they spent the last couple hours sleeping. Of course Jo is small enough to curl up in an airport chair and Luc travels with his own portable sleeping bag, so they did have a bit of an advantage on me.

Doug is supposed to land in a few minutes, and my mom arrives a couple hours later, after which we have a short flight to Palermo. Should be more driving and less walking for the next week.

Driving in Rome

JR and I rented scooters last night and took a quick moto tour of Rome, which also gave me an opportunity to experience Roman traffic fifs-hand. Thanks to prior experience on a race track it wasn't too hard to get used to, but it bears little resemblance to driving in the US or Australia.

Unlike the US, there are no lanes. Every square inch of pavement is fair game. Whoever is in front has the right of way, so if you can get your nose in front of the other vehicle. There do not appear to be any speed limits other than prudence, however Rome is congested enough and there are enough pedestrians and obstacles to effectively limit speed to about 50mph. This is just a guess, I didn't look at my speedo at any point during our ride.

That said, there are rules to driving here. I'm not sure how they are enforced; certainly the Carbinieri are far too busy smoking cigarettes and looking cool in their Armani uniforms to do anything as prosaic as write tickets, but nonetheless rules are followed. Pedestrians are yielded to, although only if they walk in front of your vehicle, red lights are obeyed, and cars do not drive in the opposite direction lane (some fudging is allowed on that last one).

Traffic is heavy during commute hours but there are lots of back streets and alternate paths. You can get stuck on back streets because they are frequently only one car wide, and parking in the middle of the street (thus blocking the entire street) is fair game for delivery trucks, or anyone wishing to have a quick chat with a friend.

I gave the scooter back at the end of the night unharmed, and with no perceptual gas usage. Fun trip!

The Trek to Manila

On Thursday we rousted the crew out of bed dark and early for the first part of our bus trip to Manila. We manage to get moving within 20 minutes of our 4AM scheduled departure time. Soon thereafter we learned a practical lesson on taking long road trips in the Philippines - fly. Our plan was originally to drive to manila and then to Bataan, but after a full day of getting pounded by a combination of patched pothole roads and our bus' extra-stiff suspension, we revised the plan to spend some extra time in Manila and skip Bataan.

We stopped halfway to Manila at Villa Escudero, where we had a nice lunch under the waterfall, and spent two nights at the Taal Vista Hotel in Tagaytay, which was a very nice hotel with a beautiful view of the Taal volcano. The volcano is recursive - it is a volcano in a vay of water with a lake in the caldera, with another volcano coming out of the lake. Yesterday we took a quick day trip to the "Castle in the Sky", a palace built on top of a mountain that was partially constructed by President Marcos.

Today we loaded up the bus, took a quick stop for Jaiden, Mila and Joey to ride ponies for a couple laps, then made our way into the city to get to our hotel. We switched hotels because our original choice didn't have enough rooms for our party, and ended up instead at the Lotus Garden Hotel. We are in the old part of the hotel, which has beautiful hardwood floors and staircases. An unexpected benefit is that it is located in the red light district. Apparently these would be the Lotus Flowers.

Tomorrow we are gathering up early (again? Why do I keep getting up early on my vacation?) to go to Corregidor, the site of some of the fiercest fighting of WWII.

Return to Jurassic Park

Today we are headed out to the hot springs near Naga, which Joahnna and I nicknamed "Jurassic Park" because of the vibrant growth and huge cliff walls directly over the springs. We are looking forwards to it since this was one of our favorite parts of the last trip.

Last night uncle Chito treated us to dinner at his house, including his special Bicol Express (very good). I spent some time syncing up with my dad on our favorite topics - guns, cars, and politics - and he also spent some time chatting with Raoul. After dinner we came back to the hotel and watched the kids and adults practice their performances for the reunion.

Yesterday Joahnna took a family photo for auntie Irma, which turned out so well that auntie lyn and imbot both asked for photo shoots with their families, which Joahnna is doing this morning. Work is never done!

Also different for this trip, last time we took a sub notebook, but this time we left it behind in favor of the smaller iPad. So far it has worked quite well, as long as you are willing to slow down your typing rate a little bit (you have to be a little more careful on the virtual keyboard). The biggest limitation of it so far is that we cant use it to download photos from the camera, so we need to borrow someone's laptop to do that. Not a big limitation here in Naga, where we have tons of family, but could limit its usefulness if you were traveling alone.

Homeward Bound

We are just waking up and getting our final internet time in before heading to the airport for our return leg. Just a quick 14-hour plane ride and we will be back in the good old USA!

Out and About

Joahnna and I spent yesterday walking around Melbourne, since she has mostly recovered from the plague. I was hungry so we stopped at the Lord of the Fries on the way to the Gallery of Victoria. I admit that I picked it just because the name was clever.

At the Gallery of Victoria we walked through their modern artists exhibition. Afterwards we stopped in their gift shop and had tea and carrot cake before heading back.



Rather than walking we decided to catch the tram on the way back. Melbourne has a number of trams criss-crossing downtown, and they also have a free city circle tram which runs around the downtown perimeter. It was a nice ride back, and also the robo-guide pointed out the sights as we circled back.



In the evening Glenn came by and took us out for dessert. We started out at Portorussells (?) where we Joahnna and I both had the spicy pudding, and afterwards walked to Max Brenner where we finished up with hot chocolate and cheesecake.

The Plague

We moved from Gladdy's house to Glenn's, located in downtown Melbourne, last sunday. However apparently we took some unintended souvenirs along with us -- Joahnna and Zach came away with a cold. They both spent the day yesterday in bed, and the symptoms are starting to spread to the rest of the clan.

I spent the day walking around Melbourne along with Jazylette, JR, and Ning, and later met up with Josh and Kathy. The weather was blustery and cold so we spent a lot of the day wandering through the indoor malls in downtown.

Today Joahnna is feeling better, so we are heading out the gallery of victoria.

Kangaroo Hunt

We've been here for a couple days so far but we didn't really feel like we were getting the full Australian experience, so this morning we told Gladdy that we wanted to go see some kangaroos. It turns out there is a park not too far from her house (Gladdy lives on the outskirts of Melbourne) with some free-range 'roos available, so we loaded up the van with Gladdy, her two children Caitlyn and Jakson, Jazylette, her two children Alton and Jaiden, Joahnna and their intrepid van driver, me.

We drove the van to the park, parked, and started looking for kangaroos. A short walk from the parking lot we started to see curious heads poking up over the crest of a hill. The kangaroos were skittish and maintained a distance of about a hundred feet, so we didn't get any good close-ups, but we did manage to get a few good shots with the zoom lens.

(If you look closely in the above photo, you can see a joey sticking its paw out of its mother's pouch)

Most of all we really felt that we're actually in another country. Of course after that we somewhat spoiled the effect by going to the local Westfield mall, grabbing lunch at (for Jaiden) Subway and picking up some groceries at Woolworth (aka Safeway).

Joahnna is cooking up her signature broccoli beef as I type. Tomorrow is Glenn's wedding, and Joahnna and I have a number of stops to pick up and drop off people throughout the day. Driving around today driving on the left was starting to feel more normal again, so I should be all ready for shuttle bus duty tomorrow.

Wheels Down

I touched down in San Jose on friday, after a four-hour flight from Escalante. The flight was uneventful except that I had a bunch of turbulence going from Escalante to Boulder City (where I stopped for fuel), and that I got clearance heading out of Las Vegas to cross over "Area 51" (the China Lake restricted area).

I did not see any flying saucers or black helicopters. Apparently they don't fly on the weekends.

Only 281 messages waiting for me in my inbox on my return.

Snail Hike

Howard and I took a 5-mile (according to the GPS) hike today, down the Escalante River and back to the trail head. The trail wanders back and forth across the river (well, stream right now -- it was rarely more than 6" deep and a few feet wide) so I spent quite a bit of time splashing through and occasionally stepping in quickmud (Howard's term). We stopped at a culvert cut out of the rock which provided a nice shady spot to have lunch and look for snails.

Howard looked for snails. I watched and read off the coordinates of each sample.

Afterwards we stopped at the Dairy Freeze for milkshakes and went home for a well-deserved shower. If the weather looks good I will head for home tomorrow.

Escalante

I touched down in Escalante this morning, after spending the night in Farmington, New Mexico. I stopped there because a) it was along my route of flight and b) I was tired. I got up early this morning and landed in Escalante around 10AM, in time to miss the afternoon thunderstorms.

Howard and I walked around town and saw some of the old buildings, as well as spending some time talking with his friend Paul, who is one of two or three pilots in town. We are supposed to meet up with Paul later over at his hanger and "talk plane" for a while.

I took some nice photos of Lake Powell on the way in, as well as some canyons that look like they are Grand Canyon scale (note to self: visit Grand Canyon). As I do not have a download cable handy, I will have to wait to return home in order to download these.

I also got an update on Howard's various properties here in Escalante and how various restoration/improvement efforts are going. The Bell house should be very impressive (if difficult to navigate) when it is finished.

Tomorrow we might go flying with Paul, if the weather cooperates, and there is a big potluck dinner tomorrow night. I will fly back home saturday or sunday morning depending on how the weather looks.

Lafayette

I made a short flight today, due to a line of thunderstorms working its way across Tennesee and northern Kentucky. A quick replanning in the cockpit gave me a new destination of Lafayette, Georgia.

I found a small town with a friendly FBO that tossed me the key to a creaky Ford Escort with an official Walker County seal on the side. I got me a genuine government vehicle for my ride.

I'm currently hiding out from the heat in the hotel room in the hopes it will be slightly less oppressive later when dinner time rolls around.

Tommorow's plan is to see how far I can get. Stopovers planned for Arkansas and north Texas, and if I feel good, I will push on to Utah. If not I will probably stop somewhere in north Texas.

New York Recap

So, I'm trying to remember all of what we did in New York -- we had a fairly packed week there.

We started off the week at the Guggenheim, then took a walk through Central Park. The next day we arranged a helicopter tour. The tour covered the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and downtown Manhattan. Afterwards we took the ferry to Liberty Island, although we were not allowed up in the statue, since we needed a ticket that apparently one can only get off the island. Foiled, we took the ferry to Ellis Island and walked through the immigration museum, which was probably much more interesting. They had a number exhibits showing how Ellis Island grew in size, how immigrants were processed, population statistics and such.

The funny thing is, we were busy the entire week, but looking back at it, I can't remember exactly what we did from day to day, but we were busy every day from breakfast (okay, we usually managed to finish up breakfast and leave the hotel by 11pm), and it was very hot for the first few days and then around wednesday it cooled down to a reasonable temperature and I was much happier. Over the course of the week, we saw the Natural History Museum, the Metropolitan Art Museum, and Little Italy.

Oh, and we loved the pool in our hotel with the swim-up bar, and hung out with Pam, and generally had a good time. I can't say I saw all of New York, or even most of it, but we had a good time.

More time in NC

We decided to spend another day in Raleigh, since we haven't come up with any attractions between here and Utah that we really want to see. Today's plan is to pick up some new charts to cover the trip back, hide from the heat (today's high: 99 degrees), plan our route, and continue sorting through and editing our backlog of photos.

And we still have a few book purchases from Strand's that we need to work through.

Arrived in North Carolina

We had a great time in New York, which is why I haven't posted anything for the last week. I will have a bigger write-up later, but for now we are OK, and got to North Carolina successfully. We had to work our way through some yucky weather and headwinds to get here, and we ended up making an impromptu fuel stop just short of Raleigh.

I actually felt guilty about the fuel stop, because we just picked an airport along our line of flight and figured they had fuel there and landed. When we got there the automated fuel station was out of service, and we had to call the airport manager out to fuel our plane (he left his cell phone number taped to the window -- gotta love small town airports). When he got to the airport, he only had one leg. He then proceeded to fuel the plane for me. Normally I fuel it myself, but didn't want to say anything... So I had my plane fuelled by a one-legged man.

Shana's air mattress is quite comfortable, and her two cats are very friendly, and Joahnna is torn between playing with them and trying to keep them away to keep her allergies under control.

Oh, and Pam texted us while we were on the train north from New York, saying that a small plane hit a tour helicopter over the Hudson river. So, just to let everyone know, it wasn't us.

Helicopter Tour

We flew from Vermont to the East Hampton airport on Long Island last sunday. There was a bit of low cloud cover but we landed without incident. The weather immediately struck us as it was hot and muggy.

We caught a taxi to the nearby train station and took a train from the Hamptons to New York, after which we checked in to our hotel and called up Pam to go out for dinner.

On monday we took the subway up to 86th street and took a quick tour of the Guggenheim, which was showing a Frank Lloyd Wright exhibit, and then walked through central park. We then caught another subway down to the Soho, where we did some shoe shopping (Joahnna's sandals were just about worn out, so she picked up some Birkenstocks), and found Strand Books, which is a great used book store -- three stories and "18 miles" of new and used books.

We got out of strand six books and about 30 pounds later and made our way back to the hotel, where we changed into our bathing suits and spent some time in the hotel pool and swim-up bar. The only problem with the swim-up bar concept is that if people are splashing in the pool it can get in to your drink.

Later that night we met up with Pam again for dinner, then went to watch "The Ugly Truth".

This morning we levered ourselves out of bed and caught a cab to the west island heliport, where we took a 15-minute helicopter tour. We flew by the Statue of Liberty, then looped around and crossed over the south end of Manhattan island. It was our first time in a helicopter and it is a very different feeling.

Right now Joahnna is taking a nap while I catch up on my blog and read some of my new purchases, and our plan for the day is to do some laundry (we only have 5-6 days of clothes, so we need to go find a washing machine every now and then) and then take a boat to see the Statue of Liberty this afternoon.

Vermont

We departed Oshkosh yesterday and flew to Vermont, after a brief stop in Ohio for fuel. The departure from Oshkosh was busy -- we formed a line of departing aircraft, and the tower cleared us on to the runway two at a time and had us line up in parallel. However, once away from the airport we settled in to a relatively uneventful flight. We spent about two hours flying from Oshkosh to our refuelling point just south of Cleveland, and then another three hours to get to Montpelier, Vermont.

At Vermont I flew my first "real" instrument approach -- meaning my first one without an instructor on board, and where actual clouds are limiting visibility instead of the training hood. I got us on the glide slope fine and we broke out of the clouds at about 4000' for a pretty moonlit landing.

Gregg and Lori had a very nice dinner ready-made for us, and we stayed the night at the nearby Morgan Inn. We woke up to a beautiful misty morning and drove back to Gregg and Lori's for a fresh French toast breakfast.

We spent today driving around the Randolph area and taking pictures, as well as meeting the neighbors and having a good time relaxing on the porch, reading, and catching up. Vermont is beautiful in the summer, but the prospect of 8-12 feet of snow in the winter and daily snow-blowing the driveway has chilled Joahnna on any idea of living here.

Tomorrow we have a short (one and a half hour) flight from here to the Long Island MacArthur airport, after which we have a couple hour train ride to get in to our hotel in Times Square.

Rained Out

Today the weather has been blustery and overcast, so we decided to skip AirVenture for the day and concentrate on exploring Appleton. We found a small bookshop within walking distance, as well as the Walgreen's, where we stocked up on essential supplies. We also made a reservation to arrive at an airport about halfway up Long Island on sunday.

AirVenture Tuesday/Wednesday

It took a while yesterday to get our transportation situation sorted out, so we didn't actually get to airventure until around 3PM. By that point the air show was in full swing so we found a spot to enjoy the action.

The aerobatics routines were very impressive, with the pilots repeatedly putting their aircraft in situations seeming uncontrollable, then recovering out of it with a dive towards the runway and pulling up into yet another stunt. The camera can't really capture these well, but I did manage to get some short video clips with the small camera which we will push up to Facebook.

After the individual ones came team AeroShell performing formation acrobatics, which weren't nearly as difficult but looked very cool as all four aircraft did loops and rolls together, then broke out in four different directions to come back and regroup. We got some better photos of these as they came in for a low pass.

This morning we caught the shuttle in to the show and spent the day wandering through the various exhibits, looking at the various types of planes for sale and coming out soon, and talking to parts vendors and collecting business cards. Particularly neat was the Yuneec electric prototype, said to have an endurance of 3 hours with its larger battery pack, and the Icon amphibian, which is a nice-looking aircraft that comes complete with its own travel trailer for water launching.

Tomorrow will be our last full day at the show and then friday we head further east.

Back to College

After spending a day at the Hawethorne Suites, we found new accomodations at Lawrence University, located in nearby Appleton. We were completely unsuccessful in renting a car (there are apparently none to be had within 30 miles of Oshkosh), but there is a shuttle bus that runs between the university and Oshkosh, so we took that back yesterday and there and back today.

The room does bring a little bit of nostalgia with it, especially with the few people we see around mostly college-age. We have confirmed that we can both fit in a standard college twin bed, but only with difficulty. The room isn't air-conditioned but it hasn't been terribly hot, so that's not a huge drawback. The biggest problem with the place is that public transportation here is somewhere beweeen terrible and tragic, so without a car our movement options are limited to the shuttle bus back and forth and whatever we can walk to. Fortunately main street in Lawrence is College Ave, and is right outside our doorstep.

It's clear that the recession has hit Appleton pretty hard. We walked through the City Center mall the other day, which is a compact three-story mall nearby. The second and third stories were completely empty except for one shop, and the first floor had a few vacancies in it. There were also numerous storefronts along College Ave available for rent, including one with a sign out front that said "Thanks Bush! One more family-owned business gone!"