Traveling

Historically, I have rather terrible travel luck. It's as if the universe itself is working to ensure that my travels are always eventful. There was a while where it seemed that something happened EVERY time I flew and I thought about making a list of the crazy things that had happened as I'd traveled, then I could make my millions by writing a book: "101 Reasons NOT to Travel with Me". Though, over time -through trial and error- I've learned that things go smoother if I carry-on my luggage. If I don't let my bags out of my sight, then at very least there's no drama with my bags (though, that doesn't preclude the possibility of something cropping up elsewhere). Still, there are just those times when you just have to check your bags. It is those times when I risk it all by taking my bags and putting them in the hands of another.

I've been trying for the last little while to plan a trip to go out to California to visit my sister and her husband. However, certain complications have arisen the last few months and, for various reasons, things haven't worked out. Finally, in July, we were successful!

Of course, true to form, it wasn't without incident. This time, on the Chicago side, they "mishandled" my luggage and it ended up flying on the next plane, so it wasn't there yet when we were ready to leave the airport. The funny thing is, the person checking our bags on the Chicago side had switched up the labels of mine and my Hubby's, so my bag had his name on it.

We figure, either the cosmos had determined that was his turn to miss a bag and mine got it for the mislabeling, OR, my travel luck is just that bad; even when it's not technically MY bag, the universe knows and messes with it anyway.

Happily, eventually, we got it back and all was well. That is one nice thing about United.. when they mess up, their Customer Service people are, for the most part, super and (while this guy may think differently), in my experiences, have always been very nice and have worked to make things right as quickly as possible. This time was no different, while it did take a while to get my bag in my own possession, we were able to arrange things so as not to hinder the smashing-in of the activities that I wanted to do into a single weekend. And what smashiness it was!

We got in on Friday and straight away met up with with some family for lunch:

After that, my Hubby and explored LA a little bit and did a little shopping and then we headed out of the city to visit my sister and her hubby.

Saturday was a busy day and we crammed several activities.. first we went hiking up Mt. Baldy:


Since it was hot, we stuck mostly to the river and climbed over rocks in the shade rather than go straight up the trail in the hot, hot sun.

After we'd had enough of the heat...

...we went to In-N-Out. It was my first experience with that deliciousness. Very yummy.

Also, next door, there was an In-N-Out University.. where dedicated workers go to learn the nitty-gritty and the lingo:


Of course, while in LA, I couldn't leave without at least one touristy shot:

Sunday was church, games and family time, and then Monday we headed back home.


All in all, we had a blast!