Our vacation schedule is heavily influenced by the school calendar these days. We spent our mid-winter break in Palm Springs visiting Gigi, who has been slowed by some heart valve issues in recent weeks. Thankfully, she returned to playing tennis while we were there.
I’m glad we made the usual visit, but it was a lot colder than we expected. Sure, we had the desirable 75-and-sunny weather, but we also had some days in the days in the 60s and a high winds day. That all made for a couple fewer pool days than we expected and a little more time at The Living Desert Zoo, where we once again have an annual pass. It is nice to walk the zoo and not have to hunt for shade. We also had more comfortable late morning hikes up to the cross. The weather was so bonkers that we drove through snow on the way from Palm Desert to Ontario airport.
That flight home, by the way, was an absolute haul. We got to the airport just fine but our incoming plane was struck by lightning, so our flight was delayed and eventually cancelled, or so we thought. Lightning strikes are common, as I learned from some quick online research. Most commercial planes are struck by lightning once or twice per year! You and I spent the delay time at the airport throwing a soft football. The gate area gave us a solid 50-feet to throw back and forth and you have an arm now to cover that length with accuracy.
We rescheduled to fly out the next morning and took our free hotel stay and food vouchers. By the time we got to the hotel and walked across the parking lot to a Denny’s knock-off, we checked the flight schedules and learned our flight was never actually cancelled. At that same time, I saw open seats on a flight later that night, so we checked out of the hotel and headed back to the airport. We made the flight.
Door to door, it was a 14-hour travel day. You and Eliza were champs. Good news: that’s about as long as we’ll take to get to Europe in the spring. In that light, this was just good practice.
Love, Dad