There are 246 posts filed in Travels (this is page 9 of 25).
I’m in Pittsburgh this morning for two days of meet-and-greets and training with my new employer. Looking forward to it.
The travel wasn’t bad at all, either, considering it was the last day of the Thanksgiving holiday. My fellow travelers were all in good spirits and the planes arrived on time.
I hope I get a chance to look around this evening to explore a bit more. It’s rainy this morning so that isn’t ideal but I’ll sneak in a little tourist time if I can.
The Turner/Hunter clan
Wow. What an action-packed few days we’ve had here.
Wednesday the kids were out of school so I had to figure out something fun to do with them. The weather was still warm (near 70, if I recall) and Travis wanted to go to the store to look at Legos. Rather than get in a car and drive there, I decided the family would bike there instead. The North Hills Target is about 6 miles from here via the greenway, so we hopped on our bikes and pedaled our way there and back, enjoying a smoothie after our window-shopping. That’s 12 miles of biking and a whole lot of fun!
Thursday was Thanksgiving, of course. Travis and I had started dismantling our garden Wednesday evening, so Thursday morning we finished the job. All the dying or dead plants were pulled up, the wire fencing that supported them was rolled up, the ground raked, and a weed-blocking cover placed over the garden. It was some work to clear it out but it was so satisfying to get it done!
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Colonial Williamsburg
We returned this afternoon from a weekend trip to Williamsburg to surprise Kelly’s dad for his 70th birthday. After showing up at his doorstep unannounced Saturday morning, we finished breakfast and headed out to see Colonial Williamsburg.
Thanks to a press release from the Governor’s office, I knew ahead of time that Colonial Williamsburg (or “CW,” as it’s known to locals) had free admission to veterans this weekend in honor of Veterans Day. We were able to score free tickets for my family, which was a nice perk.
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I just hung up our new map of the San Juan Islands and became curious about a little sliver of America at the end of a peninsula that’s otherwise Canadian: Point Roberts, Washington. It’s one of a handful of quirky American places that aren’t connected by land to the continental United States. I’d like to check it out someday!
Point Roberts (known locally as “Point Bob” or “The Point”) is an unincorporated community in Whatcom County, Washington, United States. It has a post office, with the ZIP code of 98281,[2] whose ZIP Code Tabulation Area (ZCTA) had a population of 1,314 at the 2010 census.
A geopolitical oddity, Point Roberts is a part of the United States (that is not an island) that is not physically connected to it, making it a pene-exclave of the U.S. It is located on the southernmost tip of the Tsawwassen Peninsula, south of Delta, British Columbia, Canada, and can be reached by land from the rest of the United States only by traveling through Canada. It can be reached directly from the rest of Washington and the U.S. by crossing Boundary Bay by sea or air.
via Point Roberts, Washington – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Movie Booth DVD download kiosk
On our way through the Seattle-Tacoma (SEATAC) airport, I spied this intriguing kiosk on Concourse B. It purports to offer DVD downloads directly to one’s laptop for $3 and up per movie. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to test this machine and now I wish I had, because I’ve never seen anything quite like it.
I’ve poked around today and can’t seem to definitively identify this kiosk. There’s a kiosk outfit called Movie Booth that has DVD vending machines all around the UK and Ireland. This box is different, though, as there is apparently no physical media dispensed: just a CAT5 Ethernet cable where one would presumably download the movie.
So does anyone have any hints about this machine? Is it some kind of joke, or a legitimate service? I got nothing.
Update: Southwest listened! See below.
An open letter to Southwest Airlines:
I had a disappointing experience with Southwest’s RDU lost baggage staff today. We had a tight, 35-minute connection at Midway whittled down even further by our later-than-expected arrival so I didn’t expect our baggage to make it on the plane with us. However, I left multiple messages with RDU’s lost baggage desk and none were returned until an hour after I had already schlepped back to the airport and picked up my bags.
The rep in the office this morning never left her seat, never told me “sorry for the inconvenience,” never checked my ID, never checked my claim tickets against the bags I picked up. To top it off, she never interrupted her personal cell phone conversation the whole time I was there. So, while she may not be capable of returning a voicemail, at least I know she is capable of using a telephone.
Frankly, I am shocked.
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We arrived in Raleigh this evening but our bags did not. Our flight from Seattle was delayed considerably and by the time we made it to Chicago Midway our brief layover was whittled down to nothing. We literally had time to check the departure board for our gate and walk over to join our boarding line.
Though we just made it on our Raleigh-bound flight, we wound up waiting with our plane at the gate as the crew waited for additional luggage to be loaded. We of course thought our luggage from our late-arriving Seattle flight would be loaded during this 40 minute window but apparently not. Several passengers from Seattle were disappointed to arrive in Raleigh with no bags.
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I see now why shipbuilder and philanthropist Robert Moran chose Orcas Island to live out what he thought was his last days. I also now see why Moran lived decades longer than his doctor predicted: this place is good for your soul. Though I’m exhausted tonight from the whirlwind of activity with which we’ve managed to fill our days here, I will leave tomorrow with a smile on my face and memories that will tide me over until we arrive again.
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We’re in the middle of our vacation and making the most of every minute. Thus, no daily blogging.
We’ve tromped around Moran State Park a few times, strolled around downtown Eastsound, toured Rosario, walked along the low-tide East Sound beach, and visited my friend Ron and wife, Shelley. We’ve taken a sailboat with Ron out around West Sound, watched float planes soar a few hundred feet over our heads, visited our friends the Taylors at their rental home in Beach Haven, spotted young eagles perched in trees near the water, dove in 50-degree water, gone sea kayaking, spied seals frolicking in the water, hosted a dinner party, dodged multiple deer standing around in the roads and lawns, walked around an old lime kiln in a park, relaxed in our hot tub, and toured the amazing homes around Orcas Island. And we still have two days here!
Today we hope to get to the salmon hatchery to watch the salmon leap up the ladders. It should be an interesting sight. After that we may take another stroll around town and explore some more of this magical place.
In the meantime, you can see our pictures on my Facebook page from Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. More extensive blogging will have to wait!
View on Orcas Island
We’re settled into our home for the week on beautiful Orcas Island! We were fortunate to find lodging on the island Saturday night at the end of our travel day. As a result, we were able to spend more time on the island and not at one of the motels in Anacortes, waiting until the next ferry would take us out.
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