Posting 11: What is this? BUSH WEEK?

Doreen dropped me to the Anacostia Metro rail station which is just a couple of stops from Washington's National mall (where all of the attractions are at; The Smithsonian museums, The White House, the US Captiol, etc etc etc). My first stop was to be the National Air and Space Museum which was something I enjoyed last visit but felt I needed to go though once more. The museum opened at 10am and I wandered around three hours or so. The Apollo spacecraft and memorabilia were the highlights for me.

After that I needed some lunch so crossed the mall and headed North in search of some lunch and settled for a hotdog and chips. I wandered for a few hours more passing by the J Edgar Hoover FBI building and countless other buildings of note. I was heading West in the direction of the White House, when as I was wandering passed the Hotel Washington I stumbled across a small stage that had a podium and several chairs arranged in front, as well as a police dog doing a bomb sweep, several Secret Service guys talking into their cuffs and a small group of the public gathering with cameras at the ready. I asked what was going on and no-one really seemed to know although some were expecting to see Barbara Bush. I decided to hang around and sure enough after 20 mins or so of waiting, the croud started to grow a lot more quite quickly and more Press turned up. Then someone shouted "There he is!"



I looked across to see George Bush Snr walking over and shaking hands with people with Babs Bush in tow. I managed to get a few pics, although most are blurry - the downside of taking quick photos when your only option is to reach up high and aim over the heads of people in front. They were there for the launch of "The Extra Mile" - a Hollywood Blvd style walk of fame, recognising the contributions of people who had gone the extra mile in helping others. A plaque was unveiled and a few people spoke including Eunice Kennedy Shriver who I think is Arnie's mother-in-law?



After that, the Bushes headed into the hotel and I wandered around the side of the hotel where the distinctive black Chevy Suburbans were waiting to take them away. I sat there for 20 mins or so waiting for them to come out and head off in the vans. Out they came and I managed to get another few snaps.



I then wandered over to The White House and just as I arrived at the East Entrance, the 3 Chevy Suburbans turned up heading in - I got one more pic and you can see Daddy bush in the rear. Exciting stuff.



Tomorrow is the anniversary of the Million Man March on Washington and DC is expecting 10s of thousands of people to turn up for that. I'm probably gonna head in and be part of that experience...

Posting 10: First day in D.C

Doreen's car had a problem when we tried to start up on leaving the base visitor centre after organising my visitor pass. We pushed the car back to the house - luckily only a couple of blocks away and jump started it off their van. We took the car to the local repair place and they tested the battery and alternator which were both found to be fine. A fault in the ignition switch turned out to be the problem.

That afternoon, and once the car problems were resolved, we drove up the Washington-Baltimore parkway to Arundel Mills mall - a massive factory outlet mall place with loads of shops. After wandering around for a few hours, I left with only a cap. When you have that many good deals you soon get spoiled for choice and all the while in the back of my mind wondering whether I really could fit much else into an already full case - which is on the limit for domestic checked-in baggage. We also checked out Circuit City a large chain dealing with tvs, home theatre and computer stuff etc.

We drove home and had dinner, then I had a quick chat to KC and went to bed early - I'd had no sleep from the flight the previous night and I was struggling to keep my eyes open. Tomorrow I was going to hit DC and the best thing for me was some solid restful sleep. I hit the sack at 9pm and went to sleep nearly instantly, to wake the following day at 8am. I felt much better - my blisters and feet are still sore from a few days back though - I know this is gonna become a problem in a city where there is so much to explore over a large area all within decent walking distance...

Posting 9: Getting to DC (a long posting folks)

I had a 9.30pm flight out of SLC on Thursday night to DC connecting via Vegas. A short 52 minute flight topped and tailed with about 30 minutes of taxi-ing or so I thought...

You know that feeling you get when you are on a plane and there is a spare seat next to you and you hope beyond all hope that no-one sits there. I had that feeling on the way over from Auckland to LAX, i sat there sweating, just hoping that the TWO spare seats next to me would remain vacant. Luckily for me, no-one sat there and I had ALL THREE of the seats to myself for the way over. Not that it helped cause I still couldn't get any sleep, but at least I could spread out and get a little bit more comfortable. ANYWAY, the flight from SLC to VEGAS was payback for my good fortune on the long international flight..BIGTIME!

I was one of the last to get on the plane and as I wandered apprehensively down the aisle, i hoped that my window seat didn't happen to be the one next to the John Goodman lookalike (in terms of his huge mass at least). Unluckily for me it was. What made it worse was that he had a screaming three year old kid on his lap coughing and spluttering for much of the way. I couldn't sit comfortably at all he was so big that he invaded much of my space. The middle arm rest that should have seperated us, was stuck somewhere in between the rolls of fat in his gut. So I sat twisted, facing the window leaning forward since my shoulders couldn't sit flat across the seat back getting hotter and hotter as we waited for the plane to leave the gate. 15 minutes later we receive an anouncement from the pilot explaining that they have a sensor with a false reading that they need to get a tech to check out. 5 or so minutes later the tech turns up and reboots the whatever and sure enough the problem is resolved. It just goes to show that most problems with aircraft are fixed with a reboot too - Windows based PCs are not unique in this regard. another 10 - 15 minutes passes with us still stuck at the gate and the problem fixed, the Captain comes over the PA announcing that they are having difficult faxing the work order through to their head office or some rubbish and that they can't leave until it gets through...oh give me a break. All the while I am pinned to the side wall of a Canadair jet. Finally the door closes and we push back and taxi for what seems like an eternity. The pilot announes that there are a few planes ahead of him and that we are 10th in line to take off. Airports in the US are more like busy Sydney taxi ranks in terms of the amount of traffic coming in and out. Finally we get off the ground and once we reach cruising altitude the huge man with the baby, who has now acknowledged my extreme discomfort, asks the hostess if there is another seat for him and his daughter (who I believe they shouldn't have let on the plane unless she had a ticket for herself). There isn't a spare pair of seats that would be suitable, but there were a few singles. I then ask if I can move somewhere else instead and the hostess agrees. By now the screaming child has fallen asleep in her big daddy's arms. He tries to get up for 2-3 minutes but to no avail. So I tell him to forget about it - he would have woken his daughter - so I just put up with it for the duration. The moral of the story is that cheap air tickets are obviously cheap for a reason - fat man, broken plane and screaming kid. Oh and for info, CanadAir jets are very small...

Arrived in Vegas a 30 mins or so behind schedule and the relief to get out of that tiny plane was enormous. I knew for a fact that if we had crashed anywhere, I was a gonna since there was no way I would have been able to pry him from his chair, nor climb over or around him. I'll insist on aisle seats from now on.

For the short time I was there, I didn't play any of the umpteen pokies in the departure lounged, instead I SMS'ed KC who called me back on a payphone and chatted for 30 mins or so until closer to when my flight to DC was boarding. The Vegas to DC flight was uneventful - I again had an aisle seat, but the plane was MUCH bigger and the seat next to me held a little boy who got moved with his father to first class so I had some space to breathe at least! Sadly no sleep....at least only a couple of mins here and there.. :-(

Missing Daddy

It has only been one week, but MJ and I are missing having daddy around. We have spoken or messaged him everyday. We hope he has a really good time, cause it will be a long time before we let him go again. Especially when there are two babies.

A big thank you to the Spackmans and Andersons for looking after John while he is away.

I only have two days of work left next week before I finish for Maternity leave. MJ will be staying in childcare for two days a week, so I will get a break a couple of days a week. I plan on pampering myself before the new baby is born.

I have about 7 weeks left before I am due, but I am getting pretty uncomfortable, bit of an achey back and hips. It is definately worse than when I was pregnant with MJ.

Other than being a little lonely, we are doing pretty good. But can't wait for daddy to get back in 10 days.

We love and miss you daddy.

Posting 8: Last day in UT

Wednesday - Shayne drove me up to Salt Lake to do a bit of sightseeing. We went straight to the airport to get rid of my case, since having checked with America West about whether I could check my bags in early and finding that I couldn't, I found a site that explained that there was locker storage at the airport for $4 a day for large cases - I wanted to dump my suitcase at the airport so that I could get around SLC without worrying about it or having to drag it around.

Anyway, as it turns out, they haven't done that in ages (not since 9/11) so Shayne very kindly drove me in to SLC and we hung out for the day together to take in some of the sights. We did the tour of the new conference centre, took the obligatory trip up the Church Office Bldg, grabbed some lunch at ZCMI mall and took TRAX (Salt Lake's light rail - installed for the SLC Winter Olympics in '02) to The Gateway near the Delta Center. The Gateway is a large open air mall full of shops and eateries and was a hotpsot during the Games. We went and saw an IMAX flick called "Magnificent Desolation" a 3D show about the Apollo missions narrated by Tom Hanks - really good.



After that we went out to the airport to watch some planes come in to land at one of SLC golf courses. Shayne hired a bag of clubs and got a bunch of balls to hit off at the driving range to while away a bit of time. We then went to the departure terminal and said our farewells and I headed in for something to eat a sit down and I had hoped a few hours of Internet access courtesy of Sprint's PCSWIFI - sadly it wasn't to be since the stoopid online form wouldn't recognise my postcode and billing address or some such nonsense...oh well.



Next the flight to Las Vegas - oh the horror...

Posting 7: Plane launch not a complete success and more

Tuesday - In the morning we went to fly Shayne's radio controlled styrofoam plane at a local park. Shayne hadn't flown it in a while and while things started OK, the plane caught a bad thermal and spiralled into a neighbours roof with a big thud. As it hit, we could see the thing come apart with some force spewing the battery and flaps in all directions. Shayne went over to rescue it at and seemed to be over there for an unusually long time, just to retrieve the plane. I assumed that the plane must have caused some damage to the house and they were trying to resolve what should happen next. Anyhow, it was just the battery that was missing and we quickly found it.

After that we grabbed some Arby's and then went on to Cabella's - probably the largest outdoor sports and recreations store I have EVER seen. That's the great thing about the States - all the shops are huge - even the more specialist ones.

After Cabella's we headed out to a Radio Control Aerodrome where Shayne flew his petrol power R/C chopper. A thing of beauty and very impressive engineering. The speed at which it flies really suprised me. The flight was flawless and we got some good photos of the chopper hovering over the Corvette - only a couple right Shayne? (wink, wink!).



No trip to SLC would be complete without some dry-ice hijinx so we filled up a few 2litre bottles with dry ice and hot water and popped the lid back on and, well, the pics speak for themselves *(watch this space)...fun.



At around 2.30 Shayne dropped me back to University Avenue and I wandered around the Mall and all of the megastores that flank the avenue managing to buy a few more things off the list. I decided to walk home so that I could pop into a few other places along the way. 30 blocks in the wrong shoes and my feet have paid the price. Very sore and some incredibly large blisters which doesn't bode well for what I am sure will be large amounts of walking around DC.

Posting 6: Columbus Day shopping

Well, it's been a little while since I last posted anything so here is an update.

Last post was Sunday and a few things have gone down since then.

Monday (Colombus Day) - I hit Provo Towne Centre to hopefully grab some bargains in my first real day of shopping. I had a list of things to grab and manage to score a few deals picking up a couple of pairs of jeans and a couple of polo shirts. I caught the train back from the town centre through BYU and up to University Mall in Orem. That night we all went on a Halloween cruise on the Provo river - Cruise is probably not quite the right word to use since the "cruise" was on a wide open-air flat bottom boat and covered only about 200m of river, all the while we listening to scary stories on a spooky soundtrack as we sailed by the carved Jack-o-lanterns on the river bank. The kids seemed to enjoy it. Julie made some yum-o pumpkin choc chip cookies (the soft type) for after the cruise....mmm!

Posting 5: A drive up into the mountains

Sunday 9 October 2005

Overnight, there was some rain which fell as snow about the mountains. Utahns really are lucky to have such incredible scenery literally on their doorsteps.

Today, Shayne and I drove up American Fork canyon into the mountains to hike up the back of Mt Timpanogos (11749ft/3581m). We hiked about 2 1/2 hours up to beyond the snowline. We were really lucky to have good weather, which held out for us for the duration. Heading back to Orem we experience a bit of rain which probably would have fallen as snow at the altitude we were at. We hiked up to about 2800m to the edge of a small glacier and then turned and headed back. It was great to get up in the mountains again, something Krys and I both enjoyed about Utah.

The drive up was great too, courtesy of Shayne's new '97 C5 corvette (pictured). Not content with the performance of this Classic American Muscle car packing 5.7 litres of engine block, Shayne has plans to put a twin turbo set-up on it!! Then it should *actually* fly.

J

Posting 4: Above Orem and shopping begins

BYU Stadium from above,
originally uploaded by JohnConn.

Saturday 8 October

The light plane flight was a buzz. The weather wasn't as good as we had hoped it might be and so we couldn't get up the canyon or above the mountains in the end. There were quite strong winds around the place which makes flying near mountains less than safe, so instead we flew up over Orem and Provo, looping around the valley and took in BYU Campus and BYU Stadium amound other things. We flew north to Point of the Mountain and over the corn mazes at Thanksgiving Point and Heehaw and returned over Utah Lake to land again at Provo airport. The flight was good fun we managed to see a lot. See pics.

After that we stopped off at Super Target to begin to check out some of the bargains. I picked up Seasons 1 & 2 of the West Wing on DVD for $18.99 each, only to be shattered later that day when I saw them for a mere $16.99 at Costco! Quite a good buy when you consider that they are currently around $110 a set at JB and Myer. Shopping is as expected - very cheap. The shopping this trip is going to be VERY good. All the better with a pretty favourable exchange rate. I'm going to hit Provo Mall on Monday to try and stock up on some clothes and what not. Julie tells me that the end of season sales are currently on, and that Monday is Columbus day which normally adds some extra sales into the mix - like big Kev says - I'm excited!

That afternoon we had dinner at "The Mayan" in Sandy, UT. It's a Mexican family restaurant spread over three stories with an indoor plunge pool where divers perform a high dive show every 20 mins or so - Acapulco style. Imagine the set for Survivor's Tribal Council's and you have a very clear picture of how the place is fitted out. Portions could only be described as colossal and I had a "Two-fisted Burrito" which to me was the size of 4 or more very large fists - and it beat me. After, we stopped off at Shayne's folks new place in Sandy to say "hello" and then visited Walmart that evening to stock up on some supplies.

Spent a couple of hours chatting with K Saturday evening and thanks to all those who have stopped by and kept her company while I've been away.

More tomorrow. J