Feb 17
RichardTravel
Tonight is my last night in Boston, I fly out to London at some ungodly hour of the morning. It’s a nice place to visit, but I’m really happy to be heading home. I miss my girls.
So, I was halfway through packing and realised I hadn’t given an update on the snow driving since the other morning. Well, it got so much better during the day. Like everyone else, I left the office early so I could get home while it was still (kind of) light. It had been snowing heavily all day, and the strong winds were whipping up a storm of white. Visibility was terrible, and despite the constant passes of the snow plows the roads were very slippery.
What I found amazing was that the locals actually slowed down! The three lane interstate had been changed into a two lane slip and slide, and everyone was being careful and considerate. Stunning.
It took about forty minutes to drive the five miles back to the hotel. Towards the end of the drive the snow changed to rain, which froze as soon as it hit the windscreen. The best option for the last few minutes of driving was to close my eyes and use the force.
The fun continued the next morning. The car park was mostly clear of snow, mainly because it had been plowed into a wall behind my car. I joined the line of hotel guests digging ourselves out. Three quarters of an hour later I was able to leave for work. At least it was bright and sunny. Freezing, but sunny.
So, 5.30 tomorrow I’m into a cab, and off to the airport. London, here I come!
Feb 14
RichardTravel
Wed, 2007-02-14 15:49
The winter storm has arrived! Had to spend a few minutes getting the snow off the car before driving in to the office this morning – and what an interesting drive it was! I only had to go about five miles, so no big deal. It’s supposed to keep snowing all day, so the drive home is going to be fun as well.
Feb 10
RichardTravel
Rather than be stuck in Littleton all weekend, and because my ticket allows it, I’m taking a day trip to New York City today. Never been there before, so this should be fun!
0600 – The alarm goes off. Ugh. I hate mornings, but drag myself out of bed.
0635 – In the car. Chilly this morning!
0645 – Damn, missed the exit! Silly me paid more attention to the road sign (telling me to go straight) then to the GPS (first exit on the right). You think I would know better than that by now.
0740 – Rest of the drive to the airport was pretty simple. Made it to Logan, got a spot in Central Parking that’s right next to the bridge to Terminal B. Checked in, (eventually) made it through security and into the Admiral’s Club lounge for some lukewarm coffee and stale pastries.
0810 – Back in the Admiral’s Club, ’cause the flight has been delayed. More lukewarm coffee. Let me never again say a bad word about the Qantas lounges back home.
0840 – AA don’t make boarding calls in the lounge, and the monitors don’t give you any useful information (like, the flight is boarding now). So, on the advice of the lounge staff ("The inbound aircraft is on the ground, yeah, you should probably go to the gate") I’m back at the gate waiting to board. We’re now scheduled to depart at 0858.
0852 – On the plane. The boarding announcement was made in a real hardcore Bronx accent. This has to be the smallest jet I have ever been on! For scale, think of the Dash 8 twin prop planes that Qantas uses to do the Melbourne to Canberra run. Same seating arrangement (one on the left, two on the right), but stretched longer. The safety card calls it an "EMB", whatever that is. I’ll have to look it up. Looking at the safety card there is a note at the bottom of the front cover: "Final assembly of this aircraft was completed in Brazil." Should I be afraid of that?
1004 – On the ground! Pretty uneventful flight. Not good for photos thanks to the low cloud. Oh well.
1030 – Outside the terminal, waiting for the Q33 bus to take me to the subway into Manhattan.
1039 – Change of plan. The M60 bus arrived first, and that goes right into Manhattan. On that instead.
1113 – How cool is this: we’re stopped at the traffic lights at the corner of Martin Luther King and Malcom X!
1028 – Jumped off the bus at the corner of Broadway and West 110, also known as Cathedral Parkway. I’m going to walk down Cathedral (part St James, just so I can get a picture for Joyce) and then into the north end of Central Park.
1147 – Been wandering in Central Park for a while. Lots of squirrels, they’re so cute! It’s quite amazing, you can be in total silence except for the rustling of the fallen oak leaves as the birds and squirrels bound around looking for food.
1208 – Checking out the ice skating ring. There is a kids ice hockey game on, and the Harlem Figure Skating competition.
1451 – Wandering past the Empire State Building. There is a queue like you wouldn’t believe to go up to the observation deck, so I’m just going to keep on walking! I’m sure I’ll be back here one day.
1800 – In the AA lounge at JFK. Nice lounge! Still suffers from the same sucky "pay for your drinks and food" problem that all the other AA lounges have.
More pics are in the NYC gallery.
Feb 04
RichardTravel, Work
Seeing as it’s Sunday, and bright and sunny, I figured I’d go for a stroll down to the local shops for breakfast. I try to limit the amount of hotel food, and get out and about a little.
Big mistake. I got maybe 200 metres down the road before I had to call it off as a bad joke. It is so cold! Checking good ol’ weather.com, it’s currently -7c, but thanks to the wind chill it feels like -17c. Nice! The top is forecast to be -5c. It gets getter – the top for tomorrow is estimated to be -11c.
So, I’ll still go out for breakfast, but I’ve had to return for my car keys!
Feb 04
RichardTravel, Work
Finally started my new job on Feb 1. My first day was spent travelling to Boston to meet the team. What with time zone changes, it made for a very long day. So after one day in the office so far, it all looks good!
Time zone wise it’s a real pain. It is almost exactly totally wrong for talking to Bren and Campbell. For example, when it’s 5pm here, it’s 9am the next day back home. That works on the weekend, but it’s what with school and work it’s hopeless on week days.
Initial impressions of Massachusetts: Lovely countryside, but really cold! Looking forward to exploring a lot more. It’s MUCH better driving here than in LA, the traffic is nowhere near as chaotic.
Probably predictably, the camera is travelling with me. Photos from the trip can be found in our travel gallery at http://stocksfamily.smugmug.com/gallery/5172699_ft2mB.
Apr 28
RichardRants, Travel
I don’t want to hear anyone complain about airport security ever again. After arriving at LAX at 6am, we missed our 8.22am connection to San Francisco because it took so long to get through passenger screening. AAARRRGGGGHHH!! Luckily, the nice people at American Airlines have rebooked us onto the 10am flight. Some time to relax in the lounge….
It all started so well this morning. We got a lift out to Melbourne airport nice and early with Eddie, a friend who works there. The check-in staff moved us from the 7.45 to the 6.30 domestic flight to Sydney, which gave us a little more breathing space to get the connection to LAX.
Discovered a funny thing when we met up with Joyce: she already had a boarding pass for the flight from LA up to San Francisco. “Cool!” we thought, and went off to see if we could check in for that flight as well. Sadly, no.
The immigration queue wasn’t too bad; long, but moved pretty swiftly. We went to the plane, with the only hiccup being that Bren got singled out for the “Flying to America bag and body search”. Joyce and myself zoomed straight past all that, giving us a few minutes to have a chuckle about how much like a terrorist Bren looks.
Flight over: Long, uneventful (except for the two drunk guys down the back getting a little agitated. There were some cops waiting at the gate when we got off, I wonder if the boys actually made it into the country before being sent back home?).
Made it to LA. First mission was to check in for our transfer to San Francisco. No worries, except apparently for an issue with Bren’s travel. Seems her itinerary was modified, but the ticket never re-issued. So the American Airlines people had to stuff around for a while to make it all work. Thanks for that Qantas. Love your work.
That sorted, we then tried to board the plane. No such luck. The queue for passenger security screening was literally out the door, down to the next terminal, back again, up the stairs, the length of the concourse, back again, and then back again! And then, Joyce had the magic “SSS” on her boarding pass, so she had to line up for the “special” screening. End result, we missed the flight.
Got rebooked on the 10.30, and off to San Francisco with no worries. Aside from trying to stay awake, that is!
When we got to our hotel, our room wasn’t quite ready, so we wandered down the road to find some lunch. Ended up at a little Italian place, and had a wonderful spicy prawn pizza. Very yummy!
Then wandered around for a while, found Union Square, looked around some shops.
Back home, and we pretty much all collapsed from exhaustion!
Oct 04
RichardTravel
How good was this – an extra day at Disney for free! I knew there would have to be an upside to their computers being down on the first day we arrived.
Having this extra day was great. It really took the pressure off, and meant that we could relax today and on the previous day, rather than have to run around the try and squeeze everything in.
Campbell managed to get quite a few character meetings in: Pooh, Eeyore, Tigger, Woody, Jessie, Pocahontas and Buzz.
I think the highlight was something we’d never bothered to do before: We took the time to sit down and have a nice lunch in one of the proper resturants. Luckily, Bren had gone down to the Blue Bayou as soon as we arrived, and had made a reservation for us. People that were just turning up at lunchtime were facing a two hour wait to be seated.
Anyway, The Blue Bayou is inside, and dark. It’s supposed to be like sitting outside a restaurant at night in Louisianna. The Pirates of the Caribbean ride actually goes past on one side, so you’ve got a river there and everything. The food was delicious, servings huge, and the service typically Disney-good.
After lunch, we made good use of the FastPass service for jumping the queues at Space Mountain. Bren came on with us, and loved it. So much so that we did it again. Very cool ride.
At the end of the day, we caught the monorail out to the Downtown Disney district, and had dinner in the Jazz Kitchen. This was great – more good food, with some cool jazz played live. Does life get any better?
Oct 02
RichardTravel
Knott’s Berry Farm is probably thought of as the home of the most hardcore thrill rides in North America. If you want roller coasters, you go to Knotts. Unless, of course, you are a child that likes fast rides….
Aside from all the Disney goodness, I think this is where Campbell was really hanging out to go. She loves anything fast. Roller coasters are her plaything. You can’t imagine how upset she was when we got there and found that all the cool rides have a 54 inch minimum height requirement.
For some perspective, there was only one ride in the whole of Disneyland that Campbell wasn’t allowed on: The Maliboomer. This is a ride which hurls you way up high and throws you back down again. The restraints on the ride just can’t deal with anyone under 48 inches. Campbell comes in at about 42.
Every other ride as Disney was cool: Space Mountain, Tower of Terror, you name it. No problems. And she went on them all.
Back to Knotts….
First thing we see is the Ghost Rider. This is billed as the fastest wooden coaster in the world. Certainly, it’s the only one I’ve seen that has banked turns. No good, too short.
Not all was lost, as we then found Camp Snoopy. This is the part of Knott’s that actually caters for the younger visitors. Thankfully – and unlike Legoland – most of these rides did not require an adult to go on with the child. So, Campbell is back to having fun. Bren suggests that as she isn’t really into the whole thrill ride thing in a big way that she will hang around Camp Snoopy with Campbell, and I’ll go off and check out the hardcore stuff.
Yeah baby!
So, I go and line up for just over half on hour to check out the Silver Bullet. This is a suspended coaster (ie you sit in a carriage that hangs underneath the rail) that is way fast, and has a bunch of loops and twists. Bring it on.
Wait in line, wait in line, wait in line, my turn next…
And it breaks.
Bugger.
At least I wasn’t one of the poor bastards that was already on the ride, and had to be rescued with ladders. Lucky for them that the ride had only just started, and the train had only just started the climb of the first hill.
After a few minutes I decide that it’s going to take ages to fix, so I leave my spot at the front of the queue and head of in search of more fun: The Xcelerator!
This one is a little different. Instead of a slow climb up a big first hill, you start off on a flat track, and are literally hurled along. The train is taken from stationary to 82mph, in less than 2.5 seconds. From there, the track turns 90 degrees: straight up. Then another 180 degrees, and you’re heading back down again. Very cool.
So, I wait in line again… waiting… waiting… my turn next…
And it breaks.
Luckily, they got it back up and going again pretty quickly, so a few minutes later I was strapped in and ready to zoom. It’s hard to describe the feeling of this one. The initial acceleration is actually quite smooth. I was all prepared for my eyeballs to be pushed through the back of my head, but there was none of that at all. The big vertical drop was pretty cool. Overall, a fun ride.
The Supreme Scream: This is quite similar to the Mailboomer at Disney, except it’s a little higher, and the lift is slower. Where the Maliboomer zooms you up very quickly, the Supreme Scream is a more sedate start. You’re lifted up by cable, and then dropped to free-fall back to the ground. Great view from up there!
Now, back to the Silver Bullet: Not much of a queue now it is fixed. And really, it’s not worth the wait anyway. Yes, it’s fast and all that. But with all the loops and twists you very quickly lose track of which way you’re facing, and just become numb to the whole ride. It is pretty smooth, as these things go, which is probably the biggest benefit of the new coasters over old ones.
And finally, back to the Ghost Rider. This one I can understand not letting small people on. The ride is quite rough, and the restraints are decidedly minimalist. Fun, but not if you’re a child trying to stop yourself from falling off.
I didn’t get to go on the Perilous Plunge, as it was being worked on. Shame, ’cause it looked like fun: a 75 degree drop in a big boat thing. Oh well.
Then, we all decided to go on the rapids ride. Same kind of thing as the one at Sea World, and Disney. Except not as rough or wet, and it was a near thing to get Campbell on. Really, some of the restrictions were just stupid.
The worst thing about Knott’s was that the really seem to be going all out to get extra money out of you. All over the place, you get hassled by people trying to get you to take part in various side-show alley type games. All for extra cash. Really annoying when it’s so expensive to get in there in the first place.
Overall… it was ok. Probably a lot more fun without (a) young kids and (b) all the rides breaking.
Sep 30
RichardTravel
Went to Legoland today. It’s probably ok if you’ve got really young kids who don’t get out much.
First of all, I’d like to point out that even if the sculptures are really good, they’re just made of Lego. I realise that a fair amount of skill and effort goes into creating these, but it’s kind of wasted, as you get over it pretty quickly.
Second, I’m really annoyed when you pay a fair stack of money to get into the park in the first place, and then they try and charge you extra for some of the attractions. Okay, they were pretty cheap, but also pretty crappy, and that just makes it worse! Why should I have to pay an extra dollar for two minutes to driving a remote controlled boat on a lake?
Right, that’s out of the way!
Pretty much everything here is designed with little kids in mind. There was only one ride that Campbell couldn’t do at all, which was the Volvo Driving School. Yes, I think it’s a contradiction, too. The rule on this one was you had to be over six, and Campbell is too honest to lie when asked her age (dammit!). They did have a Volvo Junior Driving School, but it was really lame.
Come to think of it, we used the word "lame" quite a lot.
One thing that was lame, was out of all the lame rides, there was only one that they would let Campbell on by herself. This meant that we had to squeeze onto all these lame kids rides so she could have a go. Mind you, it didn’t get a lot better: Campbell walked off the Lego Technic Test Track rollercoaster, and her first words were, "That was boring!" You get the idea.
One thing that could have been fun was the Knights Tournament, which is a essentially an industrial robot, with a chair on the end. You’re strapped in, select how intense you want the ride (on a scale of one to five), and away you go. But they ruined it. They let her on, but only on level one, which was seriously lame. Round a couple of times, tilt a bit, oh, we’re finished. I had another go without her on level five, which was a lot more fun. No real rush out of it though.
I’ve seen a thing on TV about a version of the same robot, but instead of just having a chair on the end it has a little booth thing, and they project a film. Turns it into one of those VR rides, but would be a lot more intense due to having three axis of movement. That would be fun!
So, a whole heap of lame rides for little kids. Imagine our surprise when we tried to get into one of the "Let’s build things with Lego" bits, and got turned away because Campbell was too young! Okay, so it was the Mindstorms robotics stuff, but that’s the only interesting stuff anyway.
We did find one thing that was quite nice: In keeping with the local tradition of deep frying everything you can get your hands on, we find Granny Fries. These are chips cut from a Granny Smith apple, deep fried, dusted with cinnamon sugar and served with a vanilla cream. Quite yummy, and a great way of turning something healthy into something that could kill you.
Overall, we really weren’t super happy with Legoland. There were a couple of nice touches, like the little play areas in each ride queue (filled with Lego, imagine that!), but for the most part it really was pretty boring.
Sep 28
RichardTravel
After spending the day at Disney yesterday we figured we’d go to Legoland today, as it’s only a few minutes down the road. As I was about to walk up to reception to buy the tickets, the small but fatal flaw in the plan was revealed: Legoland is closed on Tuesday and Wednesday! So, a quick change of plans and off to Sea World instead.
First impression: There is no one here!
After the massive crowns of people at Disney, Sea World seems deserted. Even Campbell commented that it was really quiet. No queues for rides, in most cases you walk straight on.
As for the rides… There are three:
- Journey To Atlantis is a roller coaster boat ride, with a massive plunge into water. You get wet. Pretty cool, lots of fun.
- Wild Arctic is a helicopter motion simulator that takes you over the polar ice cap. Not bad. Leads into the polar bear enclosure.
- Shipwreck Rapids is a white water rapids ride. More wetness. Lots of it, in fact. You will get soaked on this ride. Lots of fun!
I think that due to it being off season at the moment they have dropped the number of shows. We only managed to catch two:
- R. L. Steine’s The Lighthouse in 4D is yet another 3D movie with the added dimension of water being squirted at you in sync with the movie. Quite well done, we all enjoyed it.
- Shamu Adventure is the live show with Shamu, the killer whale (and a few friends). Pretty good as wildlife shows go. Oh, when they say that the first 16 rows are a "soak zone," they’re not kidding.
All this aside, the best part (for those with young kids) is Shamu’s Fun Zone. This is a huge area of play equipment (some of which is constantly sprayed with water), fountains and climbing nets. Campbell was gone for ages scrambling through tunnels and bouncing on the jumping castle.
A few of the activities are disappointing in that you have to pay extra on top of your admission price, such as the Sea World Tower, the chair lift over the bay and the rock climbing and trampolining in the "Xtreme Zone". We didn\’t bother with any of them.
Overall, Sea World was pretty good. It’s very easy to spend a day here, and the atmosphere was quite relaxed.
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