Family Vacation 2011 - Planes, Shuttles and Automobiles

0Well, it is 9:09 PM Pacific Time.  That's 12:09 AM Michigan time.  I am tired.  The kids are wired!!!  We headed out of Shepherd at 10:00 am Eastern Time.  That is a long day of travel.  There really aren't any good pictures yet.  We were running from place to place so much today there wasn't time.  


I personally struggled all day.  Somehow, I thought I was getting on 275 to head to the airport, but I didn't and stayed on 96.  I don't know how that happened.  Could have been traffic or commotion in the car.  But, I missed 275, nonetheless!  I didn't have the Garmin out because we packed it so we would have it with us when we started the road trip of our vacation.  That means there was no pretty voice to tell me I had missed my road.  After seeing a few 96 signs, I finally figured that I had missed my turn.  We did a quick exit, grabbed the Garmin out of the backpack and carried on.  We were already about 15 minutes behind.  As it turned out, we were probably only a half hour late.  We always allow 2 hours from arriving at the airport to departure time.  It was a good thing today.  With the Garmin calling out the directions, we arrived at our Park-N-Go.  We have used them before and they have been very good.  As soon as we pulled in, a shuttle was waiting for us.  We transferred our baggage (three bags to check and four carry-ons).  We loaded the shuttle and the driver asked, "Do you have you purse, your glasses, your itinerary, car locked?"  We thought we were in good shape.  So, we headed out of the lot and headed to the terminal.  I figured I should get out my portfolio with all of our paper work so we could get our boarding passes.  Unfortunately, when the driver asked if we had our itinerary, I thought we did.  But, we didn't.  So, Kristi and the kids got dropped off at the terminal, and I did a trip back to the lot.  At this point, I figured we would be okay getting to our flight, but one more mishap and who knows?  I had reached back into the car to grab a bag and set the portfolio on the seat forgetting to pick it back up.  


Kristi was able to and had already done her magic at the kiosk so by the time I caught back up with them, we all had our boarding passes.  Our flight out of Detroit was to Houston.  This was a relatively bumpy flight.  We had to avoid some bad weather and were about twenty minutes late getting into Houston.  This was about 6:00 according to our bodies.  The bumpy flight didn't do anything for Kristi's stomach so she had to find something to eat.  But, with the delay, we were pressed for time.  We found our gate and ran back to find something to eat.  Adri and I had a quick slice of pizza as we walked back to the gate, while Kristi and Alex got some Chinese takeout.  This work out fine, but the entire 737 smelled like orange chicken - at least until they came to pick up trash.  No time for pictures in Houston, but we were there, and the kids can say they have been in Texas.

We picked up our mini-van from Thrifty, popped the hotel address in the Garmin and arrived here at the Ontario Grand Inn & Suites.  It looks like it has just been remodeled and is very nice.  So we drove, we shuttled, we flew, we shuttled, and we drove.


The kids already seem excited.  It should be fun.  We made it to California. Day one done!