Vacation Post 1: Los Angeles

Ah, vacation. Being on vacation is a wonderful, happy thing. The days leading up to vacation tend to be filled with stress -- both at work and at home. But vacation itself...marvelous. 

First, a little bit about our vacation plans. Tony has been working the credit card game to accrue points and miles, so much of our vacation came together using those. The only downside was the connecting flights to get out to Hawaii, but the *free* aspect made up for it!

Our trip to paradise began with a Thursday afternoon flight out of Minneapolis, landing in Chicago and connecting to Los Angeles. To our dismay, the flight out of MSP was delayed and we missed our original departure out of Chicago. But wait -- our Chicago to Los Angeles flight also gets delayed! By over 4 hours...departing at nearly midnight. Ugh. 

Thanks to a wonderful American Airlines representative, however, we get placed on the otherwise overbooked, only other AA flight to LA, departing around 8. I was especially happy to hear this news as we had planned on meeting up with my brother for a late night dinner. I hadn't seen Andy since before his journey on the Pacific Coast Trail, and Tony hadn't seen him for a couple of years.

Late night dinner with my "little" brother

Andy was gracious enough to journey across LA to meet us at the hotel, since it was so late. We were both glad to see him (and boy was I glad that he was no longer sporting the pre-hike mullet and child molester mustache!). We don't get to visit often, so this was a very special way to kick off our trip. Thanks Andy!

Bloody Mary's....yuck!

After a few hours of sleep we were back at 'em, gearing up for our direct flight to Lihue, Kauai. Paradise at last. Tony decided to kick off the day with a bloody mary, while I stuck to my much needed coffee. Can you tell he's excited to get going?!