Travel Log - September

I am going to try to back up and blog a bit about things going on here in September. It's been a while but it is good to have these things written down in one place so I can remember what I did years from now.


Things have been busy here with Brady currently in basketball, baseball, flag football, running club and Lego club.  I don't know where the time goes or how parents with more than one child deal with all of the shuttling around. 


Back in September, we had two trips to California back to back weekends, with a visit at our house from my mom and my brother squeezed in between.

The first weekend almost didn't happen.  We had been discussing with my brother in LA for months that we planned to go the ELO concert at the Hollywood Bowl.  It was one of two tour spots and it has been years and years since Jeff Lynne had toured.  It's been on Mike's lifetime concert lists to see him in person.  We knew we wouldn't buy tickets until the last minute since that seems to be Mike's best chance of success for good tickets.  The idea was that my brother and/or my mom would babysit Brady while went to the concert--since she would likely be visiting just prior to my nephew's wedding the following week.  Pretty close to the concert date, we found out that my brother and my mom had plans to go dancing the night of the concert so we didn't have a babysitter.  We were concerned that Brady wouldn't be into the concert and it would spoil the evening for all three of us.  We debated all week what to do and finally decided to buy tickets and drive to LA about 12 hours before we'd need to be en route.  It meant Brady had to miss a day of school which is something we hoped to avoid but, you can't have it all.  We stayed outside of LA the first night at an uber modern Aloft hotel.  It was pretty cool and Brady loved all of the modern décor.  In the end, it was a good choice and we all enjoyed the show and the trip.  We got to have breakfast with my brother, nephew, and my mom.  Just like a birder, Brady got to see some of his "lifetime" cars in the few spare hours we had to sightsee around LA.  He also got to pose in some fast cars on Hollywood Boulevard.  Sure, it was worth $10.

The following weekend, we flew to San Francisco to attend my nephew's wedding.  Since both California trips involved overnight stays, I had researched kennels for Sherman.  Apparently, kennels are not really a positive "thing" here, especially after a tragic incident a few years ago where many dogs died due to neglect at a kennel.  Nearly all of our neighbors use in home pet sitters.  I didn't think Sherman would do well with a 3x/day visit format.  He is a people dog.  I ended up using dogvacay.com to find someone who could watch him in their home--someone with kids and dogs of their own.  The first stay went well.  A second stay was planned for the wedding trip.  A few hours before we'd pick up Brady at school and head for the airport, I went to the sitter's house to drop Sherman off.  At her front door, I handed her the leash.  Sherman saw me take two steps towards my car and slipped out of his collar, trying to get away from the sitter.  He proceeded to run through the sitter's neighborhood, ignoring all of my calls.  This was not good.  I tried not to chase him but he kept getting further away and I didn't know this neighborhood.  Finally, I saw a landscaper going into someone's backyard.  Everyone has walls with gates but the gate was open.  Sherman was sniffing nearby.  I called him and ran into the stranger's backyard.   Thankfully, he followed me and ran past further into the backyard.  By now, all of the gardeners back there were looking at me like I was crazy but I had time to grab him.  Geez!  Luckily, it was fairly uneventful getting to San Francisco and San Jose after that.  The bride and groom had 15 attendants on each side, two flower girls, two ring bearers and multiple other attendants and parents. I believe the cast for the rehearsal was over 40 people.  It was ... a lot.  They had more personalized things that I'd ever seen and they had basically created a brand for the wedding.  Their wedding cake was a Stanley Cup and Sharkey (the San Jose Sharks mascot) showed up at the reception.  When the bride and groom made their entrance, all of the attendants lined up with hockey sticks then the bride and groom had a face off at the end.  A lot of planning went into this wedding.

 My brother, Keith, showing my mom his dance moves.

After the wedding we had a two week breather before Brady's fall break started.  He was off from 9/30-10/18 so we wanted to get away for at least part of the time off.  We picked him up from school on the Friday before break and headed east for Albuquerque.  We wanted to get there Friday night so we could be at the Balloon Fiesta the following morning at 4 a.m.  It was a long and tiring drive through the extremely dark and desolate desert between the Phoenix east valley and our hotel in New Mexico.  We had no radio signal for the latter part of the drive and everyone was getting antsy.  I found a cached NPR podcast with Meryl Streep that we could listen to.  I don't think Brady was impressed but it helped pass the time.


We managed to get up early see the pre-dawn activities and the weather cooperated for an uneventful launch for all.  If you haven't already seen this event, put it on your bucket list because it was amazing.  On the drive home, we stopped at the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest.  We were on a fairly tight schedule because we wanted to get back through the Arizona mountains before dark.  We managed to see lots of amazing sights and made a few well-considered gift shop purchases.  The photos just don't do it justice, as with many natural wonders.

 I know what Dianne and Judy are thinking ... :-)

 Raffle quilt at the fairgrounds

 Petroglyphs

The colors are amazing.

That takes us through September.  Maybe the next post will cover our October adventures.