On the Road with Lauri

    Sedona! -------------------------  The headline for this blog is a quote from "The World According to Garp." It has always stuck with me. And now, as I pursue adventure after adventure through travel, I often find myself smiling. The whole idea of pursuing adventure through travel got stuck in my head when I was a kid. In fact, I wanted be an international journalist (thank you, All the President's Men).  I wanted to report from Russia and travel the world.  Life had other plans, of course. I had a great career in journalism, politics, public relations and nonprofit leadership. And, in a move NO ONE would have ever predicted, I took about a decade off to be home with the kids when they were little.   So this affected the travel budget, as you could imagine.  I didn't really start pursuing the travel dreams until the kids were done with school. Since then, I have been to Paris, Rome, Venice, Florence, Prague, Lisbon, Seville, Vienna, Salzburg a...

The last day has been... interesting. Let's start with Seattle.  I was booked on American (I know, I always do Alaska or Delta.  Now I know why?).  I was ready to depart for my adventure at 11 a.m. when we learned there were plane problems. Everyone was booted from 11 am until a flight at 8 pm, which would have really affected my short vacation. So I asked to be put on another plane, and they switched me to Alaska, leaving at 1:45.  That's when the fun began.  American made the arrangements and told me to go to Alaska (two terminals/subway away) to make sure it was all arranged.  I got there and no dice.  Alaska told me to go back and tell American it had not worked.  Two iterations followed, lots of walking and subway before I finally got it all squared away, after a lot of waiting in lines (I had to go to the back every time), lots of tense people, lots of tempers.  But I did it. I got on the Alaska flight.  But I decided to just go to...