SoCal Visit to Friends

Frank and I traveled to Southern California Tuesday, October 28th through Friday, October 31st to visit our friends John & Marita who had downsized about two years ago. They'd relocated from the town of Pleasanton, adjacent to our town of Livermore, to a smaller house in Laguna Niguel. Although we zoom with them every two weeks, we still knew we would enjoy a person-to-person get together. We UBER'd to the Oakland airport, a 28.43 mile trip which took 34 minutes. Security was not backed up and went as well as could be expected — except for a small glitch with me. I set off the metal detecters ...whah, whah, whah... !
 

Metal in your body, asked the agent?     No, that is my husband, not me.

Cell phone in the bin?     Yup, not the culprit. 

Could it be my underwire bra?     Not likely.

Anything in your pockets ma'am? I don't think so... Aha!

I thought these candy wrappers were cellophane, but apparently the foil from three of these little Werther's Original candies was enough to set off the system. Live and learn. Frank with his hip replacement filed through without any fuss. It was me with my candies that upset the apple cart. Of course one of my powder medications had to be pulled side and scanned, lest it be an explosive, but I was expecting that. It happens every time I travel.

After the excitement and once we were at our gate, we learned that our Southwest Airlines flight from OAK (Oakland) to SNA (Orange County) was only 75% full. We had the luxury of an empty seat between us for the 1½ hours of air time. 

Flight #4035 actually took off a bit early and we arrived early. Interesting enough, the UBER pickup point at SNA is on the third floor of the parking garage and into curbside. Within minutes we had a ride, though. Our UBER trip to our hotel from the airport was 21.41 miles and took 35 minutes. So far our trip was smooth sailing. Our timing had been lucky. Our driver told us that there had been a recent fatal motorcycle crash on the southbound 405 Freeway near Irvine Spectrum that very morning, resulted in lane closures and significant traffic delays. He said the route we would have taken earlier in the day had been closed for four hours. We were fortunate to have missed it.

Our hotel was the Hampton Inn & Suites by Hilton, chosen for its proximity to John & Marita's home. We had a room with two queen beds. Room 336 was tucked away in inner corner of the hotel and we had an angled view of the pool. John joked that we had a room with an ocean view. I also picked this place because, beside the free breakfast, the lobby had a pantry where we could purchase snacks to take back to our room anytime. Yes, we did cave and get Tate's chocolate chip cookies and Lays potato chips each night.

John picked us up in his new all electric car and drove us to his house 4.5 miles and about 10 minutes away. Their small economy sized car accommodated Frank and me, our luggage, and Frank's rollator with ease. John and Marita had done a lot of updates to the one-story home. One update was a charging station in the garage for their all-electric car. Frank and I had no checked luggage this trip, only carry-ons. This jaunt was our first time traveling this light and it was great. Inside the one-story, three bedroom home was bright and airy with almost an entire wall of sliding doors out to the backyard. Marita had heated a HUGE Costco Chicken Pot Pie; as soon as we entered the house we inhaled the luscious aroma. HUGE is really big. That pot pie fed four adults for both Tuesday and Thursday nights. Marita had steamed a side of fresh broccoli to go with it each time. We sat and relaxed in pleasant conversation with no plan other than to relax and soak in each other's company.

We were to enjoy their home and hospitality Tuesday evening followed by Wednesday/Thursday days. The covered back patio extend about 20 feet or so and then the yard transitioned to a steep incline, beautifully landscaped and extending far up the hill. We basked in the sunny, balmy, temperate weather outside as we sat on that patio. As we were relaxing in quiet conversation and catching up, I spotted a coyote meandering along the ridge line of the neighbor's yard. As he was winding his way downhill, we watched in subdued wonder. We did agree though, that if he got too much closer we would go indoors; but we did not have to. 

One consequence of all those lovely hills was that cellphone reception was tricky. We would need to alter settings on our cell phones to accept calls via Wi-Fi. After a fair amount of Googling, John finally found detailed instructions on setting this configuration for our iPhone 16s. Apparently there was a radio button acknowledging our acceptance of some random "terms"; the button was sufficiently small and camouflaged that we missed clicking it multiple times. That's OK. Solving the problem was part of Wednesday afternoon's "entertainment" for a bunch of nerds. Marita had gone to a knitting class so this cell phone exercise kept us amused in her absence. We also watched a movie.

We purposely chose a movie we'd all seen so that talking during it would not be a problem. I had recalled getting an email noting that The Man from U.N.C.L.E. movie was going away from Prime on October 31st. Afterwards, although you probably could stream it from elsewhere, you would have to pay to rent to watch. Streaming the 2015 movie The Man from U.N.C.L.E., rated 7.2 on IMDb, was every bit as enjoyable to me as the first and second times I have watched it. Snatching a few zzzz's during the movie worked out well for John, Frank, and me at various points throughout. We joked that we thought when Marita returned we should stage a scene with all three of us napping while the TV blared something obnoxious. The proposal was an appealing idea, but we did not deploy it.

Another movie we watched, this time with Marita, was the 2010 movie Knight and Day rated 6.3 on IMDb but really enjoyable. John told us you don't have to follow the plot. The plot is just a vehicle to get you from one action scene to another with no need to understand or anticipate. He was right. Knight and Day, starring Cruise and Cameron Diaz, was a fun, tongue-in-cheek romp, with non-stop action that avoided being gorily violent. Knight and Day was also pleasantly sprinkled with a little risqué sexiness.

Our son, Dan, happened to be in the area for business and he was able to get together with John & Marita and Frank & me for dinner Wednesday night. Since Dan used to live in the area, he suggested a good Mexican restaurant Avila's El Ranchito in Foothill Ranch, CA. The food was very, very good. Dan's personality is such that he was able to fit right in with our group of four; the conversation and laughing were pretty non-stop.

Dan ordered a large margarita not realizing just how LARGE, "large" really was. Seeing it next to his sunglasses for calibration, that margarita was pretty much close to the size of Dan's head! After dinner Dan drove us back to our hotel before going to his. We had the opportunity for a brief visit with him during the half-hour drive to our hotel. Seeing him during this trip was a happy happenstance.

On Thursday we played some games. Our version of Rummikub has six additional bonus joker tiles beyond the standard version. I brought those tiles with me so we could add them in and use them in our own Chambers-personalized 2-D rules for crossword type Rummikub. This version with the bonus jokers is available exclusively from Target. We played SEQUENCE in person as the game was designed. Every other week we play with John & Marita over a zoom call with a specially marked playing board and double the number of card decks. Frank wants it pointed out that when we played SKYJO, he came in first.

While the chicken pot pie was warming in the oven we put together a 300-piece version of a Charles Wysocki puzzle named Mr. Swallowbark, a broom maker. After dinner we sat around and chatted a bit more before we said our goodbyes and John drove us back to our hotel. Our in-person visit was fantastic. It was an enjoyable cherry on top of the treat of having zoom calls every other Monday with awesome friends.

The next morning, Frank and I took an UBER to the airport. Our UBER driver for our return to the airport on Friday told us that he himself had been stuck in that backup for 1½ hours with a passenger. We learned that the UBER stated fare remains the stated fare, and there is no adjustment for traffic delays no matter how extensive. Our curbside drop off at SNA went smoothly and we got to our gate in plenty of time. I expected there to be lots of costumes since we were traveling on Halloween. There were a fair number of folks dressed in black and orange, but there were very few costumes. Our stewardess wore ghost earrings. One last perk of this trip... our flight had 23 empty seats so once again Frank and I had a vacant seat between us. SWA Flight 4274 also took off early and landed early! The travel gods continued to smile on us, even all the way back to our home in Livermore. The 28 mile, 52 minute UBER ride was also uneventful. Glad we went and also glad to be home!