Our Almost Trip to Palau

As some of you know, I have a hobby that involves finding deals on travels.  We were forced to hone our deal-hunting skills when we lived out in Dutch Harbor, where the price of a r/t ticket simply to Anchorage was frequently more than $1,000.  American dollars.  So anyway, I found this great deal on flights to Palau from LAX for $485 on Expedia, and booked it.  We bought tickets, along with our old friends, the International Bowling All Stars, who we had previously met with abroad on a big Turkey/Cypress adventure.  We planned to tack the trip onto our Christmas trip to Montana.

That was back in September.  A couple weeks ago, Korean Air cancelled our tickets.  Alas, the deal was too good to be true.  They said we could go if we came up with another $1,800, but that was a bit over budget for us.  There are a few articles about the whole thing on the interweb here, here, here, here, here, and here.   Some folks are pretty worked up about it and have started a campaign to try to shame Korean Air into honoring the fare.  It would be nice if it worked, but I don't think Korean Air really cares.  I put a lot of effort into a thoughtful letter myself, and it was basically ignored.  And I can't blame Korean Air.  They want to maximize their cabbage, and they appear to have no problem selling seats at a higher price than their competitors.  (On flights from the US to Palau, their fares are frequently double those of Continental.)  It's too bad we won't be going to Palau, but other adventures abound!

 It all started here, with this posting on Flyertalk.

But if we had gone, it would've been great!  First, the trip would've been on the A380, the blue beast of the skies!  And Palau has lots of awesome stuff.  Diving, surfing, monoliths, etc.  After all the guide books we've read, it's almost as if we had already visited the place.  I guess we''ll just have to stop by Palau as we sail around the world.  It will be a more meaningful visit that way, I think.  Here are some cool pictures of things we might have seen if we had gone!

Now, we are just hoping that Korean Air will
actually get around to refunding our money.  I'm sure they're good for it.  They've had our money for one day shy of three months now.

In the far more entertaining news category, we recently saw the best job application since this one that was posted out at the Alaska Ship Supply in Dutch.  I called that one the most awesome resume ever posted by mankind, but I think this one is even awesomer.

  Love it!

The Big City

We went into the big city the other weekend so that Genevieve could take some PT continuing education, the highlight of which was the venue's proximity to Golden Donuts. We had high hopes of visiting friends, but it turns out that the being in the big city with three mini-ninjas makes for challenging logistics.  We rested our heads at the Dimond Hotel, but spent most of the time up at Team Wilyos.  The timing was perfect for celebrating Regan and Paxson's birthdays.  And watching a 3D Puss N Boots.  And frolicking in the snow.

 The cool thing about the Dimond Hotel is each room has a HUGE bathtub ("Like Aunt Rani's"), and a portal that opens up so that you can watch TV from the tub.  The kids loved it.  The other cool thing about the Dimond is that it's owned by the Seldovia Native Association, so there's lots of cool Seldovia stuff in the hotel.

Other highlights of our trip: Bouncing bears.

Chuck E. Cheese.

The Big City

We went into the big city so that Genevieve could take some PT continuing ed.  My favorite thing about her class was the venue's proximity to Golden Donuts.  She might agree.  We had high hopes of visiting friends, but it turns out that being in the big city with three mini-ninjas makes for challenging logistics.  We rested our heads at the Dimond Hotel, and spent most of the daytime up at Team Wilyo's.  The timing was perfect for celebrating Regan and Paxson's birthdays.  And watching a 3D Puss N Boots.  And frolicking in the snow.

 The cool thing about the Dimond Hotel is each room has a HUGE bathtub ("Like Aunt Rani's"), and a portal that opens up so that you can watch TV from the tub.  The kids loved it.  The other cool thing about the Dimond is that it's owned by the Seldovia Native Association, so there's lots of cool Seldovia stuff in the hotel.

Other highlights of our trip: Bouncing bears.

Hanging out with cousins Chance and Austin.

Hand me down ninja outfits.

Uncle Regs and Aunt Nami time.

Those two specks way in the background are Musashi and Paxson.  Arashi in the foreground.

Zooming in on the two specks.  Long rides!

Baby jail.

"What did I do to deserve this?"

Sweet rides at the Dimond Mall.

Birthday bakugan!

Too fast, too furious.

Gourmet cuisine at Chuck E Cheese.

I wish this one was in focus.

Serious trickery to get this guy under  the knife.

Lunch dessert at Thai Kitchen.

Large snowy mountain, very far away.

Gratitude

It's Thanksgiving time, and we have a lot to be thankful for.  The Subaru ended its vacation at Pillar Creek Beach, just in time to take us to Thanksgiving dinner at the KI.  We're thankful for a blue sky Thanksgiving day.  We're thankful for all the people who helped us get it out.  We're thankful for good Samaritans.  We're thankful that no children were decapitated in the process.  We're thankful to have learned an important lesson about snow tires.  And Pillar Creek Road.

We're thankful that we can now start being thankful for the snowiest November in Kodiak in over 20 years.  We're thankful for snow sports.  Thankful for being able to sled in our yard.  

We're thankful for Lucha Libre snow masks.  Did I mention that it's been cold?

Of course, we're thankful for all our friends and our family.  We're thankful for modern technology like Skype and cell phones and Facebook and email that helps us keep in touch.  We're thankful for jet airplanes, too.  And trains. And ferries.

We're thankful to be healthy. We're thankful for warm fires on cold stormy days.  We're thankful to be living in Kodiak, Alaska.

We're thankful that there are two Montana football teams in the FCS playoffs, and thankful to have grown up in Missoula, Montana.  

We're thankful for our shiny brand new computer that doesn't take five minutes to click programs open.  It's not that we're unthankful for our old computer.  We're just more thankful about having replaced it.  

I'm personally thankful for all of the above, plus I'm thankful for 13 years of life partnership with my dear lupu.     (Lupu is short for life partner.)  We both have to confess to forgetting the Cat-Griz game last weekend.  (For us Montanans it's quite a big festivity.)  It snuck right up on us.  Our chance meeting in 1998 is what we celebrate as the starting point of our life adventure together, even though we simultaneously roamed the halls of Hellgate High from '88-'92.  It seems like just yesterday that I was trying to impress Genevieve with my remote starting red 4X4 van as we departed the SLC Port o' Call satellite party.  ("I swear, it usually works.") 

Having forgotten the big occasion, we decided to celebrate on Sunday.  Right after a short surfing mission.  In-town waves!  The surf mission was short.  Getting the car back up the hill was not.  After a couple hours of attempting to get back up the hill, I was approximately 100 feet further down the hill than when I started.  Of course, I was in my wetsuit this whole time.  And the blizzard was picking up.  A short wetsuit blizzard jog and a good samaratin phone call later, Genevieve arrived for a Monster Van full team Wilco rescue.  Tough Team Alert!  Tough Team Alert!  

Of course, the tow truck guy just laughed and said "No way!"  So, we were off to do it ourselves.  We bought some too small chains, the last pair in town, and headed out.  Two hours later, we'd moved it about 15 feet up the hill.  

We called it a night after learning an important lesson about leaving kiddos in a car with operable power windows.  Namely, don't.  Fortunately, we were close enough to prevent any decapitations.  But Paxson had locked the doors, so it was fairly scary.  We're glad it didn't turn out worse!  

Back to the car.  It wasn't hung up on anything, it's just that the road was solid ice.  The very slippery kind.  Eventually, with help from a lot of people over five days, we were able to get it out.  Some friends tried to help on Wednesday and wound up getting stuck for a couple of hours themselves!  We wound up using a 2 ton come-along to ratchet it up through the steep part.  And the final pull out was from a good Samaritan who was passing by on Thanksgiving morning.  Thank you, everyone!

 Pax and Stokes thought Genevieve would rather be a fisherman than a princess, so we had to give the fisherman some feminine touches to turn him into Genevieve.  Long flowing brown frosting hair and some cream cheese frosting augmentation.

I'm hoping I can make Genevieve's upcoming 38th birthday so awesome it will catapult me right out of the dog house.  The candle selection might hurt my chances.