Our house guests graciously agreed to drop us off at LAX which made the trip to the airport much simpler. This was key since we realized just this morning that we booked our LAX to Heathrow flight on points and our Heathrow to Brussels flights separately on a different airline meaning we didn't actually have time to retrieve our bags from Virgin Atlantic, go through customs, then re-check them on Brussels Air in our 75 minute lay-over. So – a flight to Euro...

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Aili's conference starts today and she and Gisela (our traveling companion once again) are doomed to a day of PowerPoint so I searched for the 'accompanying persons’ tour. Failing to find them, I walked across the street to the beach and around a small mangrove outcropping then up the coast to the Sun Coast Casino. It was only 8:30 in the morning and was pretty dead. Looks like this place has seen its prime about 15-20 years ago – perhaps it’s j...

It was "Carmageddon" weekend in Los Angeles when we were due to fly out – they were closing the 405 freeway over the Sepulveda Pass all for two straight days to do construction. Fear was rampant so we left an extra two hours early for the airport. Turns out it was the best traffic ever and we made it to LAX in record time! We even had time for a leisurely dinner at Encounters, the iconic “Space Age” restaurant in the middle of LAX. That all ju...

Aili's conference was today so I booked a trip to Tallinn, Estonia for the day. It’s only a 1 ½ hour trip on the fast ferry – a big speedboat looking hydrofoil. Arriving across the Baltic Sea, you don’t get much of a first impression of the city – the ferry dock is an industrial looking concrete slab and sits next to a defunct coal fired power plant. But just down the access road and across a major thoroughfare, you see the main gate ...