Friday, June 15, 2012

For 2012 we decided to come to Southeast Asia. There were a couple reasons for this. First, we wanted to go to Borneo before man destroyed too much more of it - we wanted to see it as pristinely as possible. Second, Angkor Wat was very high on both of our respective "to-do" lists. Third, there were a number of places close to Borneo and Angkor Wat that we were interested in, places that we had thought of going on our 2005 trip to Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand.

But before meandering around Southeast Asia, we had to get from San Diego to Los Angeles. Because our flight was scheduled for so late in the night (technically early in the morning), we were able to work full work days so that Crystal didn't need to take an extra half day of vacation. We left work a little before 4pm, and fortunately we had the option of getting home via the 56 and 15 instead of heading up the coast. There were tons of cars on the other side of the freeway, but we were able to drive relatively full speed.

When we got home, we finished up some last minute tasks (changing sheets, watering plants, etc.) while trying not to alert the dogs to what was going on. Suge, Meth and Cabo were acting normally, but Debo was really excited, bouncing around everyehere. We weren't sure whether he was excited because it was Friday (the dogs seem to know the days of the week), or because he knew we were leaving and he was excited the dogsitter was coming. As always, we hoped they would be fine when we returned.

The drive up to LAX was nearly traffic-free, but other side of the 405 was a mess. It took just under two hours from our house to Marina Del Rey, where we met up with our friend Mike (and parked our car for free, thanks to Mike). We had dinner with Mike and Adrienne at a place called Wurstkuche, which serves sausages and beer. This night, it also served incredibly loud music straight to our eardrums. The DJ was having a great time, he was really into his beats - but he was totally oblivious that no one else was enjoying the music, and indeed couldn't even talk. We had a hard time hearing Mike, which is truly saying something. We got some drinks at the Whaler in Venice, and then headed to the airport.

At the Tom Bradley International Terminal, Pink's Hot Dogs foiled us yet again. In 2009, we saw Pink's was set to open, but it wasn't open yet. In 2010, with our palette's whetted, we arrived to find out it was behind schedule and had not opened. In 2011, it was open, but our flight was actually not out of the Tom Bradley terminal. This year, it was closed. We got to the terminal just after 11, and it had closed at 11. As a Cubs fan would say, maybe next year. The terminal was a little less crowded than we were used to, perhaps because of the later flight time. We finished up a game with Words With Friends and waited to board.