Thinking about Alaska but Likely it'll just be Seattle

Grand Cayman Travelog #18
Back at the Westin - Thu, 18 May 2023, 5pm

We often plan future trips when we're on a trip. Partly it's because we're in a traveling mindset while we're traveling, partly it's because being on a trip reduces by one the number of future travel plans we're juggling, open room in our priorities for planning something else.

On this trip in the Cayman Islands this past week we were discussing where to go in July. At the start of the year I'd penciled in a week-long trip to Alaska. As we've done nothing further to plan it since then, it's probably not happening. But maybe we could do a simpler, 4 day trip instead of a full week? And do it later than the holiday to find better availability? Yes, we're at a tropical beach and we're talking about Alaska.

Less than an hour ago my goal of visiting Alaska this summer became even less likely. That's because an email arrived from the King County prosecutors in Seattle that they're going back to trial with the defendant from that car crash 4.5 years ago. Yes, going back to trial because the previous trial ended in a hung jury.

The new trial starts June 12. I estimate that means we'll be needed either the end of that week or early the next. So it looks like our Juneteenth vacation will be, if we're lucky, staying a few extra days in Seattle.

Chicks Gone Wild - Grand Cayman

Grand Cayman Travelog #19
Out for dinner - Thu, 18 May 2023, 8pm

Something I've noticed on a number of tropical islands is wild chickens. On some islands it's just a few, on others it's overwhelming. For example, chickens are seemingly everywhere on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. Grand Cayman has... sort of a medium?... number of wild chickens running around. We can hear at least one rooster from our room. Occasionally we see a few in the grass near the parking lot. Chickens are more prevalent elsewhere around the island. For example, when we visited Hell today we saw a cluster outside the post office:

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Link: view video on YouTube

Yesterday one of our tour guides explained to us that the wild chickens problem on Grand Cayman traces back to Hurricane Ivan, in 2004. While people reinforced their houses as best they could for the storm, things like chicken coops were not protected. The hurricane blew them all over. The freed chickens quickly went wild. Nobody claimed them, and now they're just pests.

The guide says the government considered a bounty on wild chickens. It wasn't without precedent; they did have a bounty on green iguanas, which were preying on the island's native blue iguanas. But the iguana bounty wound up being costly as locals quickly turned in way more iguanas than the government figured.

I'm thinking about the wild chicken problem again tonight because we have one dining with us. We're sitting outside a restaurant, and one's here waddling around our table, waiting like a dog for us to drop some food. She's even cooing softly to ingratiate herself to us. Shooing her away with our feet does nothing more than elicit a few squawks of protest before she's back to begging for scraps from us.

Oh, the guide also said that locals can be fined for feeding wild chickens. Tourists are exempt, she said. But we're not going to feed this damn pest. I hope she hangs out here at the restaurant until someone orders chicken nuggets. 🐓🪓🍗

17 Hours Later, Back at the Airport Again

Vegas in May Travelog #1
31,000' over the desert - Sun, 21 May 2023, 5:30pm

When we got home from our Cayman Islands trip last night I knew I'd be leaving again in 17 hours. Sunday afternoon I'm headed off to Las Vegas for 3 days at a business conference.

I made good use of my 17 hours at home. I got a fair night's sleep and still got up early. I made the morning productive but in a low key way. Hawk and I had some quiet time together. Afterwards we both caught up on various small odds-and-ends around the house that had been left for a week. Because we were up early we finished everything in time for an early lunch. We went out to a favorite casual restaurant and enjoyed lunch on the patio. It's sunny and pleasantly warm today in Sunnyvale. After lunch we made a few quick shopping stops on the way home.

Before we got home I got the dreaded news I at least half expected....



My Southwest flight was delayed. The delay was about an hour. I used that extra time to take things a bit more slowly in the afternoon. Back at the house I opened my work computer for a while to get caught up on anything I need to know for this trip. Then I packed my suitcase.

Packing was quick because I planned ahead at the start of my last trip a week ago so that I wouldn't need to do any laundry. I could just dump the suitcase and refill with clothes from the closet. I still washed a load of laundry this morning because why wait.

Finally I called a car for the airport. I left 30 minutes later than my original plan, as my flight was delayed 55 minutes. At the airport, though, I figured Why wait? There are multiple flights per day SJC-LAS on Southwest. Schedule flexibility is one of the reasons I travel with them.

It turns out all of the Southwest flights SJC-LAS are delayed this afternoon. But I found an earlier flight delayed until about the originally scheduled departure time of the flight I booked, and switched to it. One of the benefits of my elite status is doing same-day change like that.

Now, changing flights on Southwest does mean losing my boarding order. My A16 on my original flight became C27 on the new flight. Yikes! Of course, another benefit of my elite status is that if I don't get an "A" boarding pass I can board after all the other As. Effectively I never have worse than about A61. But A61 wasn't good enough. I paid $30 to upgrade to A13. Why? One, because it gives me a better shot at a plum exit row seat. Two, because my Southwest credit card credits me for up to 4 buy-ups per year. I rarely get worse than about A23 because of my elite status, so I'm willing to spend one of my four annual coupons in cases like this.

One Hour in Vegas Reminds Me Why I Hate Vegas

Vegas in May Travelog #2
Caesars Palace - Sun, 21 May 2023, 8:30pm

An hour in Las Vegas today was enough to remind me why I hate Las Vegas. After 90 minutes I was seething.

For one, Vegas is too crowded nowadays. The airport is running beyond capacity. Mid-afternoon flights were all delayed because the airport just can't handle them. Why do they even allow airlines to schedule flights that can't be accommodated? And the layout of the airport, with slot machines lining all the aisles, does no favors to busy travelers trying to get from Point A to Point B.

The overcrowding extends to the Strip. It's overbuilt. It's overbuilt and the casino chains are building more. Traffic is ridiculous. There are jams everywhere. Every major casino is surrounded by gridlock.

Caesars [sic] Palace is easily the worst designed casino I've stayed in. It's beautiful but terribly designed. The passenger drop-off point is at the very furthest end of the casino complex from where the hotel registration desk is. Yes, I know it's a thing in casino design to make sure guests have to walk past slots and table games en route to their rooms, but this takes it to an absurdist extent. I had to walk through several gambling halls and past at least a dozen restaurants just to get from the door to the registration desk.

Then the registration desk was a mess. I joined a queue with 50 people in front of me. Yes, I counted them. Engineer. There were 5 staffers working the desks. And each check-in transaction was slooow.

When it was my turn to check in, after literally 30 minutes of waiting in line — yes, I timed it. Engineer— my transaction took forever, too. First one agent took my ID and typed, I swear, hundreds of keystrokes. I don't know what she was writing. She then swapped with another agent, who only then started to enter actual information from my ID, like my address and phone number. That agent told me I reserved a pool-view room and that she would give me a slight upgrade. She then swapped with the first agent again, who finished the transaction unceremoniously.

When I got to my room I found it was actually a downgrade. It's not a bigger room, and it has a view of the parking garage and the freeway.

I called downstairs to complain about the bait-and-switch. "Just come to the front desk and we'll see what other room we can find you," the operator promised sweetly.

BULLSHIT! I decided I was NOT going to deal with that mammoth line again just to "see" if maybe they could move me to the room I reserved and not lie about it again.

I decided I was done for the evening. I decided I just wanted dinner. I had expected to get dinner at 7, but here it was almost 8 already. I went downstairs to eat at the food court, figuring I'd pay casino prices to minimize the time spent getting dinner. First, tons of walking, not even leaving the casino. Second, crazy prices. Pizza was $10 a slice. TEN DOLLARS. One slice of pizza and a beer set me back $28. At least it was a kind of big slice.

Edit: Oh, and it's all Pepsi here. Every soda everywhere in the whole Caesars Palace is Pepsi. What a fucking nightmare. I walked half an hour out and back to a CVS to buy a 6-pack of Coke Zero to keep in my room.