Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

Thanksgiving triplog #20
Sunnyvale, CA · Sun, 29 Nov 2025. 7:30pm.

We're back home from our Thanksgiving travels. Though it's rolling up on 7:30 now we actually got home at 5:10pm. We stowed our bags and headed straight back out for dinner at La Fiesta, a favorite local Mexican restaurant.



The flight from BWI to SFO was mostly boring. It was on Southwest, so wouldn't you know it...



It was late. We departed 20 minutes late and arrived 20 minutes late. Aside from our general frustration (and resigned amusement) with Southwest's behind-as-usual operations it didn't matter much to us. We booked a nonstop flight specifically because it meant not having to worry about delays causing missed connections on this busiest air travel day year. And traveling earlier in the day— we left Hawk's parents' place at 8am to drive to the airport— meant, even with delays, we were home in time for dinner.

Thanksgiving triplog #17
Mechanicsburg, PA · Fri, 28 Nov 2025. 2pm.

After my plans to see my cousins fell through today I was at wits' end for what to do with myself. Staying around the house with my pokey inlaws is stultifying. So I knew I wanted to go out. But... to do what? Today is Black Friday, so going shopping would be on brand... except there's nothing I want to buy. And trolling around stores on this supposedly busiest day of the year seems like it would be more frustrating. (I'm skeptical about whether it's the busiest day of the year anymore, but that doesn't change the equation that shopping today is likely to be more frustrating than enjoyable.)

Hawk seemed to be looking for an excuse to get out the house, too, because when I suggested I might go out to eat for lunch, she agreed to join me. She agreed to join me for pizza, even. We found a well rated pizzeria a few miles away and headed there first.

Getting pizza in central Pennsylvania was a bit of culture shock. The shocker wasn't the pizza itself. It was east coast style pizza, which is exactly what I expected... though maybe a bit bland compared to what I expected. (Pizza with my mom and sister a few days ago in Virginia was way richer.) The shocker was the price. A lunch combo with two slices and a drink was $8 for cheese slices, $9 for pepperoni. And the slices were huge. That kind of meal back home would be literally twice the price.

After stuffing ourself on more pizza than we believed we could eat we considered again going shopping somewhere. Hawk did have a bead shop in mind, so we drove over to that in Mechanicsburg's quaint downtown area. The old fashioned stores there were empty, and street parking was easy. We considered shopping somewhere again after that but decided just to go home instead. We'd had enough of a break from the house.

Thanksgiving triplog #10
Manassas, VA · Tue, 25 Nov 2025. 9am.

Our plan for this Thanksgiving week trip, like the past several years, was to spend the first half of the week visiting my relatives plus some of Hawk's friends in the Washington, DC suburbs then spend the second half of the week with her parents in Pennsylvania. It has been tough trying to make plans to visit 3 of my nieces. We've been trying to arrange dates and times to visit since September. They've ghosted most of our contact attempts. One finally offered a non-committal idea then said (basically) "Sorry, something came up" in pulling back from it. Well, we've been here in the area for 3 days now with no further answers, despite us reaching out, gently, once a day. We're done trying.

Our plan was to stay here through tomorrow, then drive up to Pennsylvania on Wednesday. We figured we could leave early or late depending on Wednesday plans. But at this point we couldn't even line up Tuesday plans. So this morning we called  an audible. We'lre packing our bags now to leave a day early. We'll run one quick errand in town then hit the road to Pennsylvania. Hawk's parents are already really happy they'll get to see us a day early.

It's a sad extension of how I've already limited time visiting my own family the past two years. Now it pertains to more of my extended family. They're too busy living their lives to make time to see me when I try to visit. So after a reasonable try I move on. At least I have somewhere to go where people are excited to see me. It's bittersweet it's my inlaws instead of my own family.

Thanksgiving triplog #5
Manassas, VA · Sun, 23 Nov 2025. 11pm.

Today we visited my family in suburban Virginia outside of Washington, DC. Well, we visited part of my family. We visited my youngest sister, C., and my mom, who lives with her. And even there we only saw part of C's family as her husband and two of their kids are out of town at an academic convention and their oldest is at college and not arriving home for Thanksgiving break until late Tuesday night.

Past visits with my family have been... frustrating. C and her kids are a whirlwind of activity, and they've never paused any of that activity to see us when we visit. It's frustrating we visit once a year from 2,500 miles away it feels like they make no time for us. And it's not even like we're asking to be house guests. We have always stayed in a hotel and rented a car and simply tried to plan which days/times we can see them at their house.

Last year I made peace with this and settled on a short visit. I'd see them for just one day and whoever wasn't there, wasn't there.

I did the same again this year. Thus I only saw my mom, my sister C, and half of her family. I would've like to to see my brother-in-law and my other three nephews, too, but instead of feeling disappointed about who was too busy living their lives I focused on enjoying my time with those who were there.

With expectations set appropriately Hawk and I had a great time. We spent the day with my sister and mom. Two of her kids were in and out with fretting about homework and other stuff. For example, one happily joined us in going out for lunch, but the other preferred to stay home to work on his paper for government class (he's a HS senior). But really, what kind of 17yo is like, "I don't want to see my uncle and aunt who visit just once a year and I also don't want pizza for lunch"? When we were able to catch them standing still— and not hiding in their rooms— I was able to engage them in conversation about what they're working on now and what they're looking forward to next. I even got the shy HS senior to talk about which college he's applied to is his #1 choice— his mom interrupted, "That's news to me!"— and what degree he expects to pursue if he goes there.

It wound up being a surprisingly late evening as we stayed until just after 10. I thought things might fizzle out a few hours earlier than that, either because they were all busy or because we'd be tired. But after having such a tiring day yesterday (so tiring that I slept in a car in a parking lot in the middle of the day) I'd gotten good sleep last night to feel 100% today. Plus we were all having such a good time with a rollicking conversation and lots of verbal repartee Alas, I did get up at 6:15am this morning, so by 10pm I was feeling we should leave so I could drive back to the hotel safely. We called it an evening and left on a high note.

Thanksgiving triplog #1
SFO airport · Fri, 21 Nov 2025. 8:30pm.

Tonight we're headed east for Thanksgiving; to Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania to visit friends and relatives over the coming week. We're at SFO already, awaiting our 9:25pm departure to BWI. Yes, it's a red-eye... and a red-eye was actually our first choice. Partly that's because when flying west to east it's a matter of losing most of a day traveling or having a rough night getting little sleep on a red-eye. We chose losing a night over losing a day. And partly it's because this flight is on Southwest, where I have the Companion Pass that makes flying together cheaper.

And yes, Southwest flies red-eyes now! They started that in the last year or two. It took decades because they literally had to upgrade all their IT to be able to handle the clocks flipping from 23:59 to 00:00 in the middle of a flight. It's like the Y2K problem but it's the D2 (Day 2) problem. 🤣 Oh, but despite upgrading their IT from the 1980s to maybe the 1990s they've still got...



...The problem of delays snowballing across the day because they continue to plan their schedules hopelessly optimistically like the past 20 years of commercial aviation in the US haven't actually happened.

Fortunately it's just a small delay (so far) and we really don't care this trip. We purposefully booked a nonstop, even as a red-eye, to avoid problems with missing a connection due to delays. And with this red-eye we're scheduled to land at 5:30am. If the flight were even 2 hours late we wouldn't care— except for how long we'd be sitting, bored, in the gate area struggling not to fall asleep before the boarding call!

Well, one thing that worked well this evening was a scheduled ride with Uber. I've been leery of using scheduled rides since a colleague of mine booked one for an early morning airport departure and the driver was late then canceled. He barely made it to the airport on time. But this time the driver was actually early and waited patiently outside.

Has this ever happened to you? You set out to book a trip somewhere, and in the process you end up booking a totally different trip somewhere else? And the first trip still isn't planned? It happened to me today. 😂

One of my goals for today has been to book our trip to Club. Club? Yes, President's Club, the annual incentive award for top sellers in many organizations. I won a trip to Club again this year, for the third year in a row. And this year Club is in Sardinia, Italy. I'm excited about that because it breaks the pattern across the past 7+ years where my company has held Club in the Caribbean or Mexico. We've been to those places on our own, and they're closer to home, too, so they seem less special than Italy.

So, we're trying to pick our flights to Italy. The trip's in late May. And I've got to get this done by tomorrow— which, for me, means today, because I'm taking the day off from work tomorrow. Except while researching flight options it struck me, "Hmm, I should start looking at Thanksgiving travel plans to visit family."

At first, looking at Thanksgiving travel to the East Coast seemed like a short tangent... then I went down the rabbit hole on it. Good news? We've got flights booked, and they're at convenient times and much better prices than I expected. Bad news? Those are our Thanksgiving flights. Italy in May, booking deadline tomorrow, is still TBD!

Thanksgiving '24 Travelog #13
Outside Harrisburg, PA - Sat, 30 Nov 2024, 11pm

Thanksgiving is a four-day holiday weekend for a lot of us in the US, but Thanksgiving itself it only one day. What do you do with the other days? One emerging tradition seems to be friendsgiving. It's meant to be a friends-oriented alternative to Thanksgiving That doesn't entirely make sense IMO because Thanksgiving isn't Thanks-but-only-for-nuclear-family-giving. I mean, Thanksgiving can be about giving thanks with whomever you like.

My inlaws take a different approach to filling Thanksgiving weekends with activities. They celebrate Thanksgiving twice. MIL and one of her best friends both love to cook and host for holidays, so they've agreed to take turns with Thanksgiving. But the way they "take turns" is to celebrate it twice in one weekend! Auntie Lynn hosts and cooks on Thursday, then MIL cooks and hosts on Friday or Saturday. This year again it was Saturday. It was kind of nice to have a day off in between big meal focused holidays.

Second Thanksgiving this evening was more relaxed than Thanksgiving a few nights ago. For one, there were fewer people; 10 adults, 1 child, and 1 dog. The dog was well behaved and didn't tip anything over or kick people as a joke. Dinner was early, about 4:30, which made the evening feel late when it wasn't. When the plates were cleared and some people were already talking about having to go home early it was only 6:30pm.

It was just as well all the guests left early. It gave the last four of us (Hawk, her parents, and me) time to wind down together. Unfortunately conversation devolved to the usual three topics, of which only one— politics, actually— I bother to engage in. (The other two are Car Maintenance and Health Problems That Have Worsened Since Last Time You Were Here.) I even tried to change the conversation away from politics when someone who dislikes it entered the room. I picked what should have been a safe and fun topic.... "Hey, I remember you were taking a lot of cruises a few years ago... what are your next vacation plans?" That question was given a brief answer before the person who hates talking politics switched the topic back to politics. 🤦

Thanksgiving '24 Travelog #11
Outside Harrisburg, PA - Thu, 28 Nov 2024, 11pm

This evening we enjoyed a big, traditional Thanksgiving dinner. Hawk, her parents, and I went over to the house of family friends Dean and Lynne. That's been a tradition among my inlaws for probably 40 years. Lynne cooks Thanksgiving dinner at their house, and my mother-in-law cooks Second Thanksgiving dinner at her house. Yes, it's like living with Hobbits. 🤣 Though Second Thanksgiving is a day or two later, not later in the same day.

Joining my inlaws and their friends for Thanksgiving is a satisfying tradition but it hasn't always been our tradition. When Hawk and I started our new lives together in California years ago we were far away from almost all of our relatives. That was both a good thing and bad thing. Good, because we wanted to start fresh and didn't care to be beholden to other people and their expectations for us. But also bad, because the distance made it hard to see family.

Sure, flying cross country was always possible. Today we do it frequently. But back then it was expensive compared to our budget, Plus, time off from work was tight. With so many other places in the world we wanted to go with our limited time and money, so we did it only once every few years. Instead our Thanksgiving tradition was to use the four-day weekend to go hiking. As recently as 2018 we spent our Thanksgiving going hiking in California— or maybe planet Vulcan— at Vasquez Rocks and Devil's Punchbowl.

But this year we stuck to the traditional tradition of Thanksgiving with family and friends. We even had my oldest sister, her husband, and their daughter join us. They recently moved back to the east coast and— warning: long story short— didn't fit in with any other relatives' plans for the day. So Hawk checked with Lynne and Dean and her parents, and invitations were extended. There's always room at the table in these houses.

Thanksgiving Travelog #15
Back Home - Sun, 26 Nov 2023. 10pm.

Whew. We're finally home after 9 days on the road visiting friends and relatives on the east coast for thanksgiving. Even just today has been a long day.

We were up at 8am Eastern Time (slept in a bit because it still is a weekend 😅) to pack, eat, and say goodbyes, then off to the airport. Our first flight was delayed, ultimately by 45 minutes, which was frustrating mostly because it meant we had to dash to catch our connection in Nashville. The connecting flight wound up leaving a bit late anyway (🙄) but at least it arrived on time. On arrival at SJC I was able to summon an Uber quickly so we got home before 9:30pm. Of course that feels like 12:30am Eastern.

By 10pm we were unpacked and starting to wind down for the night. It's time to rest up and get back to the usual grind, right? Wrong! I'm only going to be home for 12 hours before I have to head back to the airport. Tomorrow I'm flying to Las Vegas to staff my company's presence at the AWS re:Invent trade show Monday-Thursday. Which means tonight I'm doing a load of laundry (for convenience, not necessity) and gently prepping a few things for tomorrow. At the least the flight is not first thing in the morning!

Thanksgiving Travelog #13
Camp Hill, PA - Sat, 25 Nov 2023. 9pm.

This evening we had Second Thanksgiving. As I explained a few days ago— on first Thanksgiving— it's how my inlaws and their close friends celebrate major holidays. They both like to cook and entertain, so they take turns... on consecutive days for each! Though this time the days weren't quite consecutive; we had Friday off in between them. Why a day off? I think it's because for the family friends today was actually their Third Thanksgiving. As their kids have grown and started families of their own, they have even more holiday dinners to attend now. 😅

Tonight's gathering was smaller than Thursdays. The family friends came over by themselves. Their kids and grandkids were off on other things already. With Hawk and I and her brother as the other guests (all three of us have been staying at the house this weekend) we were a comfortable total of 7.

Dinner didn't seem huge, in the sense that bowls and platters didn't cover the table, but it was more than enough for the 7 of us. The main dishes were two kinds of meat: braised short ribs and smoked short ribs. Notice there was no turkey. Hawk doesn't care for it, nor do her brother or dad, I think. So we had an all-beef Second Thanksgiving. Ironically, though, Hawk didn't eat any of the meat tonight. "I've opted to eat a plant-based meal tonight," she noted. "That means vegetarian," she explained with a chuckle for the many gray-hairs at the table.

Her brother beat me to the obvious chiding rejoinder. "If you think about it at a high enough level," he quipped, "All meat is plant-based food."

"That's right," I joined in. "The cow has already gathered up all the plants for you, saving you effort, and turned them into taaasty beef!"

Humor aside, skipping the meat dishes is a choice she made during this one meal for health reasons. Traveling this past week has made it harder to stick to a healthy diet, and the fact it's an eating-oriented holiday makes it even tougher.