What we did instead of flying to Nepal

By the time we woke this morning, the hilarity of the situation had completely worn off.  Grumpy disappointment had set in.  Not much talking was going on, and I’m sure Gideon and I both were mentally going over who was to blame for last night’s blunder.  I quickly realized blame was futile—there was nothing to do but try to enjoy the day and try to be thankful that we weren’t folded like pretzels in airplane seats at the moment… that will come soon enough, and we’ll have endless hours to endure.

By late morning, we headed out for the day.  Stop one was the coffee bar for me.  I got my cup of Joe, and jumped back in the truck (Brian’s truck, which we were borrowing for the day), fully expecting Gideon to have come up with a plan and to whisk me off on a fun adventure.  He obviously had expected that I would come up with an exciting idea of how to spend the day.  We sat in the parking lot mumbling under our breaths at each other for a few minutes, trying to make the other do the thinking.  Finally, we stopped our pouting long enough to decide to head to Muir Woods, just a twenty minute drive toward the coast.  Off we went.

The grumpy twins stumbled about in the woods trying to resist the calming effect of Nature.  I succumbed, and started enjoying myself, marveling at the mighty Coast Redwoods and the small delights of the forest as well.

 

  

  

 

Gideon took a bit longer to thaw out.  A visit to Muir Beach did the trick for him; water tends to have that effect on him.  We watched surfers riding the winter waves, the little kids dodging the flowing surf at their toes, and the dogs running willy-nilly on one of the only leash-free beaches in the area.

A ranger on the beach informed us that there was a tsunami watch in effect for the area due to the recent earthquake in Chile.  That was enough motivation for me to beat it to the Muir overlook in the hills above the beach.  Despite having my rather dressy traveling shoes on, I hoofed it up to the top without stopping.  There I could enjoy the view without stressing about a rogue wave (which never came, by the way).

We ended up having a lovely day.  The fresh air and exercise will be sorely missed during our 32 hours of travel to Kathmandu, but we got out there today and took advantage of it while we could.

Tonight we head back to the airport for another go of it.  Now, let me go recheck the flight information one more time…