Category: travel

November 16th/17th, 2025

A Long Journey to Start a Journey

This will likely be a long, rambling post, and probably one of the strangest I’ve done, as it describes a very crazy couple of days of travel, starting early Sunday morning, and ending Tuesday evening when I finally posted this to the blog.  During this period, I was on three separate flights, waited for hours in three airports, commuted to and from airports and hotels via bus, and eventually wound up on the boat that will take me to Antarctica. With another boat ride around the Ushaila harbor (bird-watching) before that. Some of the post is written in first person narrative form, others in past tense – a lot of it was written at airports or on airplanes, and for the most part, when I was semi-delirious from sleep depredation. 

So here goes.

It all started on Sunday when I was sitting around at the Sacramento airport, with about 3 hours to kill, because I followed the latest guidelines on getting to the airport 3 hours ahead of your flight. I should know better by now. I woke up at 4:10AM so I could call for an Uber around 5:45, to get to the airport a bit after 6AM. Why I needed 3 hours at SMF is a good question. It is never that crowded on a non-holiday Sunday morning. I waltzed through check-in and security, plopped myself down in a comfortable seat with a charger, looked at my watch…it was not even 7AM. Crap. The flight boards at 8:40. A long time with not much to do. So, I decided to expound upon travel for the fun of it.

And then I made it to LAX with another 2.5 hours to kill. More time to write. And once on the plane, there were no movies worth watching on this comfortable, first class flight to Chile. So back to writing until the food and wine was served. Just seven hours to go….back to writing. I can never sleep on long flights so I figured I’d just crash at the Ritz Carleton when we get to Santiago. But, the rooms may not be ready until 3PM and the flight lands at 6:30. This is way too much fun. I feel like a zombie.

And then they tell us on the bus ride to the hotel,  that we have to wake up on Tuesday morning at 4AM to catch the 7:30 flight to Ushuaia. It’s Groundhog Day all over again.

I’m going to have major jet lag for a day or two. I may sleep through the Drake Passage once we get on the ship.

Air Travel

So that’s how it all started. I’ll switch gears now and complain about travel for a bit. Like I said, this is a weird post.  

World travel is both exciting and exhausting. Actually, that applies to domestic travel as well. Back in my consulting and working days, I used to enjoy my weekly journeys across the country, and occasional forays to Europe or Australia. There was something exciting about being a road warrior. Yes, it was a grind when flights were delayed or cancelled, but with someone else footing the bill, I spent my idle time at airline clubs. And then there were all the free flights and upgrades you get by acquiring massive amounts of frequent flyer miles. Jan and I made good use of that perk through the years.

Once I settled into a real job (Google), I was glad to be out of the travel grind, and appreciated the infrequent trips to NYC, Ireland and London. Once you stop traveling weekly, you get used to being home, and not having to haul your butt off to the airport at OhDarkThirty every week. It does take a toll on your body, mind and marriage. 

Now that I’m the TravelingWidower.Com, I’m back into that grind again albeit not on a weekly basis. Thinking back this past year, I’ve logged a lot of miles on the road and in the air. And even though I fly first class, I’d have to say that air travel in general sucks, maybe a lot more than when I was consulting. Domestic travel isn’t too bad, especially if you have direct flights. 

Except for:

Inebriated Seat Mates – I’m used to having Jan next to me on non-business flights, someone to talk to, or lean against. Strangers don’t appreciate having your head leaning on their shoulder (a John Candy moment). During my consulting days, you could almost guarantee sitting next to another business traveler. Now it’s a crap-shoot on who you sit next to. I’ve had good luck for the most part – sharing photos with another photographer on the flight back from Juneau, or comparing notes on grief with a widow on the flight from Loreto to LAX. But then there was the drunk on the flight from Seattle to SMF – that was an exciting experience when the flight attendant had to threaten to remove her. And another drunk on a flight from Denver, who wanted to talk politics, and then offered to set me up with her sister. No thanks. 

Screaming First Class Children – Something I enjoyed on the flight to LAX. In stereo. One in front, two in behind. Let’s hear it for sound dampening headphones. And for parents that try their best, which they did.

Lengthy in-betweens – the problem with flying to pretty much anywhere outside of the US, is switching planes, especially since my starting point is not a major airport (SMF). There just aren’t a lot of direct flights overseas in any direction. Unlike major hubs (Denver, LAX, SFO), there are not a lot of direct flights to a lot of domestic destinations either from Sacramento, so scheduling flights will usually require a few hours between flights. Unfortunately, some of those gaps can be extensive. My flight back from Guayaquille Ecuador had a 9 hour layover in Miami. I was lucky to have flown first class, which gained me entry to the American lounge. If nothing else, it gives me time to work on my blog. And it beats the even worse alternative, which would be to have barely enough time to make the next flight. 

The Battle for Overhead Storage – In this new exciting life of mine, photography is a focus of all my trips. Depending on where I’m going, I may be carrying about 20lbs of camera gear, in one of the many camera bags I’ve purchased this past year <reference to that post>. Good news…I’m down to four. Flying first or business class does not always guarantee space for my pack, which is why I always get in line early – checking my camera bag is not an option, with $15K worth of gear. Waiting in line early used to drive Jan crazy. It’s a leftover from my consulting days, where I rarely flew first class, and had to battle all the other traveling business people who were trying to find space for luggage and their laptop case. I’m glad those days are over. Now you just have passengers with oversized luggage that

 barely fits in the overhead, along with other “personal items” which they also jam into the overhead. Flight attendants cannot watch everything, so they frequently miss it when coach passengers stash their luggage in the first class section as they pass through. Boogers.

I cannot complain (yes..that does happen once in a while) about my international flights so far. Even the smaller planes from Mexico had comfortable seating and excellent service. The longer flights to/from Ecuador and Chile (so far) were a pleasure – good food (and drinks), and comfortable enough seating to get some sleep. The Latam flight to Santiago was marvelous – it’s been a while since I’ve had a sleep pod. Even if I don’t sleep (I never seem to anymore), it’s nice to have your own little cubicle, and be able to completely stretch out. The good life.

And now for the other part of air travel to complain about  – airports. I’m sure most readers who travel a lot have their own lists of favorite and hated airports. I’ve done a fair amount of travel through the years, and based on my recent adventures, here’s my thoughts on a couple of airports.

LAX – I wrote most of this part of the post whilst sitting in the international terminal, so it is sort of a live stream on my views of this place. Summary: Huge beyond belief, crowded beyond belief, and difficult to traverse. But very clean with lots of good eateries. 

I’ve passed through LAX quite a few times in the past – some of our Australia trips, and our cruise from Tahiti->Fiji started from LAX. The airport is huge and a bit overwhelming when you first get off the plane from a domestic flight, and have to find the international terminal. On this trip, the flight from SMF Ianded in Terminal 2, and had a .8 mile hike through a winding corridor, to get to the international terminal. It was reminiscent of my recent experience at Denver’s DIA. But without the big skulls for Dias Los Muertes. The signage for gates is good once you get closer to the terminal hubs. I had to ask once to get started, and then found the signage to be well placed along the way. The international terminal is huge, filled with lots of restaurants and duty free shops. A mass of humanity every time I’ve been there. My main complaint – most of the seating has outlets, but most of them don’t work. You have to hunt for the ones that have a little green light on the circuit breaker test switches. 

Arriving from international flights at LAX has always been a challenge in my opinion. The most recent experience, from Loreto Mexico, was another very long hike to get to baggage, and then endless lines to get through customs. I’ve never seen customs anywhere else that packed. Once I was thru customs, it was difficult (almost impossible) to find the correct drop off for my luggage, and then wound up walking miles trying to find the gate for my flight back to SMF. It made for a very long and frustrating evening. A bad ending to a very nice trip. Unfortunately, LAX is the main hub for heading West across the Pacific, and for South America as well when you live in California. I wish SFO (San Francisco) was the hub – I like that airport a lot.

SMF – For a moderate sized city, I think the Sacramento airport is really nice. It helps that it is a small market, so it’s never overly crowded (at least while I’ve passed through). There are two terminals, both of which are modern with just enough eateries to while away the time. Both terminals are compact enough to avoid long walks. It’s not exactly a place I want to hang around for a long time, but it is a good starting and ending point for my trips. And how many airports have a giant, red rabbit in the lobby?

DIA – I was lucky enough to live in Denver during the construction of DIA, and they really did need it. Stapleton was a lot like the Sacramento airport – convenient, but small, too small for a rapidly growing city. My introduction to the new airport was rather unique – I left on a business trip from Stapleton, and landed on Friday at DIA. Obviously I did not leave my car at the airport. My saintly wife dropped me off and picked me up, a challenge for both of us. 

I actually like DIA, although the never ending reconstruction of the main terminal confuses the heck out of most everyone. I dislike the train that takes you out to the far concourses, but it’s a short ride, and a great opportunity for acquiring a cold, COVID or the flu in the packed cars. Security is a mess right now, but once the construction is completed, it would have to improve. 

I do like the exhibits they hide around the terminals – the Day of the Dead skulls was a shock late in the evening, but made sense once you read the descriptions, and there are other exhibits scattered about as well. As I recall, one of the terminals has invertebrate fossils embedded in the floor (replica’s, not real ones). It’s a nice place to wander around – once the construction is completed. 

And DIA has one up on the SMF red rabbit. Bluecifer! The giant statue of a blue stallion, with eyes that light up blazing red at night. Nobody really understands what it represents – it’s not exactly inviting as you enter the airport. It also has a very unpleasant history – the artist who created the statue was killed while building it, when a section broke off and fell on him. Maybe nobody wants to touch it again.

Automobile Travel

This has nothing to do with my current trip but it just sort of flowed out from my fingers as I sat on the plane. 

I have put a couple of thousand miles on my Subaru since Jan passed3034246097 and made the decision to embrace traveling. I’ve always enjoyed car trips – our “honeymoon” (note the quotes – we were visiting locations most of the way for Jan’s thesis) was an attempt to make it from Chicago to San Francisco, driving my in-laws big Chevy Impala. We had intended to camp along the way, and made it as far as Fruita, Colorado where sanity prevailed and we returned home via Kansas City. We never did camp. Smart. Once we moved to Denver, we made regular car trips to Chicago, with Clancy,  our goofy Irish Setter sleeping in back of the truck (not on the roof AKA Mitt Romney), and then later on, Christmas moved to Kansas City so we traveled back and forth quite a few times. In the winter. Driving through the Eastern plains of Colorado and Kansas in the snow is such a joy.

And then there was our obsession with moving. Over the years, we drove at least one car from Chicago -> Denver, Denver -> Richmond VA (twice), Richmond -> Denver, Denver->San Jose, San Jose -> Denver (repeat that sequence), Campbell -> Sacramento, Sacramento -> Denver, Denver -> Sacramento. You get the picture. We did a lot of travel together. I did all the driving, once I discovered that Jan suffered from narcolepsy when she drove on the highway for more than one or two miles. She became my trusty co-pilot, rarely dozing off, giving me a neck rub (or a poke in the ribs) to keep me focused on driving. I really enjoyed (and miss) our trips. 

Now of course, I drive alone and it is mostly just the chore of getting to whatever adventure I have planned. With Jan, I was usually able to do a long haul, upwards of 12 hours. Now, my limit is about 6 hours before I get too tired and cranky. I’ve made it to LA and back a few times, but that is about the limit for long distance driving. The Road Scholars trip was a lot of driving, but mostly shorter hops between places like St. George Utah to Kanab Utah, or Kanab to Las Vegas. My last car trip was insane, where I drove 4 hours, both ways, from Bakersfield to the Middle-of-Nowhere with a really exciting drive on a mountain pass at night. I am not doing that again.

I had once thought about doing a cross country trip via car, but I’ve dropped that particular fantasy – it’s just no fun driving that kind of distance by myself. I will be doing a number of domestic car trips in the next year or two, but I’ll limit the distance on any particular leg of the trip, and find nice hotels to stay at. My next big car trip will be to San Diego for the Baja Jones adventure. I’ll probably do a short trip to a hotel I like in Santa Nella (yeah, really…Anderson’s Pea Soup rocks), then stay in LA before heading to San Diego. What the heck – I’ve got lots of time on my hands (there’s that Styx song again). I may even invest in a camper top for my Subaru – there is a really cool tent attachment for the roof. There are a few places in Northern California I want to hit next summer, which are not close to any decent hotels. Camping might be fun. Or not. 

Buses

This post is sort of like the John Candy/Steve Martin movie, ‘Planes, Trains and Automobiles’, but without the trains. They also did a bus segment as well in that film. So far, I’ve only done one trip which involved a bus – the Road Scholars trip to the Utah national parks. I really enjoyed that – they used a luxury bus with lots of leg room, super comfortable ride, and best of all, a bathroom. Always nice to have. There have been short bus rides on all the National Geographic/Lindblad trips, but those were only for shuttling from airports to the hotel, airport or ship. Not a big deal. It’s sort of like being in day camp. On this trip, with 130 passengers, we needed 4 buses to shuttle everyone around so far, and we had our own charter aircraft to get to Ushuaia (which I’m on while I write this). It’s kind of fun since you don’t have to fight for carry-on space, and everyone is friendly to each other. I wish all flights were like this.

All of the land-based Natural Habitat/World Wildlife Federation trips will involve bus travel, as will the Natural Geographic Iceland trip I have scheduled next June. The groups for these trips are pretty small, so I’m hoping they will be using similar type buses….with bathrooms. I’d hate to ask the driver to pull over for a pit stop – way too embarrassing, and potentially dangerous in some places.

Ships

Jan and I were never much into the cruise vacation concept – too many people, mostly focusing on eating, drinking and partying. Neither of us gambled, we did not really care for shows, so paying to stay for a week on a floating hotel with 1000+ guests just did not seem like a lot of fun for us. We did go on one cruise – a Paul Gauguin trip in the South Pacific between Tahiti and Fiji, with lots of stops in between on small islands. The ship was relatively small, 300 guests, but no kids, no play areas, no dance floor – just a small casino area and a small theater. The key for this trip were the activities – snorkeling and diving. We managed to get wet at every stop so for us, it was almost like a National Geographic expedition cruise.

Since Jan passed, I have been on three separate NatGeo/LIndblad expeditions. The first was to the Galápagos Islands on the Endeavor. That was a great place to start – the ship had one dining room with open seating, one lounge with a bar, where we met for pre/post activity discussions and presentations by the naturalists and trip leader, a small but functional library with a couple of computers for processing photos, and a small workout area. The ship was all about the activities – a mud room and area for storing wet suits and snorkel gear, and a dock on the rear for boarding the Zodiacs. It really was an expedition ship. I loved it. The cabins for solo travelers are in steerage (one deck above the engine room) with a fixed window, small but functional and comfortable. You get used to the coffin sized shower after the first time you manage to wash yourself without falling. The ship had observation decks for viewing scenery and wildlife, and and areas for just hanging out. Maybe not the lap of luxury like a Viking river boat, but then again, you never have to dress up for dinner or shows. Jan would have brought one nice outfit. I did not.

The next two trips, Baja/Gray Whales and Alaska Inner Passages had a different model of smaller ship – the Quest and Venture were sister ships, with almost the same layout. Similar to the Endeavor, but with a large viewing area on the bow, where most everyone hung out for photography and viewing. Lots of big lenses out there. The cabins were about the same size as the Endeavor, with two portholes (very heavy covers), and also above the engine room.

These boats also had a great covered observation/lounging area on the fantail. The only problem I had with this particular boat was the location of my cabin, as described in the Cavitation Blues post. I won’t go into that now – you can read the post. 

Finally, the Antarctic and upcoming Patagonia trips are on one of the larger ice breakers, the Resolution. As I sit bored on the 11.5 hour flight to Santiago, I’m a bit nervous about this one. This ship carries 130 passengers, quite a bit larger than the other boats by 38%. That’s 40 some-odd more perfect strangers I have to interact with, which could be good or bad. This ship is also a bit more like a traditional cruise liner with more creature comforts – a swimming pool, two hot tubs, a sauna, and two places to eat (maybe three). There’s even a piano bar. This may also be a blessing for me – the other eatery is more like a diner, or eating at a bar. Something I’m used to from my domestic travels. More on this after I’ve been on the ship for a while, in a different post.

A blow by blow description of 11.5 hours in a luxury cubby hole.

I spent the first hour or two of the flight, fiddling around with the seat control (sort of like John Candy in the rental car), and scrolling through the entertainment options, none of which were appealing. I’ve seen most of the movies that would normally interest me, and quite frankly, I’m kind of tired of watching TV and movies at home, so I needed something else to entertain me for 11 hours. I could write a book in 11 hours – that was one option. And this blog post is turning into one.

Fortunately, dinner came along as I was writing away, and that killed another 45 minutes. Really good food and wine. And a little cup of Hagen-Daz ice cream for dessert. Can’t beat that. But once they picked up my tray, it was back to boredom. So I started watching Ballerina again – the recent John Wick flick. That put me to sleep for a while.

The pretty screen in front of me says I still have five and a half hours to go. The problem with these overnight flights is that it is only 8:17PM on my internal clock at the moment. I’m tired of sitting, but not really tired enough to completely zone out. I had forgotten how messed up you get traveling from Colorado or California to Europe – much like this flight, I’d usually get in early in the morning and head directly to work, and try to stay as long as possible before heading to the hotel where I’d finally crash. I really don’t recall ever getting much sleep on these flights, even in first class. I usually binge watch movies. Jan always slept – as far back as I can remember (that’s a lot of years), Jan was always an early riser. Like 5AM, working away on some spreadsheet on her iPad until she finally got tired of waiting and woke me up to tell Google to start the coffee. She never did get the hang of voice commands. But she slept like a baby on airplanes. I wish I could do the same. 

Maybe I’ll watch a boring movie for a while. 

Nope, that didn’t work. 

Did you ever wonder, for those of you old enough to remember, what it was like for the Mercury and Gemini astronauts, to be crammed into that incredibly small space for hours, days and weeks (I think some of the Gemini flights were for 2 weeks.) I know that I should not be complaining since I’m in first class in my own little cubicle with three attendants waiting on us, but this flight made me think of that. They designed this a lot like getting into a jet fighter cockpit – you basically have to jump in. The seat control is at elbow level with 11 buttons, and you have to be careful to move your feet out of the lower section to avoid jamming the seat into your knees. 

And right below, also at elbow level is the remote control for the entertainment screen. With buttons for the lights and flight attendant. While I was trying to sleep, the flight attendant kept stopping by, asking if I needed anything, and then turned off the call light. I finally figured out that every time I turned to the left, my elbow hit the call button. Not the best design.

But again, I should not be complaining given that most everyone else on this flight is suffering in coach for 11.5 hours. I can get up and stretch if I want and have been doing that frequently. I’m wearing my Forest Gump brace, which is great for walking, but not so comfortable for long periods of sitting. 

This is a lot like some of the hikes I’ve been on but the end is in sight. Less than four hours to go.

Except now it’s getting towards my normal bedtime, and I just snoozed for an hour and a half. Time to try and snooze again since they will be serving breakfast in an hour. At least I remembered to take my meds….on California time. 

And just to make this an even more memorable flight, we’ve been hitting a lot of unstable air, and the plane has been bouncing around for long stretches. Maybe this is a warm-up for the Drake Passage.

Hallelujah. Breakfast has come and gone, the cabin lights are back on, and I can see the ground again – sort of like parts of California. 

I never realized that Santiago was surrounded by mountains, with some really good sized peaks (16K) close by. We are finally on the approach to the airport. Just a few more minutes to touchdown.

So we made it down around 6:20, and pulled up to the gate a little after 7AM. Customs was easy but it took quite some time for the baggage to appear.

I had been concerned about what I would do once I arrived. The first pickup by Lindblad was scheduled for 8:30AM, and my flight was initially scheduled to arrive at 6:05. I had spoke with the travel agency for National Geographic, and they told me to either wait or take a cab to the Ritz Carleton. I decided to wait. Fortunately, when I exited the baggage area, I immediately saw a couple of Lindblad employees holding National Geographic posters. No more worries – I was finally on the tour. 

One More Flight

I’m writing this last section on our flight to Ushuaia Argentina. The brief stay at the Santiago Ritz Carleton was too short and hectic – I’m pretty much running on vapor now, and we have a busy day ahead. 

Once we reached the hotel yesterday, we only waited about 2 hours to gain access to our rooms. I spent time in a comfortable lounge socializing – one of the nice things about these trips is that everyone is of the same mindset for the trip, and are open to meeting new people. So it’s hard to not be social. 

After a shower and change of clothes, I felt energetic enough to take a walk around town – I knew that if I slept too long, I’d have trouble sleeping later that night and we had to be up at the crack of dawn again. The concierge recommended a short walk down to this huge shopping center – seemed like a reasonable suggestion. Santiago is a fairly large city – it looked pretty crummy on the ride in from the airport with a lot of graffiti and homeless encampments, but the hotel was in a new section with a lot of new, large office towers, restaurants and shopping – very clean and safe. The shopping mall was quite unique, with multiple levels all underground. It had what has to be the largest food court in the world – I’ve never seen anything quite like it – there was an incredible assortment of foods. No fast food chains at all. I would like to have sampled a few, but had no idea what some of the foods were, and really did not want take chances and experiment this early in the trip. 

After heading back to the hotel, I decided a nap was in order. Actually, I had no choice. I sat down and immediately dozed off for an hour. Later that evening, we had a trip meeting/social in the lobby bar – lot’s of wine, drinks and appetizers and a chance to meet some of the crew and passengers. I did manage to socialize – I’m slowly getting more comfortable doing that. The party ended early since we all had to get up at 4AM, so I had a light dinner at the bar, finished a glass of wine, and went back to my room to repack once again, and get to sleep.

So now it’s Tuesday, and I’m on the charter jet to Argentina. The airport transfer was easy since the roads were empty, as was the airport. The charter is a good sized plane, an A320, and I worried needlessly about overhead storage. The plane is only half full. I paid extra to upgrade to their premium seating which did make a difference – everyone else had the middle seat occupied, the premium did not so I guess it was worth it.

The flight seemed endless, but four hours did not seem so bad after the long flight to Santiago. Plus, there was some interesting landscape below if you bothered to look out the window. The highlite was the active volcano.

And finally, FINALLY, we landed in Ushaila. We collected our baggage, turned it over to the Lindblad crew, and boarded buses for a tour of the National Park and a catamaran cruise through the harbor. We were scheduled to board the Resolution about 4PM. The real journey was about to begin at long last!

And that, at long last, is the end of this post. It was difficult finishing this up on the ship – it is Wednesday morning, and I’m just about ready to post it. Next up will be a description of this amazing ship.