Hello from Kent, WA

Hello from Kent, WA

Thursday morning   May 23, 2013   (First travelogue of this trip).

Wow, a lot has happened since we left Fiji.  I will discuss this trip in a minute,  but let's catch up on things.

We left the hotel in Fiji at 6:00 PM on Tuesday which was midnight Monday evening in Denver time.  We arrived at the house at midnight Tuesday.  In other words, we traveled 24 hours to get home.  The Fiji to LA flight was a bit less than 11 hours.  As was the case going over, it was terribly crowded and this time we did not sleep as well. 

I also wanted to talk about food prices in Fiji.  At both the hotel restaurants and at the marina, the food prices were outrageous.  A hamburger and fries were about $40 Fiji (about $22 US).  SU gave Pat a check for a bit over $500 for food and we probably came out about even.  We always ate a large breakfast and then skimped on lunch (often splitting a sandwich).  For dinner we often split the dinner and ordered extra fries.  Dinners in the main restaurant started at $90 Fiji (about $50 US)!  Even with the high cost of food, we certainly did not starve!

While the sleep/awake cycles were not all that different, we really had problems with jet lag after we got home.  To top it off, Pat picked up some sort of bug that had her system pretty messed up for a few days.  We are back to “normal” now – whatever that is {grin}.

We spent a week catching up on sleep and family events.  We celebrated both Mother's day and Easter on the same day, since we were out of town for Easter.  It was a ton of fun, as the whole family got together – even the college boys.

Sunday (5/19) we left Denver and drove to Prescott, IA in the PT Cruiser.  You may recall that we left the bus in Iowa and drove home so that I could teach a class and we could fly to Fiji.   We wanted to be in Iowa for Memorial day, so it made sense to drive the car back and forth and leave the bus there.

Wednesday, I flew from Des Moines to Seattle (via Denver) and I am staying at a Holiday Inn in Kent Washington (map).  I am here as a part of my NTT “employment”.  NTT has a large contract to do training for Boeing.  I have been selected to present several classes over the next few months.  This trip is to “audit” a shaft alignment course.  This is my cross training so that I can present the class in a few weeks.  NTT is designing several new courses for both Boeing and the public.  I have been asked to become a member of the team that will teach these classes.  As I have said before, that is a mixed blessing.  I love to do the teaching, and the money is great – but travel by plane is just plain not fun.

That is all for now.