Travel Articles

Mr. G is traveling which means that I get to be Mom and Dad. Which means that the kids get a really great Mom and a horrible Dad. I’m just not good at baseball things and playing when I’m tired. When I’m tired I nap. When Mr. G is tired he plays with the kids anyhow. I’m not him.

Sunday morning I was up bright and early at the crack of 9am. Hello! It’s Sunday you’re supposed to lounge in bed. At 10am Alexander and I were at his baseball lesson. I’ve never watched his new coach and I had zero expectations for the morning but I couldn’t believe what I saw. When Alexander was hitting wrong he sort of stopped and said, “Hey, do you mind if I suggest something?” And my son of course said, “no.” Then he proceeded to get him to stand a little wider and bend his back knee more. More carrot, less stick.

I know this sound unremarkable, but it’s not. The level of respect was so high that my son never stopped smiling. He spent 30 minutes batting and grinning and getting better with every swing. There wasn’t more instruction with this coach than there has been with others there was just a manner that made it joyful. So basically baseball has been saved. Alexander has amazing team coaches, he’s umpiring (and earning a few dollars doing it) and the Sunday morning private coach is just pumping him up more.

We started the day nicely.

After baseball we headed home and grabbed Jane and then went to Universal Studios. There’s a Transformers ride that’s going to open next month and the folks at Universal gave me a couple of passes so we could try it out.

So. Much. Fun.

It reminded me a little of the Mummy ride because it’s sort of 3-d and rollercoaster all wrapped up into one. In order to be certain we ran over to ride the Mummy again and then we weren’t 100% sure how we felt about the rides so we hopped on the Transformers Ride again with one more dash to the Mummy. They’re close to each other and I love them both.

Yes, we rode Transformers and The Mummy twice each within about 25 minutes. I bore children as a cover to go to theme parks. After another hour of dashing to the Simpsons and something else we really needed to leave. We had an unremarkable lunch at the Hard Rock Café up at City Walk and then ran home to drop Jane off so I could bring Alexander to his tennis match.

This was singles match number two in his life. He played really well and the kid he played against was about the sweetest boy I’ve ever seen. There was a lot of “good shot” and “nice rally” along with hand shaking and long rallies. It was the second perfect sport of the day for my son and we were both grinning from ear to ear.

While I was watching the match I got to chatting with one of the dads. He said to me, “Which child is yours.” And I gave him my standard answer, “The cute one.” He laughed and said, “Mine’s the other cute one but it has nothing to do with me, I adopted him.”

I am obsessed with adoption stories. I love hearing them so much because adoptive parents come from a really special place. It’s one thing to decide to have a baby either with nature or with science but it’s a completely different story when one or more people decide to love a child that’s already here.

I told him I had a million questions and I explained to him that I’d grown up in a house where my father facilitated adoptions. He matched families with pregnant women and did all the legal work in exchange for a donation to the local free clinic in the child’s name. It was an entirely altruistic part of his life and work that I suspect he misses quite a bit. The babies are mostly in California and the youngest ones are probably adults but they all felt like part of our life story.

Have a Bar Mitzvah? Well let’s hope that’s a quick labor. Restaurant opening? Maybe he can take a taxi before dessert because her water hasn’t broken yet. Soccer game? Baby being born, no dice.

These interruptions weren’t disruptive at all, they just made us all smile. It wasn’t like he was missing he was just busy salvaging a horrible situation for one lady and making a family for another. We marked time with the babies.

So I asked the tennis Dad about his adoption and he began with a most remarkable story about turning a certain age and not caring if he was ever married but knowing that he had to be a parent. He adopted a seven year old from foster care right here in Los Angeles. It’s a beautiful story (as all adoption stories are) but it’s different because he didn’t adopt a newborn or even a toddler. He adopted a school aged boy, few people adopt school aged children. It’s too much work and too much uncertainty.

I was peppering him with questions because really I wanted to spend about three days following them around taking notes and trying to understand what it was like those first days, weeks and then months. What is the birthday tradition? How long before you say “I love you”? How long before the child believes it? Do they miss their parents, do they even remember them? Do you ever go back to that part of town? Would there be a reason to? Spirituality? Religion? I have so many questions but I only got to one of them.

What was the thing that surprised you most about having him show up at your house?

Tennis Dad talked about learning to listen to him. That when he described pains like a sore throat or a stomachache that there was something going on and you don’t have to be bleeding to be hurt (I’m so guilty of this).

While he was talking about learning to listen my son came to me and asked to go home. “I’m tired,” He said, “I’m not sure I want to go to baseball practice later.” And I asked him if he had another match to play. I congratulated him on a match well played and we left when all I wanted to do was ask Tennis Dad more about his unconventional entry into parenthood.

I’m learning to listen to my son too and he did not attend the baseball practice.

I’ve hardly blogged because this week has been a whirlwind of activity. The folks at GoPro brought a few bloggers and invited MSM to join them on an expedition with some rocket scientists while we launched weather balloons into the night sky.

Here’s how it unfolded.

Monday:

Bring the kids to school. Go home and pack everything I own plus some of my friend Alison’s stuff into a bag. My tennis partner has offered to drive me to the airport. This, I think is awesome, later I will remember why this is not awesome.

At 3pm I leave Los Angeles for Seattle. Bulkhead seat and a non chatty seat mate. Huzzah!

I spend the dinner hour in Seattle eating something and wishing I was there already.

Score! I’m in First Class from Seattle to Fairbanks. I have four hours of a flight attendant being nice to me. I try to watch the Descendants. Maybe on a big screen it’s not a terrible movie? I realize that I’ll never like things the rest of the world enjoys and I take a nap.

Arrive in Fairbanks close to 11pm, the sun hasn’t set fully. I’m relieved to meet some of the folks on the trip. Everyone is nice. Everyone is smart and interesting. This is unusual and lovely.

Tuesday:

Breakfast and a trip to the grocery store. I spend the next four days pulling organic apples and baby bel cheese out of my purse for anyone who might be feeling peckish.

Not everyone has arrived and we can explore Fairbanks for the day. We decide on the Chena Hot Springs and I’m all Reddit told me this would be good… you know because everyone should plan their trips with Reddit (and they should).

We toured the hot springs, the ice sculpture museum and the geothermal energy production. They are completely off grid and producing their own lettuce and tomatoes year round. At the ice museum we enjoy appletinis. I don’t typically enjoy appletinis but these are not to be missed.

After soaking very briefly in the hot springs we head back to the hotel for a powernap. On the way back to the hotel we see a moose. Kelly and I scream MOOSE so loudly that our host surely must be rethinking his entire career.

We have dinner, a few more people arrive including Stefanie and at 11 pm we head out to launch the first of three weather balloons. This is the map we use to get there.

Remarkably we get there. Apparently there aren’t many roads in Fairbanks. We pile out of a fleet of Suburbans and stand around waiting for something to happen.

The scientists fill the balloons and attach the payload. The payload is a half dozen GoPro Cameras, a GPS, some bacteria and an American Flag. The balloon will go about 20 miles up before popping and we’ll track it with the GPS and retrieve it.

At about midnight an arc appears in the sky. It’s light green, almost lemony looking. At the southernmost point of the arc red spikes start to glow. I think it must be the city of Fairbanks but then I realize that it’s the show. During the next two and half hours the sky swirls and explodes with rays of light turning red, green and purple. They shine and dance and we crane our heads and delight in what we are seeing.

I stand with Dr. Bering and ask him about what I’m seeing and he explains solar flares, solar storms, plasma and energy. I nod and I understand what he is saying but know that I am unlikely to remember. I wish my husband was there.

Reluctantly we leave at 3.30 in the morning and try to get some sleep. Sleep is hard to come by. We’ve just seen the majesty of science and I’m too excited to sleep.

Wednesday:

It’s too hot for dogsledding in the afternoon so it’s been pushed to 10am. We have a 9am breakfast and we pile back into the Suburbans.

Dogsledding is awesome. The dogs are small, the sleds are fast the mushers are Alaska’s version of surfers. They’re all passionate, fit and adventurous. The only unfortunate part is that the dogs are incredibly affectionate and they smell slightly worse than goats. I refuse to believe that Junior is related to them.

After dogsledding we grab a quick lunch and regroup. There is an optional trip to snowshoe out to retrieve a payload that had been launched a few days before. It’s approximately a mile away from the road. Maybe a three hour trek.

There aren’t enough snowshoes. At first I try being polite and saying I’ll do what’s best for the group and then I remember that this is my first and possibly my only trip to Alaska and I really want to go snowshoeing. They come up with another pair of snowshoes and we hike in to the middle of nowhere.

It’s magnificent.

Sometime around 8pm I’m lifting my leg out of two feet of snow and warm washes over me. This is the first time in two years that I’m not arthritic. I’m fighting back tears and I’m standing at the edge of the earth and my hands, hips, knees and ankles don’t ache. I’ve ached for so many years that I fear I’ve forgotten how it feels to not hurt.

There’s snow to my knees, my coat is too heavy for the relatively warm weather, I’m dripping with sweat and I’m crying a little because I think, just maybe, that I’ve hit that magical remission that the doctor had said we might get.

Here is the payload.

We get back to the Suburban by 8ish and pile in wet and smelly. Heroic we join the other 20 or so folks at a really nice restaurant in Fairbanks. Dr. Ben Longmier holds the payload over his head victoriously and everyone cheers.

There is a curious absence of ego. Perhaps that happens easily in a room where everyone is highly accomplished?

After dinner it’s back to the hotel for just 15 minutes and then back to our hilltop site to launch two more balloons.

This night the northern lights give a show that makes one woman weep. There are rays of light zooming into the sky with such power and such force that it’s hard to believe that we aren’t in a movie theater or an observatory.

Luke Kilpatrick took some amazing photos with a camera loaned to him by Robert Scoble. Luke was incredibly generous with his shots and shared them with everyone asking only for attribution. He explained that Robert had lent him the camera and he would share with same openness.

Which brings me back to the fact that this experiment costs approximately $1,500 for the first trial and significantly less thereafter. Science doesn’t require a million dollar lab.

I was tired and folks started leaving at 3ish. Back to the hotel at 3.30 again and it was a little easier to fall asleep this time.

I was sad to leave Alaska but thrilled to be reminded of the magnificence of the universe.

Thursday:

7am wake and pack.

7.45 go to the airport.

8.30 am Score first class and settle in to sleep. I don’t realize the plane has taken off. I didn’t know there was a delay. I was sleeping. Wake up ravenous and the flight attendant gives me a plate of scrambled eggs. I touch them to my tongue and realize they are shit. I am starving and eat them anyhow. I quickly fall back asleep.

Noon: Disembark the plane knowing we are late for the next one, look around and realize we are getting back on the same plane. I moan about how shitty my seat is and score another first class upgrade. Lucky me.

12.30 board the plane with a splitting headache.

12.45 lose breakfast.

12.55 apparently there was more breakfast.

1.15 angry flight attendant takes pity on me and gives me crackers she’d brought from home

1.25 goodbye crackers

At this point all of first class is using the lavatory at the rear of the plane. I’m too tired and puny feeling to even be embarrassed by this.

3pm in the taxi line at LAX and I have to let three cabs go. They smell so awful that surely I’ll retch. After some frustration I tip the guy at the curb nicely and find a cab driver that neither douses himself in cologne nor smokes.

5pm I’m cooking dinner at home. Because… ya know… they’re hungry.

Last night we set out to see the Northern Lights with a special bent. A group of scientists (I’ll name drop later) set out helium weather balloons equipped with GoPro Cameras in order to get video of the Aurora Borealis from Space.

It’s mind boggling.

Essentially the GoPro cameras will be 20 miles up into the atmosphere recording the greatest light show science can provide. The launch can be done for about a thousand dollars and the cameras get an incredibly high quality. Higher in fact than any that’s been recorded from space.

I’m operating on four hours of sleep as we were watching the northern lights until 3am and then we were up bright and early for dogsledding. I’ve got a tiny break right now and then we’ve got a two mile hike (snowshoeing maybe?) to retrieve the cameras.

I am so excited to share the GoPro footage with you but in the interim here’s a video of last night’s display. Mike Kofsky from the Wall Street Journal took 3,000 one second exposure images and then threaded them together into 45 seconds of majesty.

It’s one o’clock in the morning and I’m standing in Duane Reade scanning the shelves for the right tampons while my Fake Gay Mexican Son says, “Um… don’t you use something else.”

“It sort of surprised me this time.” I muttered. “Actually it’s surprised me every month for almost 30 years. And why am I talking to you about this?”

Mercifully my Fake Gay Mexican Son has about a dozen sisters and a mother he’s very close to so the conversation wasn’t as awkward as it should have been.

We’d just finished an amazing late snack of empanadas in Hells Kitchen with Mary. A well manicured Persian hipster ran his hand along my ass quite accidentally and apologized by opening his heavily lined eyes cartoonishly, flipping his hand to the side and saying, “It’s okay I’m GAY.”

I muttered something about everyone being gay… for a year at least in college everyone is. Subtext: leave my ass alone, you’re young and pretty but I’m old and jaded and not in the mood for this shit. Go to your room.

Our empanadas were amazing but it was strange to be in New York with my LA gym buddy eating El Salvadoran food that should have been better in Los Angeles where we have actual El Salvadorans living… I guess New York has a few too. The ones who want things like winter and rain. Maybe Los Angeles just has the smart El Salvadorans.

Before the empanadas we’d attended Oprah’s LifeClass with Tony Robbins and before that we’d had drinks and appetizers at Oceanic. My Fake Gay Mexican Son swooned over Mandy and I think he’s decided to be the next single girl/guy… we will never know because he’s busy writing papers about me and Kim Kardashian and passing them off to unsuspecting Ivy League Professors as cultural anthropology.

The child is about to get a PhD in pop culture and now I have to worry about my tampons showing up in a dissertation.

Last week I met Ms. Oprah Winfrey. She was everything I expected and my expectations were high.

While in St. Louis six of us were allowed to interview Oprah except we didn’t have cameras or even paper and pen. The team from OWN ran video and I’m hopeful that it will air as part of their behind the scenes features online.

Everyone introduced themselves to Ms. Winfrey and it became abundantly clear why she owned the airwaves for the more than two decades. When Oprah sets her sights on you she pulls the most relevant details out of you as if there’s a string attached and one tug from her unleashes everything. She is a remarkable woman embarking on a remarkable journey.

When Ms. Winfrey made her way to me I told her I was a blogger. I’m thinking that I was the only one in the group who didn’t have a related career. She said to me, “So you just sit around and write all day?”

“No I can’t just sit around and write all day. I have to actually do something so I have something to write about. I never miss picking my kids up from school and I never miss tennis.” I explained.

Oprah’s head whipped around in search of Sherri Salata and she said, “Sherry do you hear this? She never misses a tennis lesson. I think we’re doing something wrong here.” And then she turned to look at me and said, “You don’t need LifeClass you’re living the dream.”

And I knew she was right, because I am living the dream. The adjusted dream. The dream where we live modestly and my husband loves me and I love him just a little bit more than that and the kids love us but we secretly know that we love them more than they could ever love us because that’s the secret all parents share.

That dream.

I had a question for her and she gave me an answer I think I’ll remember for for as long as I blog. I asked Oprah how she dealt with negative feedback. I started to explain that bloggers get a lot of grief in comments and on places like twitter and her answer stunned me.

Oprah Winfrey went to on talk in detail about a woman who was mean to hear on twitter. She mentioned her name, twice. She went on to talk a little bit about the solution and quoted her friend Maya Angelou:

No one can hold a candle to the light that God shines upon you.

I think I got that quote right. It was really quite beautiful when Oprah told it to me and what struck me was that with all of her success and millions of people saying, “Oprah you changed my life, you made me better, you made my life happier.” Ms. Winfrey would still remember the name of one detractor on twitter and this made me love her a little.

It reminded me how vulnerable we can all be. It reminded me as a parent that although I may congratulate Jane on her accomplishments the things that she may remember are the failures and the criticisms. When I talk to Alexander after baseball games I need to be more aware of the good plays because it’s clear that he remembers and replays the bad ones, he doesn’t need any help with that.

I spent the day Tuesday in New York City. I did the chazzerai tour of the Lower East Side picking up wasabi peanuts from Economy Candy, tees from Katz’ Deli (and a sandwich for myself), and bagels from Kossar’s. I stopped into Ross and Daughters but I couldn’t bring myself to schlep a smoked trout on the plane. In hindsight I could have, the flight was all Chasidim and I could smell deli food everywhere.

I went uptown and found a pair of shoes at Bergdorf’s and then headed across Fifth Avenue to grab Jane a little charm from Tiffany and Co. As I walked toward the third floor elevator a familiar voice said, “Jessica!” and we left Tiffany to have a snack and talk about our kids. It was my friend Jon who used to live in LA but now lives in one of the Carolinas (North I think?).

It’s totally normal to run into your friends 3,000 miles from home. Right?

I’m still digesting the messages of Oprah’s LifeClass. At the very moment it seemed totally irrelevant to my own life something would resonate deeply. I wouldn’t have traded that experience for anything.

Us Gottliebs spent President’s Day weekend at the Loews Coronado Bay hotel. There are two things that are important to note. Presidents Day Weekend is a busy weekend with many area hotels sold out, and the hotel’s lobby was under construction. I had lowered my expectations. Apparently not quite enough.

I called the Loews just a few days before the holiday and explained to the reservations agent that I’m a high maintenance traveler. I like nice things and I make no apology for it. I also explained to him that I wanted either adjoining rooms or a one bedroom suite, the requirement is that there is a door between the two rooms. “It’s not a vacation if I’m sleeping in the same room as my children.” I said. It’s what I always say. He chortled, agreed and set us up with a Grand King Suite. He assured me I’d be delighted. I assured him that I wanted to be delighted.

Let me just say that a Grand King Suite at the Loews Coronado Bay is a wonderful thing. The ceilings are high, the views of the bay are stunning and the bathroom is everything you could hope for in a luxury spa hotel. Unfortunately there was nothing to separate the bedroom from the living room. It was exactly the hotel room I didn’t want for a family of four.

I called the front desk and explained the dilemma. They couldn’t have been nicer or more understanding. After a brief hold I was told that they had a one bedroom suite for us. It would be smaller and a few dollars less but it was vacant and he would send a bellman with keys.

So we waited. And we waited. Then we waited some more.

A very nice and incredibly apologetic bellman arrived with keys and showed us to the second room. It was still very nice, smaller and with a much smaller bathroom but it suited our needs as a family of four that wanted a little privacy throughout the weekend. The views of the bay were soothing and the location was actually better than the larger suite. When traveling with kids it’s nice to be near the teen room and the swimming pool.

We thanked the bellman and reminded him that we needed a rollaway bed as well as some extra blankets and pillows. This was at about 4pm.

At 6pm we called again and they sent the rollaway bed but no pillows or blankets. I asked about turndown service and for the sofa bed to be opened. They assured me that someone would be “right on it”.

At 8pm I called again.

At 8.45 the incredibly sweet operator once again assured me that the housekeeping supervisor would be right there. I ran out of nice and reminded her that I was in a hotel and asking for a bed at 9pm. Shortly thereafter a housekeeper arrived to unfold the sofa bed and gasped audibly to find it bare.

Sometime after 9 I left the room in utter disgust to take a walk with my son and left Mr. G and Jane to wait for housekeeping (who again failed to bring extra blankets and pillows). Mr. G asked if he should tip whomever arrived in the room. I didn’t have an answer, I’m still of two minds.

The hotel manager arrived. Mr. G reported that she was very young and very apologetic. I’m sure she was sweet, everyone was sweet there. Sadly they were mostly incompetent.

The television in the bedroom didn’t get reception on many of it’s channels but we weren’t concerned enough to complain about it. In addition to the shower being tiny, and folks when I say tiny I’m talking about a 3 foot by 3 foot space, the showerhead hardly dribbled. Shower caps were not provided. Again, I’d accepted defeat after the bed fiasco.

We spent a wonderful day by the pool. There are two ping pong tables and a giant connect four. There is plenty of seating, some sofas and a bar. Unfortunately the food is from room service (as opposed to a separate pool service area) so it’s VERY slow. Fortunately the coffee bar in the lobby (even under construction) has fabulous grab and go choices including fresh fruit, pasta salads, healthy sandwiches and little bits of handmade chocolate that you simply must experience.

Although the hotel is located on the bay, you should not confuse this with a beach. I wouldn’t have my kids swimming in the water as it’s mostly full of motorboats. It’s a beautiful view, but it’s better for boaters than for swimmers.

The pool area is really quite lovely and I cannot emphasize enough how much we enjoyed our day by the pool.

The Sunday brunch is similar to other hotel Sunday Brunches. There’s an omelet bar and a lunch area, there are lovely desserts, overcooked vats of scrambled eggs and piles of breakfast meats. Like other hotels it’s hideously overpriced, unlike other hotels it has a Mexican flare. I like Mexican flare, especially when I’m spitting distance from the border.

Our second night was better. We had no requests and it was impossible to disappoint us. We accepted the dribbling water from the teeny tiny shower and left town. In spite of it all we had a fabulous weekend together.

What would alarm me most about this hotel is that upon checking out I said to the woman at the desk, “I’d like to general manager to call me on Tuesday so that I can tell you about my experience here.” She nodded, wrote down my number on a slip of paper and shoved it into a pile. Naturally there was no phone call.

It’s an okay hotel in an okay location but the staff is not so okay.

I’d reserved a Grand King Suite at $450 a night (I know a steal) and then moved to the one bedroom suite at $350 a night. If you can lower your expectations and make your own bed you just might enjoy yourself.