Around the World in 80 Trips (Or Less)

Erin & Bobby 2026 Part 3

Long Island, NY

On Saturday, we head for the airport in the late morning for a 3 PM flight home. Storms have set in and it is difficult to see the road in front of us!

We get the info on the way to the airport that our flight has been delayed 36 minutes. That’s okay, we’ll have more time for a bite to eat in the airport and our connection in Atlanta is several hours so that won’t cause any problems. We turn in the rental car and shuttle to the airport. Upon walking into La Guardia and finding a Departures Board, we see our flight has been cancelled.

Hmm, what to do now? We see huge lines at all the help counters but as we’re walking, we see a Priority Help Desk with no one in line. So we walk up, expecting them to tell us they can’t help us as we are not Priority. But they DO help us! They tell us there are no flights to LAX from La Guardia today, but there IS a direct flight out of JFK! They book us on an 8:20 PM flight but tell us we have to get our seat assignments there. So we get a cab to JFK. The weather is horrid. What should be a 20 minute cross town ride turns into 90 minutes. But we get there and check in just in time to see a rainbow!

We get a meal as we have plenty of time now. It is barely 3PM and our flight is at 8:20PM. We can’t get our seat assignments until an hour before the flight but, at least, we have a flight. We check the Boards and see that there are 5PM, 6PM and 8:20PM flights to LAX. The 5PM is marked ‘CANCELLED’. An hour later the 6PM is CANCELLED. I wipe my brow. The 8:20PM is still marked, ‘ON-TIME’. It is now 7:00PM and the Boards say our flight is Delayed until 10:45PM. This is getting worrisome. 8:00PM and the flight is Delayed to 12:30AM.

10:00PM and the flight is again Delayed to 2:00AM. 11:00PM and the flight is CANCELLED. The Help Desk line is about 200 people long. We are about to check off a Bucket List item no rational person wants to check off. SLEEP IN AN AIRPORT. The cheapest hotel room in the area exceeds $1000 per night. Elee stands in the Help Line. I go in search of a place to lay our heads. If you are going to spend the night in an airport, make sure it’s JFK. It seems that every Gate had 6-10 “Lounge” Seats where you can’t really sleep but you can lay back and close your eyes!

I walk almost a mile through plus or minus 25 Gates before I find two Lounge Seats together. I put our stuff on one seat and lay back in the other.

We catnap through the night restlessly. One cannot actually fall asleep in these seats for very long. When morning finally comes, Elee heads back to the Customer Service queue to find the line horendously long. They had given her a number and rang her phone to inform her it was her time. But it turns out they had opened the queue to everybody with disregard for their number system. Needless to say, the frustration levels were off the charts! They finally tell us they can’t fly us home until Tuesday due to lack of pilots! It is Sunday now!

So we decide to leave the airport and travel via train to Chicago which costs us the price of a New York Hotel for one night. We take a train across NYC to Jamaica Plains where we change to a train to Penn Station and then another train to Newark, NJ Penn Station. It is the day of the Final World Cup Game which is happening in Newark, so the atmosphere is exciting with fans from both Argentina and Spain dressed in their favorite Teams garb and singing and chanting anthems! That is, at the least, some consolation from the frustration!

From there we board an Amtrak to Chicago via Washington, DC. Thanks to modern technology, I manage to stream the World Cup Game to my laptop and we watch the Game on the train! We spend the next night sleeping on the train between DC and Chicago! Slightly more comfortable than the airport but barely. We are traveling through Amish Country as evidenced by some of the people on and off the trains!

By the time we reach Chicago, we have booked a hotel room for a reasonable $160. We ride one more train from Chicago’s Grand Central to O’Hare International Airport where we get a free shuttle to the hotel. We do have time along the way for a famous Chicago Deep Dish Pizza! I even come across the opportunity to photograph my usual pair of lovers! (As those who know me, understand!) We have a promise of a flight home on Tuesday (the same as offered from NYC but without the $1000+ per night for hotels in NYC) I don’t know if this is the most comfortable bed I have ever slept in but after 2 nights in airports and trains, it sure is nice!

The flight from Chicago is on time and stress free. Our hotel was directly under the Chicago landing path, yet the room was quiet! We arrive in LAX on time and get a shuttle to our parking garage where we get in our car and drive home. What a trip! Upon landing in LAX, we even spot an unmarked 747 which is very unusual!

See you all for our next adventure!

Erin & Bobby 2026 Part 2

Long Island, NY

We walked to the restaurant because we had been previously warned about the road being closed for a parade! The next day is the wedding but it is in the evening so we ride back out to Orient Beach State Park and walk around, checking out the boats and sights. We even come across an antique Carousel Ride that is still in operation! We check out Saylor Beach House Restaurant and have a glass of wine.

On the way back to our motel, we stop at Duckwalk Vineyards for a wine tasting. Again, very good New York wine but this place was very pricey with inexpensive bottles exceeding $50 each.

We go back to our motel in Jamesport and take short naps and get ready for the wedding. In New York (and pretty much the whole East Coast), weddings are formal affairs requiring suits and ties and formal dresses for all! My BiL is staying at our same motel and we visit with them prior to driving the 15-20 minutes to the wedding venue, another Vineyard in The Hamptons. We meet up with more relatives and catch up prior to the ceremony.

The ceremony starts and we are all asked not to take photos. Bummer, that is usually my cue to say, “Hold my beer!” But I opt to be a good boy and I leave my phone in it’s holster. I do get some shots after the ceremony and I find it interesting that the professional photo crew even has one person using a cell phone! Elee and I get our photo taken near a waterfall scene.

The day after the wedding, Friday, is a lazy sleep in day after having been out very late at the wedding. We drive back to a hotel nearer to the airport for our flight home tomorrow.

Erin & Bobby 2026 Part 1

Long Island, NY

We get on a plane in LAX for a simple trip to New York to see our niece get married on Long Island. Changing planes in Minneapolis is uneventful. I order a can of wine on the plane, LOL.

A few shots out of the planes window as we come into La Guardia Airport. If you know what it looks like, you can recognize Lower Manhattan and the Brooklyn Bridge as we land.

We land at midnight so we stay in a non descript but comfortable hotel for the night. We arise and have a bite to eat before heading out across Long Island to the area known as “The Hamptons” where the wedding will take place. We drive all the way to the end of Long Island to Orient Beach State Park. It is interesting that Elee grew up on Long Island but never visited here!

We stop at Borghese (pronounced bore-gay-zee) Vineyards for a wine tasting. They have some very good wine and I inquire about shipping charges to have some sent to me. They tell me they don’t ship to California, only Florida. This is strange because I thought you either ship product or you don’t. Oh well money saved by me and money lost by them.

We meet up with my BiL and his Fiance for dinner in the town we are staying in, Jamesport, NY. While we are eating, a local fire department parade goes in front of the restaurant! How fun is that? Fire departments from all over Long Island participate!

We walk back to our hotel for the night.

Venice to Turkey 23

Day 23, ISB Airport, May 25

We get up at 4 AM this morning. We have an 8 AM flight home today. A taxi picks us up at 5 and we get to Istanbul Airport shortly before 6. Checking in to the airport is easy. We do, however, wait at the first information board we come to as our flight is not listed yet. If we had walked another 50 or so yards, we would have found our flight info.

Oh well, we are on the plane now and we only have to go back three seats to get our carry on bags. That should prove challenging.

The flight is uneventful and we even get menus, metal utensils and free wine!

My seatmate is Turkish and is going to LA to visit his daughter. He suggests that I drink the French wine on board but I try both the French and the Turkish wine. I decide the Turkish is better!

Between meals, a couple of movies and a nap, the flight is over. Our good friend Tony picks us up and takes us home. When we get home, the house is without electricity thanks to an Edison planned outage. Oh well, we take a nap until the power comes back on.

Venice to Turkey 22

Day 22, Istanbul, May 25

We sleep in to 8AM today. We eat in the coffee shop on the first floor and they hand us a free breakfast. We stroll the hundred yards to the Tower on top of the hill and buy tickets to enter. €30 each. Priced in Euros, but only Lira and CCs accepted, interesting. The line is about 50 yards long.

The views from the top are great! We can see the whole city almost. After walking around the complete tower, we go down and head for the river, a fairly steep downhill. We walk across the bridge and almost immediately find the Spice Market. Very interesting indoor market that takes up several acres. Out the back side of the Spice Market, we step into the Grand Bazaar, a market to rival Cairo’s Souk. We walk a half mile through the Souk before turning around and heading back. Unfortunately, for reasons unknown, I lost a group of photos of the markets.

We make it back to the river and take a ferry across for 7 Lira (about 20 cents) each. Then it is almost 2 PM (remember we slept in) and the waterfront is lined with restaurants. We find one and have a light lunch of eggplant and salad.

Now we make the trek back up the hill to the Tower and back to our hotel. We take a much loved nap and head back out to find dinner.

We walk around and the crowds are fierce. We realize that tomorrow is a holiday for fasting and people are eating to prepare for it. Thoughts come to mind of people back home finding out that they can’t buy gasoline the next day so they fill up today. Okay, I know it’s a bad analogy but you get the idea.

We find a street with really good Turkish food and we sit down. First I ask the waiter if they serve wine and we are informed the entire street is dry. Well, as the wine drinkers that we are, we get up and walk away.

We settle on a restaurant named, Guney, next to the restaurant where we ate last night. The food is very good and they serve good Turkish wine.

Back in our hotel, we have a less than adequate room (after the horrible room we started with yesterday) where the AC died and we can’t even get the fan to run. This replacement room also has no windows. So it will be another uncomfortable night.

But, being the travel troopers that we are, we will make do.