Minnesota

This past weekend I went to Minnesota for some family stuff and of course I went to the Mall of America. Did you know that in 1956 in Edina, MN (a suburb of Minneapolis) the first fully enclosed mall with a two level design was opened…so it makes since that the Mall of America is in MN. I thought the mall was a bit over rated (which is what I expected). It is HUGE that’s for sure, but other than that is was just another mall. It did have a few stores that would have been awesome 10-12 years ago (i.e. American Girl and Lego) but American Girl is getting a store in Houston soon anyway...about 15 years too late for me. It does have the theme park in the middle but all that does is add to the amount kids there are running around getting on my nerves (I don’t have kids yet so I haven’t built up that patience for them yet).

After doing the mall thing we had family business to attend too, we drove up to Hewitt, MN where we saw the farm my great grandparents had and where my grandma grew up. And then we headed east to a family reunion full of people I had never met before…FUN…not. Really, it wasn’t too bad. The majority of the day was spent in the car looking at farm land.

We flew United and although the planes were very small the service from the flight attendants was great. While we waited for our flight I got to see an On the Fly type situation. A woman who was accompanying three minors that were traveling alone had missed their flight by a few seconds. She was begging them to open the plane door and let them in (since the plane had not taken off) but they didn't and the plane left without them. I can't help but think, "that sucks!" and "well, it's your fault." I say it's your fault because all three kids had food and drinks..obviously they didn’t get those through security so that means they had to stop and get it after security and before heading to the gate…maybe if they hadn’t stopped they wouldn’t have missed their flight.

Happy Travels!

Travel RoundUp

So I found some interesting travel news so far this week. Check them out!

1- Hillary Clinton breaks travel record, she has become the Secretary of State with the most countries visited. She has traveled to 102 countries totaling 843,839 miles…that’s a lot of frequent flyer miles!

2- Needles found in Delta Airline's sandwiches!!! Four flights from Amsterdam to the US had some surprises in their meals, sewing needles. A man who was flying to Minnesota was put on Anti-HIV medication as a precaution and that same man's son was on another flight to Atlanta and he too found a needle in his sandwich. Not only that, these people were flying first class. A former FBI special agent said, "You can't check every sandwich that goes aboard a plane." …um…If you can check every piece of luggage that goes on a plane I think you can check our food too…run that stuff though an x-ray machine!

3- New harm to aircraft and everyone inside – A JetBlue pilot suffered an injury after a green laser had been pointed into the cockpit while the aircraft was coming in for a landing at JFK. They were 5,000 ft up in the air! Why do people have to be so dumb? Don’t shoot lasers at planes.

4- Titanic II is under way, an Australian billionaire has announced his plans to have a modern-day version of The Blue Star Lines doomed ship built. The Titanic II will be built in China and is on schedule for its first voyage in 2016….yeah I won't be on that ship, talk about bad luck.

5- A United Airlines Boeing 757-200 dropped in altitude of more than 20,000 feet while over the Atlantic! The flight was on its way to London but was safely diverted to St. John's Canada...This is not okay! :-z

flying into Rome

Happy Travels!

Wardrobe Changes on Vacation, 1, 2, 3 times?!?!

photo credit

While surfing the web this week I stumbled upon an article that talked about how women always over pack. I feel that this is somewhat in our nature, we plan for the unknown outing. The article said that while on vacation the average woman changes 4 outfits a day! WOW! I find that to be a lot but at the same time not unbelievable either. I would say, while on vacation, I typically change outfits twice a day…maybe three depending on what we're doing that day. If we're hiking then of course I'll wear something athletic for hiking and then something nice for dinner. On the occasion I wear three outfits would be if we are doing something in the morning (site seeing for example) and then we go swimming in the afternoon and then my third outfit would then of course be for dinner. (Thinking about it...we already pretty much wear 2 outfits a day, work and then what we change into after work.)

The article continues to say that 1 in 10 women will make 7 wardrobe changes in one day while on vacation and that 8 out 10 women admit that they don’t wear everything they bring - Guilty there! – I always bring WAY too many shoes and probably 2-3 outfits that don’t get worn. I know I don’t need them all when I pack but it’s the whole, "I don’t know what I'll need" and "you never know who might see" thing. This next trip to Hawaii will definitely take some strategic packing on my part. We are bringing gear for hiking and that includes things you wouldn’t normally pack for a vacation (hiking boots, water bottles, flashlights, walking poles, etc.). I can't wait to organize and pack it all!

…Back to the topic of outfits…So if I go on a 10 day vacation that would mean, at a minimum, I would need 20 outfits (don’t forget 20 undergarments too). And based on what that article said I would need 40!!! That is a lot!

What do you think? How many times do have a wardrobe change while you're on vacation? – Leave a comment!

~Happy Travels