Kalifornia Surprise...

Thursday, we packed and left for Boise. Then flew to Southern California for our son's 39th surprise birthday party on Saturday.

First, in Boise, I had my one week post-operative doctor appointment. These ENTs have this little thing they do when doing throat checkups. They unwrap a gauss pad and tell you to stick out your tongue. Then, they wrap the gauss pad around your tongue and pull it out so they can get their instruments and mirrors down there. So, that hurt, and the doctor checked it all out and said everything was great. He also noted that the staples were doing fine and would 'fall out' in a couple of days. This brought up my first question - "Where are they going to 'fall out' too?". He just said, "O, don't worry, they will just pass..." Which brought up my second question - "Just Pass??". He explained that they are closed and 'shouldn't' be a problem... At that point, after analyzing it all in my head and pondering my options, I just let it go... And, then as he was wrapping up the exam, he said that the scabs were also coming along well and they would be falling off soon. And when they do, your throat will get a lot sorer again for a few days...

From there, we went to Cablea's. I needed to get a new sturgeon rod. I also found out that the sturgeon had broken the reel seat of my old one along with the reel. So, that made me feel a little better, but it was short lived...

Then, we were off to the airport. The Boise airport is very small and nice to deal with. We were there and all checked in within a few minutes. We were on a American Airlines flight, but had to check in at Alaska Airlines, and the flight was actually on a Horizon Airlines plane, so it was 'difficult' to ever figure out what was going on with the boards. When we walked up to the boarding counter, the lady said, "O, you must be the Keithleys?" - This is DaHo...

The fight directly to LAX was 2 hours on a prop plane. But, it did have two props, so that was good. The 'flight attendant' was amazingly large for such a small plane and really limited movement. I think that was their security system. The only other interesting thing about the plane was that there was only one very cozy bathroom up front, and if you could get past the flight attendant, the co-pilot had to get up to let you into it. (Just kidding on that last one...) Anyway, it was a good flight and the views of the Sierras and LA were awesome. Unfortunately, my throat was growing sorer with every air mile flown...

We got to LAX about sunset and had no problems getting our bags and shuttle to the car rental place. I rented from Payless, which looked just as good as all the other places on the internet... In the shuttle, we started going down little dark industrial streets. I noticed a couple of corners with gangster type lookouts. Then, about a block further down the street, there was this moving van with its ramp down and about 20-30 more gangster types milling around with some other guys in the van. They were unpacking motorcycles and pushing them down the ramp. Then one of the other guys would jump on it and take off, then another one and so on... I just turned the other way and didn't want to be seen looking at all that. I am guessing those bikes were not legal...

Anyway, we got there and Pam upgrades us to a Chrysler 300 and we were off to Palm Springs to see our other son, Ryan for the night. Well, Palm Springs is about 140 miles from there, but with all the traffic, it took us almost 3 hours of LA freeway traffic to get there. We were burnt...

Ryan put us up at the Hyatt Suites, which he is the Director of Events and Catering, after we checked out his new place and finally met Chris, his love. We also got to meet Carlos, their Porto Rican butler, again. All great folks...

After hanging out in Palm Springs for the morning, we all went to Newport Beach in the afternoon. Again, the traffic was totally crazy an made worse by having to follow Ryan through it all. When we finally did pick up grandson Oliver and get to the hotel - another one of those Grand Hyatt Resorts in Newport Beach, it was all good, except for my throat.

We basically crashed early and had a great room service diner on the patio listening to a jazz concert being played at the hotel. Then, in the morning, we lounged and finally met some of the relatives at the hotel and went over to the surprise party at Aaron's mother, Bev's house in Costa Mesa.

It was quite an affair. Bev had out done herself - as usual. There was a band and amazing decorations and food. There were probably 60 people there that have known Aaron throughout all his life. He was totally surprised by the party and a great time was had by all. One of the highlights of the party were a couple of hundred jello shooters that kept it all going into the late night. Pam and I had to leave early, about 8:30pm because I had talked too much and my throat was starting to bleed.

Then, on Sunday, all the family got together for a brunch at the hotel and then we all went over to Aaron's house to visit. We were late, because the hotel guys had brought up our car and ended up locking the keys in it with the engine running... So, a AAA moment later..., we were finally on our way.

The flight back was also relatively good, but way long. We left LAX at 7:50pm and ended up getting back home around 2am. It was all great fun, but we are very happy to be back in DaHo...