It’s nice to be able to return to this blog’s original charter – travel blogging. Here we sit in the OneWorld Lounge at LAX, enjoying comfortable seats, some so-so food, and free drinks. Airport lounges are a godsend, even with so-so food. While on the subject, the absolute best airport lounge ever is the Turkish Air lounge in Istanbul. I could just live there – it’s that good. Gourmet food, top-shelf drinks of all types, beds and showers, a movie theater, workout equipment, acres of hospitality…it’s the best. So I can say with some authority that the OneWorld lounge at LAX is just OK. Beats the cheap seats.

I’m hoping we’ve done the hardest part of the journey already. The drive from northern San Diego to LAX on the 405N is/was bad. Stressful. Packed bumper-to-bumper on a Sunday afternoon. The least scenic drive you can imagine – it’s like driving through a post-apocalyptic world at 80 and 20 miles per hour, varying at random. I absolutely hate the urban sprawl up the Socal coast – I can think of few worse places on Earth. Worse than the traffic in Lima or Mexico City. Humanity is a plague, and we have royally fucked up a place that used to be paradise. That’s part of what I love about KY. Sure, there are messed up places in eastern KY and in downtown Lexington and Louisville, but they are small. Contained. Tiny. Most of the state still is a paradise. Just don’t tell the 30-40 million people living in concrete Socal.

Rant over, I suppose. But that drive triggers me. I did it or a variation of it for years. Decades. Kind of a crummy way to start on a vacation.

On a better note, at checkin the British Airways clerk showed us pictures of his Africa trip, and they were pretty great. He was anxious to share his tour/location details, but I think the dirty looks of the people in line behind us killed that idea.

We have about two hours to kill before boarding. After that, it’s fly all night a couple of times and we’ll be there. At least someone else will do the driving.