{"id":194,"date":"2009-08-01T23:08:43","date_gmt":"2009-08-01T23:08:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/celticoaksappaloosas.com\/site\/?page_id=194"},"modified":"2009-08-01T23:58:17","modified_gmt":"2009-08-01T23:58:17","slug":"trip-to-guam-2009","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/celticoaksappaloosas.com\/site\/?page_id=194","title":{"rendered":"Trip to Guam 2009"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Our Trip to Guam<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s Saturday 1 August\u00a0and I can&#8217;t believe Mom and I have been back for a week already!\u00a0 It&#8217;s been a rough week, for me anyway, as I promptly got sick when we got home and I am just now starting to feel normal.\u00a0 I am cataloguing photos today and beginning my work here on Ellen&#8217;s page, to fill you in on our trip.\u00a0 Please bear with me, as I took over 750 photos, and I did my best to keep up in my journal as well.\u00a0 Today, I want to share the beginning of our trip and the dedication of the Continental Connection ATR-42.\u00a0 As I was told, this was Ellen&#8217;s favorite plane to fly in, it now bears her name and a decal declaring her their &#8220;Queen of Micronesia.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Our trip began on Wednesday afternoon, 15 July, when we left from Mom&#8217;s in Ocala, Florida, to drive to Orlando, a 2-hour drive away.\u00a0 Our flight was scheduled for 6:30 a.m. the next morning and we planned to spend the night at a hotel close to the airport.\u00a0 We made the drive easily, settled into our room and then walked across the street for dinner at Denny&#8217;s.\u00a0 While looking over the menu (we were both opting for &#8220;breakfast&#8221;), I chuckled and asked Mom how it felt that both she and her daughter qualified for the Senior menu!\u00a0 During dinner, a big storm blew in and even tho Mom had brought her umbrella, we waited awhile before trying to walk back across the street.\u00a0 There was a tremendous amount of lightning and very heavy rain; when we finally got back to room and turned on the news, we discovered we&#8217;d been under a tornado watch!<\/p>\n<p>Our check-in and trip thru security went smoothly and we were on our way on time.\u00a0 We were both in First Class and had been able to get seats side-by-side for the whole outbound trip.\u00a0 I tell you!\u00a0 They sure do feed the passengers well in that cabin!\u00a0 I don&#8217;t eat that much in a week, let alone a day.\u00a0 I think it&#8217;s to either keep you busy for the long flights, or to make you sleepy.\u00a0 We didn&#8217;t really sleep much, tho we both dozed.\u00a0 We changed planes in Houston and then again in Tokyo.\u00a0 Ellen and Russell&#8217;s friend, Yuko Imai (Imai-san), graciously made arrangements for us to have a guide thru Narita Airport to our next gate.\u00a0 We might have done all right on our own, but it was comfortable knowing we wouldn&#8217;t get lost or be late.<\/p>\n<p>We did have an interesting experience, sitting at the gate before boarding.\u00a0 Near us gathered a rather large contingent of airport security people.\u00a0 They all looked very serious, as they seemed to be studying something in the bottom of one of the ever-present recycle bins.\u00a0 Some wore masks and some gloves, some had clipboards, some came and went &#8230; the concern seemed to center around a small cosmetic-sized bag that was apparently dropped into one of the bins and they didn&#8217;t know where it came from and were cautious about opening it (tho they did so, at least once that I saw).\u00a0 After awhile, they took the bag and went about their business.<\/p>\n<p>We landed at the Airport in Agana, Guam, shortly before 8:00 p.m. Guam time.\u00a0 Even tho, at that hour at home, there is still an hour or so of daylight left, down near the equator, it&#8217;s been full dark for more than an hour, so all I could get of Guam flying in was this:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-199\" title=\"flying-into-guam-071709\" src=\"https:\/\/celticoaksappaloosas.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/flying-into-guam-071709-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"flying-into-guam-071709\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" srcset=\"https:\/\/celticoaksappaloosas.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/flying-into-guam-071709-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/celticoaksappaloosas.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/flying-into-guam-071709.jpg 968w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I forgot to ask Rusell about it, but I was on the left side of the plane, flying in, and if his geography lessons sank in, that&#8217;s the edge of Tumon Bay.\u00a0 We landed safely, deplaned and were met by &#8230; oh dear.\u00a0 I&#8217;ve forgotten his name!\u00a0 He was a friend of Russell&#8217;s, an employee of Continental, and he guided us all the way thru getting our baggage and Customs.\u00a0 Russell picked us up in Ellen&#8217;s car and took us to their home.<\/p>\n<p>Oh my!\u00a0 What a lovely house!\u00a0 Lots of windows and a goodly view, almost all the way to the water.\u00a0 The house is open and airy, with wonderful A\/C units in all the rooms, and filled with furniture from Bali &#8211; ornate and cleverly carved.<\/p>\n<p>We met cats Rumpleteaser and GirlCat and heard rumors that there was a third named Spidey.\u00a0 We also met birds Toshe (spelling?) and Imai-San.\u00a0 That was about it for that night, as we all crashed to rest for the big day the next day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our Trip to Guam It&#8217;s Saturday 1 August\u00a0and I can&#8217;t believe Mom and I have been back for a week already!\u00a0 It&#8217;s been a rough week, for me anyway, as I promptly got sick when we got home and I am just now starting to feel normal.\u00a0 I am cataloguing photos today and beginning my [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":94,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celticoaksappaloosas.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/194"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celticoaksappaloosas.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celticoaksappaloosas.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celticoaksappaloosas.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celticoaksappaloosas.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=194"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/celticoaksappaloosas.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/194\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":198,"href":"https:\/\/celticoaksappaloosas.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/194\/revisions\/198"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celticoaksappaloosas.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/94"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celticoaksappaloosas.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}