David and I are taking a little trip. By little, I really mean big. This trip was originally planned for 2021 and has been postponed and postponed and postponed. I won’t go into boring details, but getting to this point has been rocky, at best. At almost every turn, some roadblock would get in the way. The last of which happened yesterday.

We are heading to Southeast Asia for a cruise that starts tomorrow in Bali. We were both geared up for a long haul to get to Bali, and were supposed to leave from Palm Springs yesterday and fly eastward to Bali, through Dallas and Doha. Our flight was cancelled due to weather, so we (along with a boatload of people) waited to speak to an agent. I was also on the phone, and they were all helpful, but I understood there were very few options. When we got to the agent, she worked hard to get us rebooked on flights from Los Angeles, routed through Sydney, Australia. Great! Now we could say we visited Australia (with a great big asterisk). I asked if the seats were in business class, like our cancelled flights. “Yes, but you need to get a visa for Australia.” I thought that was odd, but we headed home so I could get the visa, book a car to LAX and check to make sure our seats were next to each other.

First, I booked an Uber to pick us up in an hour, then tried to figure out the visa situation, but each time I clicked the link for visas, I ended up on something like the Australian Chamber of Commerce site. I gave up for a moment and turned to the seats, and hit another roadblock. Not business class, and I just couldn’t fly for fourteen hours sitting up, not to mention David. Got back on the phone with the airline, and there just weren’t any other options, so I canceled and threw in the towel. Called the cruise company, and they also tried to help, but there weren’t any options. Cancelled the Uber. Canceled the cruise. We had insurance, but it doesn’t cover the total cost, so we would just lose the money we paid.

We were both disappointed and I started looking at other options for a little get away. My friend, Anthony, was here to take care of Maggie, and we should take advantage. I also felt bad that his Palm Springs vacation away from it all was now going to have two interlopers. Maybe a California Coastal cruise? Mexico? Who knows.

Then it dawned on me that the cruise was in Bali for the first two days, and didn’t leave until late on the second day. We could leave today and still make the cruise a day late. I called Viking to make sure this would work, and the departure hadn’t changed, and stopped the cancelation. We would kind of miss Bali, but the rest would be OK. I found flights that worked and only doubled the cost, but we would make it. We are both pretty nervous after yesterday, but the sun is shining and we get on a plane at 4:10PM and head to Vancouver for a flight to Taipei and on to Bali. We arrive at 3:30PM and the ship sails at 10PM. Hopefully.