A slight change to the schedule

January 2, 2024

Today’s ride

We’ve ridden together for the last three days, and after we’ve done with rehashing last night’s mail and have done everything about it that we can for the moment, Rachael decides she’s ready for some alone time and maps out a ride for herself - essentially an out and back to the lower end of Rillito Wash, via the University and Treat Street. She makes it back 47 miles later by midafternoon, returning about five minutes after I’m home from my own ride.

I see that the Grampies have decided to follow my lead and conduct their own bird count this year, announcing it on their New Year’s Day post. I’m not sure if they’re throwing down the gauntlet for some sort of competition, but since I’ve got the day to myself this is as good as any to put a few feathers in my cap so I’m not embarrassed.

My ride idea is for an out and back to El Rio, with a stop at Silverbell Lake and Sweetwater if time works out. As always, I’m time boxed by the need to get back in time for dinner - tonight we’re going to El Charro, a place we should show up at before five unless we want to be queued up on the sidewalk waiting for an empty table.

The ride gets off to a promising start when I manage to make it down to the Loop by Saint Mary’s without getting stopped by a freight train on the Granada crossing; and then when a roadrunner scurries across the trail in front of me almost as soon as I’m on the loop. I add it to my mental list of new birds for the day - that and a house finch already, and I’m barely into the ride.

Five miles later I pull into Christopher Columbus Park and make the slow loop around Silverbell Lake, adding new birds as I go. Pretty good! By the time I leave the lake a half hour or so later I’ve added another thirteen new birds to the list and come away with a few photos that please me.

Mexican ducks, up to some springtime hanky panky.

Abert’s towhee. Actually, this isn’t new because I also saw one yesterday; but I liked the shot well enough to post it anyway.

Neotropic cormorants. Now that I know that they’re around, they’re easy to identify because they’re only 2/3 as large as the similar double crested cormorant.

As I start biking north again I realize that El Rio won’t be happening today because I took too long at the lake and there won’t be time. I decide I’ll bike as far as Ina Road where Ina crosses the Santa Cruz and then turn back. There’s always some water in the river here and a small waterfall, and I’ve seen some interesting birds here in the past - a spotted sandpiper one year, and a jacana another.

Today there’s more water running through the river than usual and not many birds at all are around - a great egret, and a heron that swoops in while I’m scoping out the water above the falls hoping to see something. He puts on a nice show for me, gradually approaching the lip of the small cascade and then flying off to the flats below.

I’ve taken long enough up to this point that there isn’t time for me to visit Sweetwater on the way home, other than to stop and stare through a chain link fence down at the holding pond below the bike path. This is always a spot worth a look, almost guaranteed to turn up some shovelers and ring-necked ducks, and more often than not there’s a belted kingfisher perched at the end of a nearby snag who immediately flies off to the far end of the pond when I arrive.

The kingfisher is in today and he follows the usual script by flying off out of range as soon as I pull the camera out. And there’s a large raft of swirling shovelers and the ring-necked ducks, but the prize today is a Wilson’s snipe working the water line right below me. I get a great look at him, a bird I think I may never have seen before. Definitely I didn’t see one last year, at least.

Another great blue heron, here because I was surprised by how much red he’s sporting.

An impressive shoveler circle, with about a hundred birds eddying in tight formation.

The find of the day, a Wilson’s snipe. I’m not positive, but this might be the first time I’ve ever seen this bird.

By the time I make it home I add two more birds for the day - some white-crowned sparrows and a female vermillion flycatcher, bringing my new bird total for the day to an even two dozen. Nice! At this rate, I could see a couple thousand species this year! All I have to do is find five or ten new birds each day for the rest of the year. Shouldn’t be a problem.

And this morning dove squeezed in because I like that his eye liner matches the blue streak on the railing.

And somehow vermillion flycatchers always make the cut. This one’s excuse is that he’s the last new bird of the day, and #33 for the year.

Some new news about some old news

After the ride, I took a shower. Afterwards when I was putting on a clean pair of underwear a small sock fell out. So that’s one accounted for. Rachael doesn’t agree with me here, but I resent the fact that we found hers, not mine. She has several other pairs already. Life’s not fair.

Some new news

Along with everything else going on, we’ve finalized our plan for the drive north a month from now. We leave here on January 27th and are booked for three nights in Borrego Springs, three more in Solvang, and then four in Morro Bay before making a three day dash north. If you’ll be within shouting distance and would like to get together somewhere in here, give a holler.

About yesterday’s mail

So here’s another of those stories I’m almost too embarrassed about to expose, but maybe there’s a lesson in here someone else can learn from. It’s hopefully one we’ll remember ourselves.

About a week ago, the airlines advised of us of a schedule change for our flight to Barcelona. These are pretty routine any more - there’s always some change to a booking we’ve made a half year or more in advance, typically some small change that’s concerning only if it adversely affects our layover time somewhere and increases the risk of a missed connection. This one is just like that - our flight from LA to Barcelona has been pushed out by about a half hour, which works fine at both ends. I let Rachael know, and accept the change.

Last night, Expedia sent us the updated itinerary and I looked again.

Today’s lesson: always read the fine print.

Neither of us can believe that the change has introduced a two day layover at the LA airport. Really, the itinerary should be treated as one and show that the arrival is 3 days later, not just the +1 that’s shown. Much wailing and gnashing of teeth ensues, and continues throughout a high stress 45 minute phone chat with an Expedia agent. The short story of the encounter is that we’re screwed. Since I accepted the change, the owning airline (British Airways) won’t allow changes without the standard change conditions - basically anything we rebook will be at today’s prices. Since we got a super deal on the original booking and fares have skyrocketed since then, any change is exhorbitant. They can get us onto another flight out of LA on the same day, but it will cost us nearly a grand. That’s more than we can stomach, but we pick what looks like the next least bad option and rebook ourselves for a later flight from Portland to LA since we’d rather stay in Portland longer than figure out what to do with a charming 48 hours in LA. That’s expensive too, but at the moment we think it’s the best choice we have.

And then we sleep on it, me waking up intermittently with a new thought on our situation and making a mental note to discuss together in the morning.

There are a lot of issues in this situation other than the money, all of them bad. For one, we’re losing two days of our stay in Barcelona, which is unfortunate but not terrible because we got a good look two years ago when we began our nine month ride to Nice from there.

Another issue is that on the evening after we’ll be arriving now we’re booked for a ferry to Alcudia, Mallorca. Most of our slack time has now disappeared, so there’s the anxiety that a problem with our flight or luggage could jeopardize our ability to make the ferry.

Bearable so far, but hang with me - it gets worse. The other big issue is our suitcases, which we planned to ship to Nice to a hotel that will hold them for nine months, assuming we can find one (we were just about to start looking for one). Our first thought is that we don’t have much time now to reassemble the bikes and get the suitcases down to UPS. My second thought on it comes in the middle of the night though, which prompts me to roll over and check the calendar. Our flight will arrive on Friday evening now. UPS is closed on Saturday, so that solution is out unless we want to rebook the ferry for a couple of days later and eat up two of our days in Mallorca, which we don’t.

So a lot of time this morning goes into exploring alternate shipment ideas - could we leave the bikes in the suitcases for the ferry ride, and ship them from Mallorca? Could we use DHL? Could we use Eurosender? A lot of hurried research goes into exploring these alternatives, including reviewing the nightmarish situation in Antwerp two years ago when we had a similar problem that I’d forgotten about until this brought it to mind again.

I’m concluding that none of these alternatives looks like it will work well, when Rachael and I come to the same thought at about the same time - let’s not take the suitcases, let’s just box the bikes.

And that’s where we’ve ended up. We’ve got nearly two weeks in Portland, which is plenty of time to scrounge up boxes for the flight to Spain. And we’ve got ten months to think about how to get them home from Nice without suitcases. Plenty of time to figure out how to get them home again, or maybe we’ll just find a storage locker to leave them in for the winter and go back in the spring. Many things are possible.

Today's ride: 47 miles (76 km)
Total: 854 miles (1,374 km)

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Comment on this entry	Comment	16

Ben ParkeI’ve always had good luck contacting my local bike store for boxes. They usually have a bunch out by the dumpster waiting for the recycling truck and will let me haul one off. Airports will sometimes sell bike boxes. They ask a premium for them, but I know at least Frankfurt has them. It’s also possible a nearby LBS in Europe will hav edlem they are throwing out too. Good luck, and bummer about the flight alteration. Makes a real mess of things.
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11 months ago

Jacquie GaudetThanks for sharing, Scott. We will be booking our flights soon and I expect there will be the usual small changes. I will be sure to make sure that the inevitable changes are indeed small.
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11 months ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesNo gauntlet throwing here, Scott. We are shamelessly copying your excellent lead, and hoping to modestly accumulate a respectable bird count by year's end. Your early numbers already outpace us by easily double, so it is a good thing we are not in a competition.
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11 months ago

Susan CarpenterIn January, 2021 I booked a flight to Paris for September- we were still in the throes of COVID but the vaccine data was very promising and I figured that soon we'd all be vaccinated and traveling again. My booking connected through Philly but American changed my ticket to a connection thru New York. Only when I looked closely did I see that I flew from Raleigh into LaGuardia, and flew out of JFK to Paris!! I had a long convo with American representative explaining that ground transport between NYC airports with a bicycle was a no-go. She countered that there were few options due to the general reduction in international flights during COVID. She was very nice and eventually was able to book me through Dallas - it was a couple of days later than my original booking but my plans were still flexible at that point. And I earned more miles!
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11 months ago

Kathleen ClassenI am obsessive about checking any flight changes we inevitably receive, but I am quite sure I would have missed that. So thank you for posting as it is one more thing that we might encounter and now I will know to look. I am outraged on your behalf. I have never heard of flight changes involving multiple days. Cardboard boxes are a great solution for the shipping problem though!
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11 months ago

Scott AndersonTo Ben ParkeThanks for the encouragement, Ben. Once this idea occurred to us it felt like the obvious solution. Should work out fine.
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11 months ago

Scott AndersonTo Jacquie GaudetMe too. I’m sure I was misled by seeing the arrival date listed as +1 day and didn’t notice the days themselves. That’s very misleading.

The one good thing in this mess is that I did notice eventually. Think what it would be to arrive in LA thinking we were leaving in a few hours only to discover this!
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11 months ago

Scott AndersonTo Susan CarpenterI think I remember this story. Congratulations on noticing in time! We should start having you review all of our schedule changes to make sure we’re not missing something.
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11 months ago

Kelly IniguezThat's dog dirty of Britsh Airways to not agree to rebook you after you discovered the two day error. That's not a reasonable amount of time in anyone's book! There's legal, and then there's plain nuts!

It's a good thing this isn't your first rodeo, and you can think on your feet.
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11 months ago

Scott AndersonTo Steve Miller/GrampiesI didn’t take it this way, in spite of my poor attempt at humor - no one ever knows when I’m joking, it seems. I’m really enjoying following along with this new interest, and learning something. I’m pretty sure if I’m ever lucky enough to see a Yucatan jay, I’ll recognize it right off.
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11 months ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Scott AndersonWe seem to both suffer from the "No one gets my sense of humour thing. " We actually feel inspired by your lead on this birdwatching while cycling, and are seriously enjoying our new hobby/interest/obsession. It was lovely to get your funny shout out, and we took it as a bit of a cheeky poke. What a pain, by the way, about your flight hassles. Thanks for posting about it. We will carefully review our flights to Spain when we get home.
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11 months ago

Suzanne GibsonI'm sure I wouldn't have noticed the date, either. That's a real pain. But I'm glad you've found an acceptable solution. I hope there are no hitches making the ferry to Mallorca.
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11 months ago

Andrea BrownWe will be making new boxes in Bangkok next month, and have decided we need to make them slightly bigger. So the original 30x20x12” dimensions are going to expand a bit and hope the gate agents don’t measure them, because that puts them over the 72 lineal inches limit on regular checked luggage. I must say we’ve never had anybody measure them, only weigh them, but the suspense is real.
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11 months ago

Scott FenwickScott you have a great knack for keeping it interesting. Another bike packing option is to use a large "airline legal" soft sided suitcase that are often available cheaply in second hand stores. The benefit is they can be part of your baggage allotment whereas as Andrea points out - a boxed bike can often have an additional bag charge. However, tossing them at the destination may be more difficult than a box. Congrats on the birthday ride - you are an inspiration.
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11 months ago

Scott AndersonTo Andrea BrownHuh. That’s an interesting idea, finding a couple of disposable suitcases at a thrift store. That might be worth a look. Luggage fees won’t be an issue here though, because surprisingly enough both Alaska and British Airways allegedly treat a boxed bicycle as a normal piece of luggage.
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11 months ago

Scott AndersonTo Suzanne GibsonIt is a real pain, alright. An outrage really, if either of us was disposed to get outraged over events we can’t change. Nd that’s twice in the last year! Do you remember us waiting during dinner in Padua to find out if we had a flight home or not? I still can’t believe that our return flight was cancelled without us being notified of it,
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11 months ago