On January 15th R. and I took our first holiday together. It consisted of a flight to Ft. Lauderdale to visit R.’s mother, and to celebrate my 50th birthday by fulfilling my live-long dream of taking an airboat ride over the Everglades. It was a much needed break from winter and school, and a gift from R. that I’ll always treasure.

I decided to document the occasion by taking at least a photo every hour, as an exercise in photo-journalism. The photos are mostly edit-free, and all were taken with my little Canon point-and-shoot. For better or worse, this is a photo-record of our travel day.

It started at the unearthly hour of:

4:00 am!

5:40 am – Bags Are Waiting…

5:48 am – Taxi’s Here!

People just won’t stay still and cooperate with the photographer at 5:00 in the morning. Oh well, interesting effect anyway!

6:03 am – YVR Airport…

6:58 – Is It Time Yet?

“Yikes! Was that our pilot stumbling by with a bottle of tequila?”

7:30 am: Still Waiting…

Wow, R., was the double-vision from too much Starbucks or too little sleep?

8:20 – In The Air…At Last!

9:00 am – Breakfast!

“Mmmm, we like Cheerios!”

9:30 am – Where are we? What Time Is it?

10:12 am (YVR Time)

(Feels like 10 pm!)

(So much for getting in some reading time!)

11:20 am (YVR Time)

Still no idea where we are…

2:30 pm (Houston Time) Arrival At IAH…

An iPod Vending Machine??

Just in case the ‘defib’ doesn’t help?

3:15 – Busy Airport

This guy had the right idea.

4:00 Houston Time – Florida Here We Come!

7:30 pm Florida Time – Safe Arrival!

Yay! There’s one bag.

I see palm trees!

8:00 pm – Sheraton Lobby

8:15 pm – The Room…

9:00 pm – Room Service!

10:30 pm – Too Tempting To Resist…

And that’s all, folks!!