Adventures in California and the oh so "logical" Airport Bathrooms

A rather nice side effect of my restlessness is the fact that I enjoy stalking travel/airline websites. In mid-July, I happened to stumble across a flight from LaGuardia to LAX for a reasonable price. I thought to myself, I have family in Santa Barbara, CA...time for me to visit the west coast. I flew out on Wednesday August 23rd to spend the week with my Aunt Doreen and Evan and visit with my Aunts Peggy and Eileen and cousin Morgan (Dad's side of the fam).

I feel this bears mentioning, especially if you have never flown cross country before. I had a window seat, it was my first time crossing the rockies, the red rocks, the deserts, the grand canyon. It was a perfectly clear day and the landscape was absolutely amazing! (below is a picture taken of the red rocks from the air...i quite like it)

Flying into LA was also crazy. The landscape and population just changes so drastically. You see desert...bam!..mountians...bam!... subURBAN sprawl (I'm talking miles and miles of cauls-de-sac and 2-3 story professional buildings...MILES OF THEM!) From the air, I decided I didn't like LA too much.

I did take the coastal hwy to Santa Barbara, which did not dissapoint. Santa Barbara did not dissapoint either. I feel my trip could be best explained by the pictures (click here for more details )But mostly I'm just too lazy to write about it. Here is a teaser for you (this was the view from the beach about 2 miles from my aunt's place)

(isn't it sick how beautiful it is there?...and to think I had to come home to rainy, cold New York. WTF!?)

On my way back, I had a 3 hour (which turned into 4 1/2 hours) layover in the Nashville airport. While wandering around the airport with my 2 carry-on bags for 4 hours I came to the realization that EVERY airport bathroom that I had been in on my trip, the bathroom stall doors open with the door swinging in towards the toilet.

Now, normally this really isn't an issue, and not something you would notice (unless you are in a wheelchair or painfully overweight). However, when you have carry-on bags coming into the oh, say 4 ft wide by 5 ft deep, bathroom stall where the toilet takes up 1/2 of this space and you are trying to get out of said bathroom stall and the door opens towards you, you have to squeeze over into the far corner to keep from stepping into the toilet (or dipping your bags in nasty toilet-bowl water) in order to get out. How does this in ANY WAY MAKE SENSE? (coincidentally, I've been paying attention as of late to which way public rest-room stall doors open, and all of the ones on the Thruway open out, and all of the handicap stalls in the airports open OUT.)

And here comes that pesky annoyance called logic... again.

There was however one bright spot to the airport bathroom door situation... since I had to squeeze into the far right corner in order to get out; I happened upon the automatic flush sweetspot, where the toilet would ACTUALLY flush automatically...every time. In case you have not figured this out... the flushing sweetspot is WAY the hell over into the far right corner of the stall... so now you know.

-daley out.