Here are some of my favorite pictures from our trip to Mexico for Kristin’s author visit to the American School Foundation of Monterrey in Mexico. We stayed an extra two days in the beautiful mountain resort of Chipinque.

See the whole Flickr set here

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We had a good trip to Monterrey, Mexico, and thankfully were able to make our connecting flights back flying standby on Northwest.

More pictures to follow. If you can’t wait, this is the Flickr set that will have all of them in it. 🙂

Northwest pilot saves the day.

So, our flight to Monterrey, Mexico was supposed to be today. Kristin has an author school visit tomorrow morning. Got the message that our flight had been cancelled. Went to the airport, scanned passport in the machine. “You’re checking in too early for your flight, which, by the way, we’ve rescheduled for TOMORROW”.

So, Kristin’s dad being a pilot for Northwest, who just happened to be at the St. Louis airport by chance, helped us out by doing some research to help solve the problem.

Our journey so far:

1. St. Louis non-rev Northwest flight to Detroit. 2 seats available.
2. 1 seat available in Detroit flight to Houston. Did not want to split up, so declined single seat
3. Talked to 10 people about why they couldn’t re-list us on flight to Minneapolis, continuing on to Houston.
4. Finally got re-listed, got flight from Detroit to Minneapolis.
5. Flight to Houston is now delayed. We’ll be getting in around midnight.
6. Had to re-book the Continental ticket purchased earlier today from Houston to Monterrey (extra $100 charge each ticket) for tomorrow morning instead of tonight
7. Power is running out on the laptop. Gonna go charge it up and get on this flight to Houston.
8. Got some dinner, a tasty sandwich, fries, side salad. Plugged in laptop. Making Internet with the phone. Booking a hotel in Houston for approximately 6 hours of rest for $84.24.
9. Headed to the gate, to wait.
10. Made the flight to Houston. Took a cab to the EconoLodge, where it was good we had a reservation since they were full. Sleep time, then shuttle to the airport at 6:30 am.
11. Got on the 6:30 am shuttle to the airport, passed through security with no problems. Got on the plane to Monterrey, got through customs just fine. Was picked up by Fiona (Kristin’s contact) and we drove straight to the school. So in the end, only the first presentation of the day had to be rescheduled. Yay!
12. Oh yeah, it’s going to be ~38º C today here in Monterrey. That translates into right around 100º F. But it’s a dry heat, so that’s good. They’re treating us very well. So, victory, at last, despite American Airlines FAIL, which would have forced Kristin to cancel the entire day of school visit talks.
13. Here is more information about the cancellations from American Airlines that includes a link to their Customer Service email contact form if you want to request a refund.

Why, American Airlines, why the spectacular FAIL TODAY!?!?!

Some tasty coffee on our Northwest flight. Tunes of choice on the iPod right now? Gogol Bordello of course.

Kristin has some author school visits scheduled at an international school in Monterrey, Mexico in the next couple of days. We’re leaving later this morning (Wednesday, April 9) and will be returning Monday evening (April 14).

Where is Monterrey, Mexico, you might ask?

View Larger Map

This is the hotel we’ll be staying at over the weekend. Even though it looks fun and all, and is supposed to be in the 100º F range temperature-wise, I will be working throughout the trip.

I don’t think my cell phone is going to be working, however, so email or IM is probably going to be the best way to get in touch while we’re gone.

Still to-do before I can go to bed before waking up in a couple of hours:

1. Finish preparing tax docs for the accountant
2. Prepare mileage spreadsheet for 2007 – uggh
3. Pack
4. Clean this mess up.
5. Save new voicemail greeting message explaining why I’m not picking up
6. Backup laptop (just in case)

My desk looks like this right now:

So fun. Sort of.