Traveling Tidbits

Happy Monday after Thanksgiving! I'm back from a fabulous trip to California with family with some tidbits of useful information:

1. At a gathering yesterday, a woman I met shared a terrific story of generosity. Someone freecycled Thanksgiving meal leftovers as dinners for four available for pickup after 2 p.m. (I think this was in Laurel).  While I've got no information on how many takers the Thanksgiving meal freecyclers had, I loved this idea of sharing the wealth of food. Of course, that may be because my sister and I cooked up a feast fit for way more people than we had! Anyways, if you're preparing a large Christmas feast next month, think about sharing your extras!

2. San Francisco airport's TSA family line may have just been the best invention of recent times. I will admit that when I read eons ago that the TSA was implementing family lines at airports, I was a bit skeptical that we'd be stuck waiting in long, slow lines while all those non-kid folks whizzed through security. Instead, we got through easily with little wait while everyone else endured massive lines. The only downside: The TSA security woman who kept asking my kids if they were excited for Christmas even after the kids said they celebrate Hanukkah.

3. Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif., really is doable in 12 hours on a Monday. Tiring, yes. Expensive: absolutely. A bit aged: yep. Fast Pass, which lets you sign up for one ride and then go on another while you wait, is quite an improvement from my childhood. The boys' favorites: Tomorrowland's Astro Blasters and Star Tours (a hydrolic Star Wars adventure).