IDS #216 - National Lampoon's Cox Family Vacation

🎙️ On July 19th, 2024, millions of families were hit hard by a global IT outage, including Darin's! Tune in this week as Darin shares the chaos of his family's trip to sunny California. Spoiler: It was a doozie! 🌞✈️

Were you affected by the outage? We want to hear your story! Drop us a message on Facebook or visit irritabledadsyndrome.com.

#DELTA #AVIS #PRICELINE #SanFrancisco #YosemiteNationalPark #California

Transcript

>> Darin: So, a mutual friend of ours on the Facebook, she had said she was looking for a good true crime or scary ghost haunted, podcast to listen to. And so I sent her a leaked ours. I said, I think we've talked about crime sometime on ours. She listened to an episode today. She loves Dave. That's the only thing she said. She says, I love Dave. I'm like, well, good. I'm glad you love Dave. Yeah, the whole. I mean, you know, Dave is 5% of the podcast. 95% of it is me and you. But she loves Dave, and that's fine. You know what? She can love Dave. That's totally fine.

>> Mike: Dave, you're fired.

>> Darin: Yep. Sorry, folks.

>> Mike: Park's closed.

>> Darin: The moose out front should have told you.

>> Dave: Welcome to irritable dad syndrome. This podcast is so hot, you're going to need sunscreen. Give it up for your hosts, Mike and Darren.

>> Darin: I. Hi, I'm Darren.

>> Mike: I'm Mike.

>> Darin: Welcome to irritable dad syndrome. This is episode 216. And.

>> Mike: Wow.

>> Darin: Mike and I, we haven't seen each other in, I think, three weeks.

>> Mike: Yeah, it's,

>> Darin: yeah, we took a little summer vacation. You know, Mikey and I, we need a break from each other.

>> Mike: Yeah, we get a little stabby.

>> Darin: Yeah. Kind of like the, the, you know, we're in the rock band, and we each, like, did a solo project to get each other out of our, system.

>> Mike: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.

>> Darin: But we're back now, and, Boy howdy. Do we have a show for you tonight.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: I had the most stressful, worst possible ever start to a vacation, that we've ever had, ever. I mean, it was insane.

>> Mike: Yeah, yeah. And I'm going to talk about Darren's vacation. That's what this episode is going to be, folks. You know what?

>> Darin: We'll sprinkle a couple other things in.

>> Mike: There, but, yeah, I will tell you, and maybe this is me being selfish or whatever, but some of my favorite episodes have been when we come back from vacations. Because if the reason you come to this show is because we have mental issues and you like to hear how we interact with the normal world. Vacation. Is that on steroids?

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: Yeah. We let fly and we document it all.

>> Darin: We do.

>> Mike: Yeah. Yeah.

>> Darin: So, yeah, let's get right to it. Oh, by the way, if you listened to last week's episode, last week's episode was our best of, volume four.

>> Mike: Number four for them damn things.

>> Darin: That's our fourth best of episode. We did best of volume one. That was number 52. Okay. Then we did best of volume two, volume three, and volume four. And if you go to irritabledadsyndrum.com and there's a, At the top of the page, there's new, to the podcast question mark.

>> Mike: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

>> Darin: There's a section there, and you can flip through some episodes as the episode we did with Shadow Stevens, the one where I went to New York and met Rupert G and all the letterman people, and then Mike went to see you two in Vegas. Anyway, if you go through that, you can find the best of volume three, volume two, and volume one, if you're new to the podcast, because I had somebody today, this woman, named Amy, and she asked me, what's your favorite episode of your show? I don't have a favorite episode. I've got some favorite segments. But, no, there's no way for me to tell you a favorite episode. But if you're new to the podcast.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: If you want to check us out. Yeah. Go and find those best of episodes. And I think you'll think.

>> Mike: So, I had some friends on a road trip, and they messaged me and said, we're on a road trip. We want to listen to your podcast. What? Give us some suggestions. And I started looking through, and I had a lot of trouble. A, because I forget what we talked about.

>> Darin: Right.

>> Mike: But b, you never know when something's going to be good.

>> Darin: Right.

>> Mike: But I want to throw a challenge out there. I'm going to call it the whopping challenge.

>> Darin: I mean, our most successful episode was the legend of truck nuts Troy.

>> Mike: Mm

>> Darin: But I don't know that that's our best one. No, but it was. I mean, it was a good one.

>> Mike: Yeah. So, walk with me on this journey. podcast listeners, new and old. Yeah. Can do this. The Wahhabin challenge.

>> Darin: Hey, what happened?

>> Mike: Listen to the best of year four.

>> Darin: Mm

>> Mike: Then immediately listen to the best of year three.

>> Darin: Right.

>> Mike: Then year two. Then year one.

>> Darin: Right.

>> Mike: And then listen to the first episode, and what you'll heard is a slow degradation backwards. You'll hear two people who semi know what they're doing go all the way backwards to. Is this thing on?

>> Darin: We didn't know what we were doing when we started. And there's. You know what? We have a handful of listeners who've been with us since episode one.

>> Mike: Yes.

>> Darin: Loyal followers.

>> Mike: Yes.

>> Darin: And they loved episode one.

>> Mike: whatever. So, yeah, I had the absolute joy. I enjoy putting together the best ofs. Have I done them all?

>> Darin: You've edited all four. Best of.

>> Mike: Okay.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: this one was done quickly, folks, because, Daddy didn't have a lot of time because of all the. That was aimed and launched at the fan. Right. We had a moment where we thought we weren't going to have an episode come out at all.

>> Darin: Well, we had to have Dave lay host it. Yeah.

>> Mike: Yeah. He broke into the house and he recorded whatever the hell that did, whatever.

>> Darin: He wanted to do.

>> Mike: And then, And then Mikey, threw the clips in there. But in going through those, it reminded me I got right back into the saddle. The golden saddle. The blazing saddle.

>> Darin: The golden saddle.

>> Mike: The. Yeah, the saddle. If nothing else, I know how to beat the. Out of a joke to beat it until it's. It and its horse are dead.

>> Mike: But the point is, listen, to the best of, and they will give you an indication of whether you want to listen to the rest of that year. We don't put all the best stuff in the best of. Contrary to the title, there's just not enough room.

>> Darin: There's not.

>> Mike: And, nobody's gonna listen to a two hour episode like that.

>> Darin: yeah, we do try to limit it. You know what we love the most. But anyway, those are on there, so go to irritabledadsyndrome.com and check those out.

>> Dave: You are listening to irritable dad syndrome, Cincinnati's comedy podcast.

>> Mike: Oh, that's exciting.

>> Darin: I'm gonna drop my pants and fire a rocket.

>> Mike: So your vacation got a little griswoldy.

>> Darin: Oh, my God. I don't know if you knew this, but on July 19, the earth had a global Internet outage.

>> Mike: Yeah. Barry, at, Microsoft, Barry kicked the plug out.

>> Darin: Yes.

>> Mike: It was some program that they use. They were oversmac or something.

>> Darin: They were updating over smack.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: And it. Everything everywhere, all at once.

>> Mike: We have that. We are the peak of technical commentary. Well, all I know is something happened somewhere.

>> Darin: Yes, because, Libby and I, you know, usually on vacation, we drive. I can't remember. It was three or four years. I think it was three or four years ago. We flew to Florida, for a cruise. Right.

>> Mike: And you had to fly to Australia. There's not. There's too many.

>> Darin: You can't walk. The train doesn't go there.

>> Mike: There was a bus that. That tried to go there once.

>> Darin: What happened to that bus that never came back?

>> Mike: It's still going. It's one of those duck buses still floating out there. Have you ever been on one of those?

>> Darin: I have. I have a story with that, but I'll tell you that later. So July 19, we're getting ready to fly to, California. Okay.

>> Mike: Our plan was Sacramento.

>> Darin: No, San Francisco. The plan was, we're going to go to San Francisco on July 19. We're gonna spend the night. And then on the 20th, we are going to go see the Alcatraz, the golden Gate bridge. there's like a wheel or something. A Ferris wheel or something. Downtown, fisherman's, wharf. We paid a decent amount of money to do this tour. Okay. And we get this email, this text first thing in the morning on July 18. Hey, there's this outage. No, we got a text. We got a text from delta.

>> Mike: Okay.

>> Darin: Yeah. Yes. Oh, hey. Heads up. Your plans may be totally screwed.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: And we went to Delta's website, and we looked, and this plane was on time. This plane was on time. This plane was on time. This one is on time. These two were canceled. Our flight delayed.

>> Mike: Mmm.

>> Darin: M. How far was it delayed? 45 minutes.

>> Mike: That's not bad.

>> Darin: Well, it is if you have a layover in Detroit that you're not going to be able to get.

>> Mike: Yeah. Yeah.

>> Darin: So we are essentially screwed.

>> Mike: I will say this as someone who has flown a lot in my past, a lot of time, I've been in a situation a lot where they are delayed for 45 minutes or an hour, and I only have a small layover. The pilots, they've got like an afterburner, but they have something. When you get up there, they'll say, we're, waiting half hour behind, and we're going to get there about 15 minutes. I don't know what happened.

>> Darin: They postponed our flight, and then they postponed it again. and we definitely were not going to make our layover in Detroit. Eventually, they canceled the flight.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: So now m. In the morning, we instantly saw that our flight was delayed. So we got onto delta's. we gave them a call on the phone because we couldn't get anybody on the ww because of the oversmack. Exactly. Over smack. Wait time was 8 hours and 44 minutes. Wait, wait.

>> Mike: You could. You could pay an employee to be on hold for you, and you would have to pay them overtime, right? Yeah.

>> Darin: Yes.

>> Mike: Okay.

>> Darin: Yes. I could have driven to Detroit in the time it took me to get somebody on the phone.

>> Mike: Was it estimated weight is 8 hours and 54 minutes?

>> Darin: Yeah. 8 hours and 44 minutes.

>> Mike: Wow. We're like, okay, that is.

>> Darin: Now what do we do? So. And Libby had to work. She was working a half day. And so me, the dumb guy in the family.

>> Mike: Okay.

>> Darin: Is trying to. Now, keep in mind, Libby made all the reservations. Libby knew all the. The reservation numbers, and it was all on her credit card password. Yes. Yes. The. We did this on priceline. We did this through, through flight hub. We did this through this and through this. And so I'm like, okay. And I'm trying to figure out what I can possibly do. And, my boss saw that I was doing this, and he, God love him, he was trying so hard to help. And he was going online. Hey, you can drive to Chicago. Fly Alaska airlines. That'll take you here, and then I'll get you there. And we're like, oh, okay. But what are we gonna do with our car?

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: It's like, we're gonna land and we're gonna take our trip. We're gonna land in Cincinnati and then go to Chicago and then come back.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: And I wasn't going to take the chance of driving. It's like driving all the way to Chicago or Nashville or something else and to do that. But we were looking at Indy, Columbus, Dayton, Louisville, and Lexington, trying to find something. Now, I found a flight that took off on the 19th. Okay. And had a layover in, I want to say, Dallas. And then we would get to San Francisco a little bit later than we anticipated. I looked. I looked and I looked, and I looked, and I double checked it, and I bought it. And the confirmation came in, and it said that our flight leaves on the 20th and not the 19th. Like, I'm crazy.

>> Mike: Yeah, yeah.

>> Darin: And I'm like, I swear as God is my witness that it said we took off on the 19th. This one says the 20th.

>> Mike: Okay.

>> Darin: And I'm like, okay. So I instantly canceled that one. Instantly.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: And they said, okay, we're sorry that you had a problem. And they. They, refunded me.

>> Mike: Okay.

>> Darin: Like that. Yeah, I tried a book.

>> Mike: Another still. You're still dealing with Delta?

>> Darin: Yes, I'm on. I'm on flight, hub now. So I'm dealing with whoever. Yeah, I'll fly air Bangkok, if they'll.

>> Mike: Take it, get on a plane, and there's a bunch of chickens in an inflatable raft in an asian name. Short round.

>> Darin: Yes.

>> Mike: You may not like the landing.

>> Darin: No. So we gotta jump out of the plane.

>> Mike: Yeah. You'll hit the slope.

>> Darin: Yeah, I booked another flight. And again, I'm frantic. I'm. I'm trying. I'm checking and everything. And I booked a second flight. And when the confirmation came in, oh, my God. I realized that, yeah, it leaves on the 19th, but we have a 23 hours layover yeah. In Dallas, I'm like, oh, my gosh. Darren, you just need to calm down. Yeah, it's just a vacation. Just calm down. Yeah.

>> Mike: You're so. You're supposed to be enjoying this.

>> Darin: Yeah, I'm on my vacation on the 19th. I had that day off. So I go to cancel that. And they refunded the money for the tickets, but not for the cost to check your seats. I got billed $300.

>> Mike: What?

>> Darin: Yeah. So I'm out. Dollar 300 because I screwed up. And by frantically clicking the right. Okay. So I just. I gave up on that. And we. Libby was trying to call somebody, and I was trying to call somebody. We're trying to work through all this. We finally just like, you know what? Just go to the airport. Yeah, we're just gonna go to the airport.

>> Mike: Okay.

>> Darin: What they can do for us.

>> Mike: Oh, that's hardcore.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: Dude, that's ballsy to just go there.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: Well, I mean, what are we gonna go in there?

>> Darin: Well, we've got to do something. We don't want to lose our whole trip.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: Okay. Because the way our vacation was laid out, we were gonna do one day in San Francisco and then drive to Yosemite National park for three days and then go to Lake Tahoe for three days.

>> Mike: So you got a rental car that you got to pay a rental car.

>> Darin: At one place that's going to take us to another place. So. So we're driving to the airport, and while we're in the car trying to get to Cincinnati's, airport is in northern Kentucky. For people listening to us around the world, the Cincinnati, Ohio airport is in Kentucky.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: We're driving to the airport, and Libby finally got hold of this guy with Priceline, and he deserves the customer service appreciation award of the year.

>> Mike: Okay.

>> Darin: He would. Jack was absolutely amazing. So, Jack is trying to work with us, with priceline, and he's like, well, I could try and get you something from Indianapolis. We're like, well, we're already on our way to CVG, to Cincinnati, and he's checking and checking and checking, and he, He says, hang on for 1 second. And then he says, can you hear me? Like, yeah, we can hear you. Okay. So, there's. There's nothing else that CVG. let me look and see if there's anything at Lexington. Okay. Can you hold? Yeah. Okay, I'm back. Can you hear me? Yes. Yes, we can hear you. Okay. There's nothing at Lexington. Have you already checked Dayton? I'm like, well, I checked Dayton. He goes, yeah, I'm looking at Dayton. Here. Hang on. Okay. Okay, I'm back. Can you hear me? Yes. Yes, Jack, we can hear you. Yes.

>> Mike: Okay, we've got a hot air balloon.

>> Darin: There's nothing at Dayton. He finally says, we've got a flight out of Louisville that takes off tonight.

>> Mike: Did you say. Excuse me, Jack. It's Louisville.

>> Darin: It's Louisville, yeah. And what's the capital of Kentucky? Is it Louisville or Louisville?

>> Mike: Yeah, exactly.

>> Darin: It's frankfurt. He says, I got a flight out of Louisville that has a layover in Las Vegas, and it'll get you into, San Francisco at 12:30 a.m. was.

>> Mike: That the one you took?

>> Darin: We're like, we'll take it. We'll take it. So he says, okay. So he says, I'm gonna book it. And, Good. So he books it. Okay, and we're driving. And we pass the exit that takes you to Cincinnati. Northern Kentucky International Airport.

>> Mike: Okay.

>> Darin: And we're driving to Louisville.

>> Mike: Yes.

>> Darin: And we're. Yeah, and it takes. I don't know how long to get to Louisville.

>> Mike: Hours.

>> Darin: Yeah, something like that.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: So I'm driving or driving. I'm driving. And we're so relieved we've got a flight. And I. And now Libby's on the phone with the rental car place, and she says, I need. We've got a rental car that we're supposed to pick up in Reno. We now need to pick this up in Las Vegas or. No, we gotta pick it up at another. Okay, so they're changing where we pick up our rental car.

>> Mike: Can I pause you for a moment? Longtime listeners will know from my exploits. You don't want to pick up a rental car in Las Vegas. They don't have any, right? Yeah.

>> Darin: Well, no, she, It was supposed to be. We were supposed to pick up a rental car in San Francisco. We're now picking it up at a different airport.

>> Mike: So. So you're gonna be. You're. But you're gonna land in Vegas and then drive?

>> Darin: No, we're gonna land in Vegas and then take a layover to gotcha. To gotcha. Yeah, gotcha. To a different airport.

>> Mike: I'm with you. I'm picking up what you're putting down.

>> Darin: So we called the rental car place, and we're telling them that we need to change the reservation to a different time. And our flight now will land at 1155 in Reno.

>> Mike: During the day, at night.

>> Darin: And they said, okay. Yeah. but just one thing you need to know. Our office closes at midnight. We're like, what do you mean? Your office closes at midnight? Yeah, our office closes at midnight. So, I mean, there won't be anybody there if your flight is, you know, so. And we're like, well, how?

>> Mike: God.

>> Darin: You land at 1155. It takes you ten minutes just to get off the plane.

>> Mike: In their defense, in Reno, m after midnight, the ghost of Johnny Cash will come out and shoot you in the face.

>> Darin: Right, just to watch you die.

>> Mike: But I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.

>> Darin: And we're like, well, now, And they were very nice. What do you mean? We have a reservation, but you can't guarantee that someone will be there to give us the keys when the war starts.

>> Mike: The first people going down in my book are the rental car company people.

>> Darin: So we're hot, and we're trying to figure this out. Then the guy, from priceline calls us back.

>> Mike: Oh.

>> Darin: We're like, hey, Jack, what's going on? Why are you calling us? He goes, yeah, we've got a problem with the Louisville flight. And we're like, what do you mean you have a problem with the Louisville flight? We've got a problem with the Louisville flight. He said that because, you know, of all the system outages and everything, you know, we. We tried to book your flight, but in the time that we tried to do it, apparently some of the other seats had been taken and they couldn't. Anyway, we lost our Louisville flight. We're almost in Louisville. Okay. I am hauling ass, driving to Louisville while Libby's on the phone trying to figure out our car rental. And so. But we lost it, so we couldn't fly out of Louisville. I'm like, well, now what?

>> Mike: Yeah, ok. Who are these jackholes taking your seats on?

>> Darin: I don't know. So we went back to plan a, which was go to the airport. So I pulled off, turned around, and drove from almost Louisville back to CVG airport.

>> Mike: No, you did? I did. Really?

>> Darin: I did.

>> Mike: You didn't just try to stick it in Louisville?

>> Darin: No. I mean, what are we gonna do? We didn't have anything in Louisville.

>> Mike: We.

>> Darin: You know, we did have something.

>> Mike: Is it a larger airport? I mean, did you get within sight of it?

>> Darin: I've never flown out of Louisville, so I don't know.

>> Mike: I would think it would be bigger than.

>> Darin: I don't know. I doubt it. I doubt it.

>> Mike: That's right.

>> Darin: So we, drive back, and like I said, we were elated that we had a flight out of Louisville. And now we're crushed because we don't. So I'm driving back to CVG airport. We get to the airport. Jacob's phone is almost died. Libby's phone is almost dead. And my phone is now at 20 some percent. Libby's been calling. We've only got one phone charger, so. But Libby had been calling and, and I had been trying to. I was on hold with somebody. We get to the airport and Libby's like, go in there and see what it's like. I'm like, I think we both need to go in there.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: You know, because, I was gonna check other airlines while Libby tried to get help from Delta.

>> Mike: Delta will help you out.

>> Darin: I understand. Yeah. By the way, Delta were very cool with us.

>> Mike: They are good people.

>> Darin: We get to the airport and we pull right up where you drop off your luggage. And I said, jacob, get in the front seat. And Jacob gets up there, and he sits in the front seat with the engine running, waiting for someone to say, hey, sir, you need to move your car. And then he was going to move it. He didn't know where he was going to move it, but he was prepared to do that. He was going to call us and let us know that he had to move the car. So Libby gets in the line for Delta help, which is 14 miles long. I went and checked with American Airlines. They didn't have anything. I went and checked with frontier. They didn't have anything I wouldn't check with Alaska Airlines. there was three or four other airlines I wouldn't talk to. Frontier, I think, only flies to Florida, something. but nobody had anything. And then I get a call back from Jack from Priceline. Now my phone, again is almost dead.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: So I said, hang on, Jack, can you hear me? Yes. Yes, I can hear you. I run up to the car and Jacob's like, getting ready to get out. Let me get the car. Like, no, no, no, I need your charger. So I take the charger, I go back into the airport, and I'm standing, leaning against the wall with my charger in the wall, talking. And Jack says, he says, mister Cox, I think we have found you a flight. But it leaves tomorrow. We've got absolutely nothing tonight. It leaves tomorrow. So I went and I found Libby, and I said, we've lost San Francisco. We're not gonna make our trip to San Francisco. We're just not. There's no way we're gonna make it. And we were crushed because we both really wanted to go to San Francisco. We've never seen it. Never been rice aroni the San Francisco treat. Rice aroni, all in one package. Rice vermicelli and this fabulous flavor package aroni. The flavor can't be beaten brown. The rice and vermicelli add, ah, hot water and saute one pan, no boiling cooking ease. A flavor that is sure to bleed in minutes of flavorful change from potatoes. Right. Aroni, the San Francisco treat. I'm like, okay, well, now we're on salvage mode.

>> Mike: How much of this can we, how.

>> Darin: Much of the trip can we save?

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: And he, booked us a flight Saturday at 08:00 p.m. with a layover in Dallas. And then we would land in Reno, Nevada. Because I told him, I said, we don't need to even try to go to San Francisco anymore. Let's get us the closest we can to Yosemite.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: Because our second part of the trip was Yosemite. He says, okay. So he found us a flight again, CVG to Dallas to Reno, Nevada. And we get to Reno right before midnight. Okay.

>> Mike: Okay.

>> Darin: I like, okay, that's, this what we'll take. And I went over before I confirmed it. I checked with Libby. I'm like, we've got a flight tomorrow. That's the best you can do? She said, okay. While she was on the phone, she, finally got in touch with someone from Delta who could have gotten us a flight Sunday.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: The best Delta could do for us was something Sunday. We would have lost two days of our vacation.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: That we've already paid for, by the way. M and it ain't she going to Yosemite, folks. I just hope you know that. So we're like, okay. And with tears on our eyes, we accepted the flight on Saturday. We weren't going to san francisco anymore. We went home. we went to IHop. And, oh, that's where you go. Yeah. just, you know, swallowed our problems with pancakes.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: And, we went home and, watched some tv, went to bed. That morning, we finally got in touch with someone else who was m much nicer and assured us, they said, look, your car rental is connected to your flight reservation, okay? They have to. If your plane gets delayed, or whatever, they have to wait for you. So we assure you that your flight will, that your car rental will be there for you when you get to re.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: And we felt better because this guy was, really fantastic. So we're like, okay, so here it is. You know, we're supposed to be on day two of our vacation, and we're just tooling around the house. We left and decided to go to the airport, like, 3 hours early instead of 2 hours early. And when we got to CVG, it was an absolute zoo. Still, day two, it was a zoo. It took us an hour to check our bags. The line to TSA for, security, that was like. It just went around the corner. It was a mile long. Took us a long time to get through that. We finally, you know, it's like we got on the plane. Libby and I, we're not relaxed. We're not. We're not on vacation until we have those rental car keys, okay? Because we know you're out of your control. Until that point, with everything else that had screwed up, we were convinced, okay, we're gonna get to Reno, and there's not gonna be a car for us. So we get on the plane, we fly to Dallas, and we get off of Dallas, and then we're trying to get to our connecting flight. That was c 14. We go to gate c 14, and it says Los Angeles.

>> Mike: Like, that's.

>> Darin: We're not going to Los Angeles. Are you kidding me? Yeah. I mean, I've got a friend in Los Angeles. We could have went and visited. J. Ryan.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: So I talked to the attendant at the gate. I'm like, this is supposed to be Reno. He goes, oh, they moved that gate. Hang on. So our gate was a four, right next to where we got off. So we turned around, we all got back on the airport shuttle.

>> Mike: Yeah, yeah.

>> Darin: And we take the airport shuttle back to. Right next to where we had gotten off, and we see Reno. Okay. This is where we're supposed to be. So that was fun. And we got on the plane, and the way we booked the seats, it's like the kids were sitting in the back of the plane.

>> Mike: You're sitting on the pilot's lap. Exactly.

>> Darin: Yeah. I'm surprised that we were all. We were just all in different places of the plane. Libby had the smartest idea ever. She asked our flight attendant. She says, look, I, understand that everyone's having a horrible time with flights and everything, but we have to get our rental car before that. They close down their office. Is there any way, anything we can do to get off the plane first? Can we get off the plane first? Is that possible? And she goes, well, let me. Let me find out.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: And she goes up and she says, if there's any available seats, I can move you forward. The flight attendant moved some people around, and the front row of seats right next to first, class. Yeah, we moved. She moved us up there.

>> Mike: Nice yeah. Nice.

>> Darin: So the plane lands. They opened the thing. Libby and I were hauling ass. Like on the amazing race. We turned around, we gave Jacob and Cameron the thumbs up, and they knew they were going to get our carry ons that were in the overhead thing.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: Like, meet us at baggage claim.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: And we ran. We were just hauling ass. And we got to the counter, the Avis counter, and there was one woman there, but the thing said budget. We're like, oh, crap. Where's the Avis lady? Where's the Avis lane? What happened? There's supposed to be an Avis person.

>> Mike: Yeah, the same company. Isn't it, like the same.

>> Darin: Well, we found out that it was the same company.

>> Mike: Yeah, that happened to me in Vegas.

>> Darin: Because I thought, well, if Avis ain't here, we're renting a budget card. And so she was taking care of a customer. And then she says, are you budget or Avis? We said, avis? She goes, okay, hang on. And she turns around, puts a different hat on. Don dance die. And so she says, oh, okay. Yeah. Got your reservation right here. And we're like, Libby and I just high five.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: Ah, we got our car, and we had the keys to the car, and we got our. And our bags weren't lost. And we're like, our vacation has finally started.

>> Mike: Officially started.

>> Darin: We can relax. We're on vacation, so now.

>> Mike: And the car was there. It wasn't. Yeah, give me a automobile.

>> Darin: A datsun, a Toyota, a mustang, a buick.

>> Mike: Four wheels and a seat.

>> Darin: Yeah, we didn't have any situation like that. But she did say, it's a good thing you were here. I was just about to wrap up and go home. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a good thing we hauled ass off the plane. Ah, we ran like crazy.

>> Mike: Cause when they say we close at midnight, you gotta imagine a rental car place in a Reno airport. The lady's probably like, I could get home a little early and catch an episode of the wheel.

>> Darin: Yeah. Wheel in jeopardy, which is on at midnight in Reno.

>> Dave: This portion of irritable dad syndrome is brought to you by Lotus Biscoff cookies. Hi, I'm Dave lay, and I love traveling. It seems like every couple of months I get the urge to visit people and places anywhere on this great planet. And that's why I'm a big fan of Lotus Biscoff cookies. Whenever im flying and the stewardess asks if I want a snack, I say, hell yeah, I want a snack. And make that snack. A pack of Lotus Biscoff cookies. Since 1932, Lotus Biscoff cookies have been made with all natural ingredients. Theyre crunchy, and that caramelized flavor has made them the preferred choice of every major airline that serves snacks. Lotus biscoff cookies.

>> Mike: Mmm.

>> Dave: Now, those are some good cookies. Back to you guys in the studio.

>> Darin: But I don't know if you've ever driven through Nevada. Have you ever driven through Nevada? Part of it, yeah, there's beautiful mountains there.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: We're driving through Nevada at 01:00 in the morning.

>> Mike: Beautiful.

>> Darin: Yeah, it's one in the morning, like, So this is Nevada. Driving through Nevada. Looks like you're driving to Knoxville when you're doing it at one in the morning.

>> Mike: Where is Reno in relation to Vegas? Is it north of Vegas?

>> Darin: I have no idea.

>> Mike: I think it is.

>> Darin: All I know is there's.

>> Mike: That's beautiful country.

>> Darin: There's.

>> Mike: It is. Yeah.

>> Darin: We found that out a few days later. But we're driving to. From Reno, Nevada, to Yosemite now. Okay. And the kids have fallen asleep, and Libby's like, I'm so wired here. Why don't you take the first, You take the first sleep, and I'll drive. I'm like, okay. So I slept for a couple hours, woke up, and so we're almost. Now we're almost at Yosemite. And they say you got to get gas outside of Yosemite. You don't want to buy it inside because it's stupid expensive.

>> Mike: Yeah, it is.

>> Darin: It's almost $7 a gallon.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: In the park, it's 639. Outside of the park. $6.39.

>> Mike: Yeah, it was. It was nine something in Death Valley.

>> Darin: What are you gonna do? Not buy gas?

>> Mike: That's what they do. Yeah, that's what they do.

>> Darin: It's like, well, I'm not paying. yeah.

>> Mike: Okay, well, then, you know, get a backpack. Grandpa, you're not driving. It ain't got no gas in it.

>> Darin: So I filled up, and then I drive in and drive and drive, driving on this road, and I see a wolf. Beautiful wolf.

>> Mike: Okay.

>> Darin: Oh, my God. Beautiful.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: This wolf jumps out in the road and looks at me like, hey, it's car. And, he or she goes back to. They pronounced Darren pronouns.

>> Darin: And I'm driving, and I see this beautiful lake, and it's a full moon. And, Mike, there's a full moon reflection over the lake. And I should have stopped and got a picture. Yeah, I should have. But it's four in the morning now.

>> Mike: Yeah, you don't want to.

>> Darin: I'm exhausted. Anyway, we finally get to our cabin, and everybody's like, hey, guys, we're here. We get out of the cabin, and, we're starting to load our stuff. Our cabin has 56 steps that goes down this hill to our cabin. And all four of us were like, are you kidding me? Ah, my old enemy stairs.

>> Mike: Did they even have one of those chairs you could ride on?

>> Darin: No, no. And Libby's like, this wasn't in the thing. This wasn't when I booked it. It wasn't in the thing.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: So we're carrying our suitcases down 56 steps, and when we get it into the condo or to our vrbo, we're all like, look, we missed a day already. Let's go. We're going. And so we dropped off our stuff, and I got some water, and then we instantly started hiking and walking around. Yeah, Yosemite, we saw, we saw waterfalls. We saw El Capitan, we saw half dome. If you're ever in Yosemite, there's this thing called tunnel view. You drive down this really long tunnel, and as soon as you come out, you see the side of El Capitan, you see the, half, dome and then one other mountain. Gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: So we saw that, early in the morning, and, like, this is really, really, really cool. And one thing, nobody thought I was funny at Yosemite. Nobody. Now I know that people are like.

>> Mike: Nobody listening to this podcast. Like, either one of us are funny.

>> Darin: No, no. People don't. You know, I think nobody at work thinks I'm funny either. But listen, I'm looking at El Capitan, okay? El Capitan is like the largest monolith in the the world or the country.

>> Mike: It's large.

>> Darin: It's ginormous.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: So I'm looking at El Capitan, and there's tourists on all sides of me. And I looked at it, and I looked at Cameron, I said, where's the four faces of the presidents? Nothing.

>> Mike: Nobody? Like, no, nothing.

>> Darin: nothing.

>> Mike: No.

>> Darin: And Cameron's like, dad, I don't know. and so, like, hello, you know, nothing. And we were looking at another mountain, and I tried it again. Where's the four faces of the president? I don't know. Daddy. Hello.

>> Mike: Hello. Yeah.

>> Darin: Crickets and tumbleweed. Nothing. I brought Mikey the monkey with me.

>> Mike: Yeah, ain't nobody got time for your out there, dude.

>> Darin: No, I brought Mikey the monkey with me. And, like, when we were in the airport, he was climbing up the. The pole that you hang on on those shuttles, and he was waving at people nobody waved back. No, nothing.

>> Mike: Yeah, nothing.

>> Darin: Every time I tried a joke, just like, absolutely nothing. But.

>> Mike: Well, you're bringing that midwest humor to the west coast. It just doesn't, apparently doesn't translate.

>> Darin: Yeah. So, we saw, sequoia trees.

>> Mike: They're big.

>> Darin: I'm ginormous there. I don't think they're as big as the redwoods in redwood Forest, but they are freaking huge.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: Okay. And we did a hike where we.

>> Mike: Squirrels are massive.

>> Darin: Squirrel. We did. The squirrels look different.

>> Mike: Do they?

>> Darin: California squirrels look different?

>> Mike: Little circles on their back.

>> Darin: They got mullets. Yeah. They're all named Chad. Yeah.

>> Mike: Trent.

>> Darin: Trent, the squirrel is like. I walk past the squirrel, he's like, sup?

>> Mike: Yeah, but what road you take to get here did you take to 195?

>> Darin: Because if you take highway one, it goes all the way up the coast, dude. All the way up, man. All the way up. But shut the up, Trent. You're out of your element. Oh, man. But we had a day. We had, you know, it's like, outside of the couple hours that I slept in, the cardinal, Libby and I were up almost 24 hours or more.

>> Mike: Yeah. That time change in there as well.

>> Darin: Yeah. But we didn't want to lose any more of our vacation. And after we saw the sequoia trees, we found this place in Yosemite called Swinging Bridge where there's a creek and the boys are swimming in the creek. Then it started getting dark, and Libby was gonna go to glacier Point.

>> Mike: Okay.

>> Darin: So. Where we could see the stars. But we were all just about to keel over and die.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: And we decided we're gonna call it. And, you know, that was all that we did for that night. So we're driving back to our vrbo, and we're coming down our road, and we see, We see two bears. Three bears. Okay, this mama bear.

>> Mike: Oh, boy.

>> Darin: It was a small bear.

>> Mike: Okay.

>> Darin: It's a small bear. And then two little cubs.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: Okay. And the mama bear sees the car, is like. And just hauls it right across the street. Leaves the kids in the road, and the. And the bears are looking like, well, what are we supposed to do now? We're in the road. There's a car.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: You know, but they eventually crossed the road, and we were. Our minds were blown that we saw three bears all at once. Three.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: And then the next day, we're out on our porch and we see a deer and her, little baby. Little baby deer. Little baby, little fawn. Thank you. So, yeah, we saw deer. We saw some more deer on the hike. While we were walking around through yosemite, we saw another bear. We're walking down like a paved path right next to the major road that goes through what you'd call downtown Yosemite, I guess, and not really downtown. This bear jumps across the path and like idiots, we try to go and find it. We're like, hey, it's like, I want to see the bear. So we're walking, trying to see, get a closer look at this bear. And the bear was smarter than we were. Yeah, smarter than the average bear, if you can imagine.

>> Mike: Okay.

>> Darin: This bear was so smart, he jumps into the woods, or she, they jumped into the woods and then double backed went through the trees, and then at the other end of the road, jumps across and crosses the street. Like, screw you guys.

>> Mike: Yeah, pulled a first blood on you. Sly did that in the first Rambo movie.

>> Darin: That's right. Yeah, that's exactly right. But it was the horrible start to the vacation. While we were there, the vrbo, like I said, had 56 steps. Our power went out one day.

>> Mike: Okay.

>> Darin: So we put all the groceries we had in the freezer to keep our milk and our sandwich meat a little bit longer. It came back by the time we were there. It was nuts, Mike. Yeah, it was absolutely nuts.

>> Mike: The main. I mean, you missed San Francisco.

>> Darin: We missed San Francisco. Congratulations, San Francisco. You've ruined pizza. First the Hawaiians and now you.

>> Mike: But. So your vacation was like two spots. San Francisco and Yosemite and Yosemite and then Lake Tahoe.

>> Darin: So we were supposed to, we were supposed to hit three places. We ended up hitting two. Okay, now, our last night looked amazing. This is, irritable dad syndrome. Thank you. Yeah, our last night.

>> Mike: Oh, but excuse me. This is funny.

>> Darin: Yeah. Today's comedy podcast. Our last night in Yosemite, we were, walking around and the, some of the park rangers was, they were clearing us out. They said, you guys need to go. You need. Guys can't be in this part of the park. Yeah, we've found a bear. We're trying to flush this bear out of this part of the park. Okay, so what did everybody do? They moved back like 5ft. You guys need to move. We're trying to flush out this bear. Yeah, guys, everybody needs. So, okay, so we're clearing out and Jacob's like, too bad we didn't get to see a bear, like, you know, like Yogi bear, like at a jelly stone. And I said, well, actually that park, you know, is, Yellowstone.

>> Mike: Yes.

>> Darin: Is it Yellowstone? Or jelly Stone. I said, well, the joke is it's jelly Stone, but the actual park is Yellowstone. Yeah, there's this guy standing next to us, and he looks at us, and we weren't talking to him. Yeah, he looks at it, goes, he goes, it's the same place. It's the same place.

>> Mike: He's just trying to help. He, he recognized that you guys might be a bit of soft in the head.

>> Darin: He sounded like comic book guy in the Simpsons. You must be high and lowest, because you make me laugh. It's the same place. And for the rest of the trip, everything that Libby would say to Jacob, Jaco, go, mom. It's the same place. Bears don't wear hats and they don't wear neckties.

>> Mike: Every summer, thousands of pleasure seeking tourists head for the great outdoor playgrounds of America. And a favorite spot is this wonderland of nature called Jellystone National park. But while these eager beaver motorists are.

>> Darin: Trying to get into beautiful Jellystone park, one, rugged individualist is trying to get out.

>> Mike: I, ah, have had it, boo boo. I'm gonna put starter here.

>> Darin: How come, Yugi?

>> Mike: Every day it's the same old thing. Look at the bears. Look at the bears. Look at the bears.

>> Darin: Sheesh. We had a blast in Yosemite. And then when we were done, we drove to, Lake Tahoe.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: And my God, is Lake Tahoe beautiful.

>> Mike: Yes, it is.

>> Darin: Oh, my God. I've never seen anything like it. Yeah, the lake was insane. Beautiful. It looked like we were in a tropical paradise.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: Okay. It's Lake Tahoe, California. I will warn you, the water is freezing.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: The coldest dam water I've ever been in. It was just nuts how cold the water was. There was, there's like a place called King beach.

>> Mike: Mm

>> Darin: And, that's like, where the majority of the people go because it's usually free parking. And, it's. It's just really big. Libby wanted to go to this place called Sand Harbor. I don't know if you saw the post or, the pictures that I posted on my facebook.

>> Mike: I did. Yeah.

>> Darin: Those pictures are from sand harbor.

>> Mike: Okay. Those really, really beautiful lakes. Yeah.

>> Darin: Was from sand harbor. Here's the deal with sand harbor, okay? It's gorgeous, but it opens up at 07:00 a.m. and everybody goes at 07:00 a.m. because m once they fill the parking lot, they close the beach. And we're like, do we want to get up at 530 or six in the morning and to drive out and plus, who wants to go to the beach at 07:00 a.m. right? It's like you go to the beach at ten or eleven once it's already warm or whatever. So Libby had, again, the smart one in the family, Libby has this brilliant idea. She wanted to rent bikes.

>> Mike: Okay.

>> Darin: And so, and there's this giant bike trail that goes along the. Okay, yeah. All right, gorgeous. Absolutely. So we rented these e bikes. And stupid me, because I was like, do we need e bikes? Do we need electric bikes? I mean, we can all get like the regular cruisers. Like we get in Hilton head.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: Oh, my God.

>> Mike: Yeah, you're overestimating your ability, plus elevation.

>> Darin: My God. Libby and I would walk up the steps and.

>> Mike: Yeah, because you, you almost made the same mistake that I made in, grand Canyon when I thought I was just going to have to send Andrew on ahead. Just let me die down here. I'm not going to make it.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: I'm just not going to make it.

>> Darin: We got the bikes, the e bikes, and we rode them up the hill, along the coast there to sand harbor. And then we got to sand harbor.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: And, like $2 to get in if you take that trail. So we beat the system, went there, we're swimming in the freezing cold water and you could go out on these rocks and then jump off the rocks into the water. And the kids are loving it. We were loving it. And we packed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches every day while we were there. And we had a picnic there. And it was just. It was great.

>> Mike: Yeah, it was really, really, really great. That's awesome.

>> Darin: Yeah. And so, after our day at Sand harbor, we returned the bikes.

>> Mike: No lake monsters asking for tree fitting. No, no, that's good. You know. No, I said I ain't giving you no tree fetty.

>> Darin: You lock nest monster.

>> Mike: Get your own money.

>> Darin: We did not see a single lake monster or any whale testicles. Nothing tentacles. We drive back to our second vrbo, this place in Lake Tahoe, and we pull into the parking lot, we see another bear.

>> Mike: Okay.

>> Darin: A, big black bear. A big one.

>> Mike: Okay.

>> Darin: That libby has named Phyllis.

>> Mike: Okay.

>> Darin: This bear's, hum. just walking like, don't give a. Yeah. Walking across our parking lot, we're like, okay, so now that we know that there are bear walking around our Vrbo, our apartment complex where we're staying. So we all made sure don't leave anything in the car.

>> Mike: You're right. Yeah.

>> Darin: Or if you got to go back to the car, go with a buddy. Cause it's like, what are you gonna do? There's a bear.

>> Mike: Yeah. Just hanging out, with the security guard for the place. Right? That's what he was. Did he have a badge?

>> Darin: No, I don't think so.

>> Mike: Okay.

>> Darin: I don't think he had a badge at all. we saw the bear, and every time we left, we're like, oh, so we're all like, kill circle, and all four of us are back to back to back to back.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: Trying to make sure we didn't get a bear run out to the car. Our second or third night in Lake Tahoe, we had found this place where you could park for free. And it was a little bit of like a block to get to the beach. And we were trying to go to Kings beach again. And that parking lot, that free parking lot was, was closed, but Libby found a spot right next to it. She goes, oh, park there.

>> Mike: Okay.

>> Darin: So I pulled in, and we parked there. We didn't realize that that was a place where you could not park. Right.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: So we went to the beach for the, for three or 4 hours and got some dinner and stuff. We came back, and, and they had put this big, gigantic green sticker warning, not allowed to park here. If you don't move the car before this time, it will be towed. And.

>> Mike: Oh, wow.

>> Darin: Okay. So, a, glad we found it before they towed it. b, it took me an hour or more to get that sticker off the window because all the sticky residue was on it. I'm out there. I got online on the www, and it said that, you know, if you spray it with windex or vinegar, that'll help get the adhesive off. And you can use a razor, but a razor will, could scratch the window. I'm like, I don't want to scratch my rental car because we've already spent so much money on this trip. Yeah, they said you could use, like a credit card. I'm m like, okay. So I go in my wallet, and I get out my library card, and Louis says, yeah, use your library card. It'd be nice if you finally put that thing to some use.

>> Mike: Okay.

>> Darin: That'S funny. Yeah, that's really funny.

>> Mike: That was comedy.

>> Darin: Like, ah, that is funny.

>> Mike: That is.

>> Darin: That's funny. That's funnier than the old, hey, where the four faces on the, on the mountainous, which I still think was funny.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: But again, I'm out in the parking lot with Windex and my library card trying to get this sticker, off my window every couple minutes. I'm checking, making sure there's no bears.

>> Mike: Yeah, yeah.

>> Darin: Two really annoying things on the trip. One, there was a pool right across the street from our second vrbo that we went over, and we're trying to relax.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: Okay. It's the end of the day. All we want to do is sit by the pool and just chill. And, we're in California, but my God, Mike, there were five kids playing Marco Polo.

>> Mike: Oh, my God.

>> Darin: I'm talking for, like, a half hour. Marco.

>> Mike: Polo.

>> Darin: Marco. Polo. Marco.

>> Mike: Polo.

>> Darin: Marco. Polo.

>> Mike: Marco.

>> Darin: Polo. Marco.

>> Mike: Polo.

>> Darin: Marco. And there's one kid, pulo. Marco. Polo.

>> Mike: I'm like, Marco Polo. It's not pulo, you dumbass.

>> Darin: it's polo. Marco.

>> Mike: Pulo. Marco. Pulo was his neighbor.

>> Darin: Marco. Pulo. Marc. And they're screaming it at the top of their lungs, and I'm like, damn it. I just. I mean, you know, I have never struck another child, but I want to just pull him out of the pool and, like, stop playing Marco Polo. Yeah, play, like, how long can you hold your breath?

>> Mike: Yeah, do that. Yeah. One of you try to drown the other one. See if you can do it. You just come on.

>> Darin: Take her towel and throw it in the pool and let her see how find it. Shut up. I mean, I was with. With Friday going as bad as it was and then being sleep deprived from the second day of the trip and then from. It's, like, three days of sunscreen and. And. Oh, my God, it's just. Yeah, I've never. And they played for. We finally, after, like, a half hour of it, we just left. We went to the pool the next day, and there were different kids playing Marco Polo at the top of their lungs.

>> Mike: Marco. Polo.

>> Darin: Marco. Polo.

>> Mike: Polo.

>> Darin: Polo. Polo. Polo. Polo.

>> Mike: Polo. Yeah.

>> Darin: We left the pool. We just left.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: You don't. Ain't nobody got time for that.

>> Darin: Our last day in Lake Tahoe.

>> Mike: You could have gotten the bear over there. Take care of some things for you.

>> Darin: Phyllis, go get them.

>> Mike: Give him a. Give him a jar of honey. Hold this. Yeah. Bear, come here.

>> Darin: Our last day in Lake Tahoe. Wake up. And I'm using the bathroom, and I noticed that there's no toilet paper. We have run out of toilet paper. it wasn't in the downstairs bathroom. It wasn't in the upstairs bathroom. It wasn't in any of the cabinets. It wasn't in where the washer and dryer was. there was no. We had, completely ran out of toilet paper. So that's interesting. Also, the, you know, think a bear.

>> Mike: Could have gone out and got you some. What?

>> Darin: Well, you know, bear just picks up.

>> Mike: A rabbit that's.

>> Darin: So. Couldn't find toilet paper anywhere.

>> Mike: I.

>> Darin: And we had to improvise. And they also hid the plates on us. Would they hit them next to the oven? You open up these cabinets, and then you slide out this drawer, where the plates were.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: Libby and I looked for a half hour.

>> Mike: Where are the plates are?

>> Darin: Ah, we got to run out to Safeway and buy some freaking plates to eat dinner. It was nuts. It was absolutely nuts.

>> Dave: This portion of our show is brought to you by the black bear diner, home of the tastiest food you'll ever eat. Find the location near you@blackbeardiner.com.

>> Darin: So, with all the trouble flying out there, we were worried about, you know, what was gonna happen flying back. We drove back to Reno, and, we ate at this place called the black bear diner. Oh, my God. Insane. If you're ever anywhere where there's a black bear diner, order anything they have on the menu, because we absolutely love. That's, like, the only place we really enjoyed the food.

>> Mike: Oh, really?

>> Darin: Because all through yosemite, it was just like, you know, being at four h camp, you know, it's like they just had burgers and just stuff like that. A cafeteria.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: You know, I thought that lake Tahoe probably would have had better food, than what we ordered, but we weren't impressed with the food.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: In lake Tahoe, either, but we were really impressed with black bear diner. But we got to Reno. really? we had to check out and, like, three. And then we had our flight didn't leave till midnight. We took what the kids called the red eye.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: So we get to Reno stupid early. We went to see twisters at a movie theater there, by the way. We went to see twisters in Reno. There was a water tower that collapsed that said Reno on it in the movie. Hey, we're here. That says Reno. We're in Reno. And. And Jacob's like, yeah, dad, shut up. You know, we're in a movie. But, yeah, we got to the airport, and, we're just beat down, exhausted. And, Mike, there's not one, not two, but three screaming kids in the lobby of the airport waiting, to get on our flight. And God loved these parents. I swear, I've never been upset with the kids because the kids don't know what's going on. They got something wrong. And these are babies, so I've never been upset with the kid. This one dad my God, he was doing everything he possibly could to help this kid. He was. He was shushing and. And dancing and come on and, you know, and what's this over here? And trying. Trying snacks and trying to distract, and the kid wasn't having it. And just as soon as this kid would calm down, this other kid would start screaming, and then the third kid would start screaming. We're like, oh, my God, this is gonna be like this. On the flight home, eventually, a kid one and kid two. I, passed out, fell asleep. The third kid screamed the entire flight. The entire flight from Reno to Dallas.

>> Mike: How old? How do you think? Baby, baby, baby. Ah, I can actually.

>> Darin: And I felt so bad for the mom, because when we left, we got to look at the mom, and she just looked like, God, kill me. You know? And, you know, you have kids. I have kids.

>> Mike: When you know what that's like.

>> Darin: Yeah. When they were going through that, it's like, you know, she's thinking, oh, my God, everybody on this plane hates me.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: Hates me and hates my child. But, yeah. Because we were really wanting to sleep on that first flight, and we didn't. But. So, anyway, it was, it was a great trip. We had some great times. But, my God, we had a lot of stressful moments getting to it. I've never been, happier to be home. I mean, you know, I I wish it hadn't started like that, because, unfortunately, it's. It's hard to recover when you have such a huge, horrible start to your vacation. And I want to say, I know that we did not have it anywhere near as bad as some other people. We have friends who were trying to fly home on July 19, and it took them, I think, 36 hours to get home. I have a friend who's a juggler. He performs, and he was in north Carolina. His, layover flight got, canceled, and he was stranded in the airport. I mean, there were people in. At CVG at Cincinnati, there's this woman trying to get to Denmark. My mom has friends who were all taking a cruise, and their flight was canceled. They had to drive, 24 of them all had to drive to Florida to get their crews. And it's like. I know. It's like we didn't miss a wedding. We didn't miss a funeral. We didn't miss a job interview. It was a vacation. But still, I mean, we spent so much money on this vacation, and we're trying to salvage as much of it as possible. But I want to know if you were flying, traveling on July 19. If you had something major inconveniencing happen to you, please send us a message and tell us about it. I'd love to hear your story.

>> Mike: I love vacation stories because it always happens on vacation.

>> Darin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

>> Mike: I'm going to tell mine next episode.

>> Darin: Okay.

>> Mike: I'll tell some other things with it because Mikey hungry.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: And Mikey need eat. Mikey need food. So I will tell the listeners. The past three weeks have been crazy. Yeah. For both of us. Normally the way we time the podcast is I've done everything for the day. I've eaten, Darren walks in and dinner is just done.

>> Darin: You could have told me. I would have come a half hour later.

>> Mike: I know you would have. That would have put this moment being a half hour later, and then Mikey would have been going to bed and then I would be in a bad mood tomorrow. And I don't want to yell at people tomorrow who don't deserve it. I'd rather yell at people who do deserve it. So we'll cut this one here and we'll, you know, we have some tales.

>> Darin: Well, no. For people who are new to the podcast, Mike usually has things to talk about.

>> Mike: I usually say things.

>> Darin: I dominated this whole thing and I didn't mean to, and I apologize.

>> Mike: So I do want to whet people's appetites.

>> Mike: So when I talk about our vacation, Bess had to call the police on our neighbors.

>> Darin: Yeah. the neighbors that were at the hotel where you were staying.

>> Mike: Neighbors at the hotel that we were staying. Someone's butt hair was pulled out. Oh, not in our clan. We heard that through the walls.

>> Darin: What?

>> Mike: Yeah, somebody was yelling about their butt hair. And, and we had, we had multiple stops and Andrew drove on the highway.

>> Darin: Oh.

>> Mike: For an extended period of time.

>> Darin: Wow.

>> Mike: So we'll have all those fun tales.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: And we also saw twisters because as we've talked about before, we share a brain.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: I should have just texted you, hey, we're going to see twisters. Have you seen it yet? Because I like, son of a bitch. The dude saw twisters. Yeah. Which is great.

>> Darin: It's a great, it's a great movie with me. Haven't seen it. You should go see. It's really, really good.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: Oh, one other thing. We saw a completely naked person on the beach. Hello.

>> Mike: That's great.

>> Darin: I'll tell that story next.

>> Mike: Okay.

>> Darin: All right.

>> Mike: If you like what we do.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: Please visit Irwell dad syndrome.com. i have a new merch item up. oh.

>> Darin: It's amazing.

>> Mike: I'm going to edit it a bit. So by the time you hear this, it'll. It'll be officially there and you can get it. But it's, We never go political. No, we've gone political.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: So we'll announce it, you know, when the final design is done. That's on Facebook and our normal channels. But check it out.

>> Darin: And if you want to go to Patreon, if you want to help us out, you could do that. If you want to buy a t shirt, you can go to your bull dance center. You can do that. but most importantly, we want you to come back and listen to us again on irritable dad syndrome.

>> Mike: Have a good one.

>> Darin: Thanks.

>> Dave: Irritable dad syndrome is a Mike Odell Darren cox production.

>> Mike: People train, goes out of Stubbsville.

>> Darin: Exactly. Exactly.

>> Mike: He should have gone to Stubbsville.

>> Darin: We should have gone to Stubville.

>> Mike: I just told you to shut up and then speak.

>> Darin: Do you want me to talk?

>> Mike: Hi, I'm laugh like I just talked about my pecker.

>> Darin: You all right? Dude, you sat down like an 85 year old Mandev.

>> Mike: What do you think had more interesting stories? The White House or us? for the past three weeks, what would you say?

>> Darin: Yeah, now would be the time to have a political podcast. Am I right? Am I right?

>> Mike: Our numbers would like.

>> Darin: Holy crap.

>> Mike: Go way that up.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Dave: Hold on. The show's not over yet. Irritable dad syndrome is going into overtime, starting right now.

>> Darin: Hey. When we were waiting on the last flight, and the three kids are screaming, I get a text. I look at. It's Cameron. He'd sent me airports. Am I right?

>> Mike: Where are the four faces?

>> Darin: I'm sorry. I think that's funny. Funny?

>> Mike: That's something I was saying.

>> Darin: That was funny.

>> Mike: That is funny.

>> Darin: Yeah. Libby said, well, maybe they didn't speak the language, though. They spoke the language?

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: Yeah. You're in America.

>> Mike: Some people are just don't get it. I, Boy, that you. I was very nervous. I had anxiety when you were talking about the thing because that's always my worst nightmare. Especially when you have a trip like. Like you had with multiple destinations. Because in. When we did ours, domino effect.

>> Darin: One thing screws up.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: Usually everything falls after that.

>> Mike: So, I mean, we. We documented our out west vacation is in one of the previous episodes. What I didn't talk about, which you reminded me of, is. And I did say in the episode, our. Everyone's favorite places were Vegas and, well, the Grand Canyon and. But then Death valley. Everyone loved death Valley, but a big part of that was all the stuff had fallen into place by then. Once we hit death valley, it's kind of like it's done. Just chill for a couple days. Go out in the middle of the desert with your dad and see a dead tree. But for the most part, chill for a couple of days. And we had the best time. But if you look at where we were, it's really. Well, what did you have? We had a restaurant. We had a pool and a room, and then the surrounding of the desert, and we had a freaking blast because I was like, all we have to do now is survive for two days.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: And make it back to the airport.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: And that's it.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: But, yeah, that first day, our trip. We'd been planning that trip for years, and I was driving to the wrong airport. We almost missed our first flight to go to Denver because I was driving to Darren.

>> Darin: Uh-huh.

>> Mike: I have flown, you know, my previous job. I flew all the time internationally. I was always flying somewhere.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: And I've been to CVG so much, I could drive there in my sleep.

>> Darin: Absolutely.

>> Mike: And we're like, I had everything nailed down. We got to be here by this time. Be here by that time. This is paid for. That's paid for. That's paid for. I wasn't even thinking about, I'm going to go to the wrong airport. And about halfway through the drive, Bess is saying, are we, Gandalf in fellowship of the ring? Where he looks around and he's like, I have no memory of this place. I had no memory of this. I don't know where I am. And I looked, and it's taken us to the regional. Cincinnati regional Airport. There is a regional airport in Cincinnati?

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: Actual Cincinnati.

>> Darin: adult, Luncan.

>> Mike: That's also. Yes, that's also known as the wrong airport. And then we were well ahead of the curve. gonna have all kinds of time. You know, we'll get a burrito or whatever. They go to a plane. We went from that to holy. We're gonna miss our fricking flight.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: Yeah. So, all those anxieties came back up when you were telling your tale?

>> Darin: Well, did I think I told you about the time I was flying out of Dayton?

>> Mike: Mm

>> Darin: M. And this was long before, I had gps in the car, so I went to Mapquest, and I printed off directions to get to the Dayton airport. And I had to be at Dayton airport at. We were leaving at 06:00 a.m. and so I had to be there at 04:00 a.m. yeah. So I left my house at three to get to drive up there, right?

>> Mike: One does, yeah.

>> Darin: And I'm driving up there because it takes a long time to get to Dayton. And I'm following all the directions that I have on Mapquest. And then I get to the airport that it took me to. And the front gate was, closed. what do you mean? Wait, why are they closing? They can't close. Wait, what's going on here? And, you know, the lights are going around, you know, like, for planes that are landing. And I drove around, and there's another gate that's closed. Then I keep driving, and there's a third gate that's closed.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: I finally get to the fourth gate that's open, and I pull in, and these two gentlemen in military gear, you went to rifles said, ah, sir, can we help you? And I said, I'm in the wrong place. I went to Wright Patterson Air force base.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: Air force base. That's not the airport. That's the air force base.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: And they saw the fear in my eyes. I said, I have went to the wrong place.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: I said, and I am going to miss a flight, and I'm going to be fired. All right, sir, this is what you need to do. Okay? Get off the show. Take a right. It'll put you back on. These. They were, like, so cool after they.

>> Mike: Realized I wasn't a threat terrorist or something. Yeah.

>> Darin: I got to that airport.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: With, I think, 15 minutes to spare before my, two, hour window or whatever, you know. Plenty of time.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: I went through a long period where I quit checking baggage. I, Because some of the guys that I work with from Europe, my first.

>> Darin: This is irritable dad syndrome after podcast.

>> Mike: This is bonus. Yeah. I ended the podcast because I was hungry, and now I won't shut up. The first couple times I went over there, I took a normal american suitcase, which you can fit a refrigerator, a small car, and a yak. And a yak in it. And, all the Europeans were. They weren't making fun of me, but they were, like, looking at it and being like, really? You're gonna do that? And they all had, like, these little bags that were, like, smaller than my phone.

>> Darin: Yeah, yeah. It's like. And they have a week's worth of clothes, and they put it in their pocket.

>> Mike: Yeah. you know, a couple of them have visited, and I've made comment to one of them that I'd known for a while, and I could make this kind of comment. I was like, now I know why you guys stink after, like, three or four days. Is because you're just re wearing the same clothes over and over.

>> Darin: You can't say that.

>> Mike: Yeah, cut that part out. I did.

>> Darin: I'm not gonna cut that out.

>> Mike: Said it. Leave it in. But here's the deal. I didn't say that. I got into a little competition with, one of the Europeans over there. who he was always. Everything was perfectly pressed. Everything looked great. He would pack for, like, three weeks, and he would just. It would be I mean, it would literally. It's like, half the size of that thing.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: Like one of the. Like a carry on.

>> Darin: It was like, mike is pointing to something.

>> Mike: Size of a carry on.

>> Darin: So small.

>> Mike: I told Bess, I'm like, I'm getting a carry on that's as large as a carry on can be. Because I'm not a masochist. And one time, I just, like, I got one of those vacuum bag sealers. You ever seen one of those?

>> Darin: Yes.

>> Mike: And I was like, I'm gonna see if I can do this. I was there. I was in. I was in. Yeah. I was in Europe for a week and a half. I wanna see if I can do a week and a half with a carrot. And I did it.

>> Darin: Okay.

>> Mike: I didn't have to wash anything. Had a change clothes for every. Every time. It was it worked. And it was so, so relieving to not have to go to the baggage claim or any of that. I just got off the plane and went straight to the car.

>> Darin: But was it over the. Was it over the 50 pound limit?

>> Mike: No.

>> Darin: Really?

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: A, week and a half worth of clothes. And it wasn't over the 50 pound limit. Okay. You know what? That does make sense.

>> Mike: Because mostly slacks.

>> Darin: Slacks? Yeah. dungarees. Libby and I usually pack our stuff in the same bag.

>> Mike: Okay.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: I took it. My first. I do remember this because, I had to. I was not. The first time I went to Europe, I was not over the limit. Going over. Mm But coming back, I couldn't. And I had to throw. I literally was throwing away stuff because they weren't gonna let me on the plane. And I crack up. Now, at the time, I was pissed. I took an iron with me.

>> Darin: What? Why would you take an. I didn't know they have them in the hotel.

>> Mike: I didn't know for sure if they would.

>> Darin: You're right. Yeah, you're right.

>> Mike: And I had a big freaking iron. And, like, I was in the Amsterdam sheephole airport. and I'm right by the security gate where you have to go in through security. There's a big trash thing, you know, and, you know, flerkenflugin with a. With an arrow pointing there.

>> Darin: Oh, I love going to frickin flugging.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: Rock there.

>> Mike: So we put your. And, I never forget there was a Danish, I'm assuming, or Amsterdam ish, whatever they are. Ain't a Danish.

>> Darin: Okay. I love.

>> Mike: Dan is watching me take a big ass american iron. Not a little travel iron. I'm talking one of those big.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: like the coyote drops on the. Yes. Yeah. And, I'm putting in the trash, and he looks at me because it just barely fit in the hole of the trash. And I look at him, I'm like, it's like a couple of shirts. that's not a lot of weight. All the toothpaste, all the. Anything that had any weight to it was going in the thing, and I just barely. It was like, point whatever 2 kg off because everything's in, you know.

>> Darin: Okay, so could you have not still checked that you couldn't.

>> Mike: Well, I went, I had to pay.

>> Darin: Right?

>> Mike: My first bag was free. The next bag is, like, €100 or something, which ends up being. At that time, it was like $130 build iron, but it's not worth it. Nah, they don't, they don't want to keep my job.

>> Darin: Okay.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: All right.

>> Mike: Yeah, yeah. Cuz, cuz like I said, they always use carry on and all that stuff, and it's like, okay, Mike, why do you have a bill for $130? Did you take your iron again? But I did. It was. It was very. That helped me with our trip that we went on, because I learned how to, like, pack in the smallest possible.

>> Darin: Yeah. I think next time I go to Chicago for business, I'm going to take everything on a carry on. It's because it is. Yeah. I can only imagine how nice it is not having to check your bag the first time.

>> Mike: It's a bit frustrating. Yeah. But you get used to it, and it's. It becomes almost like a puzzle. Then you start to judge people. You'll see how many people at the airport have those big ass, bags, and you look at them, you're like, oh, loser, loser.

>> Darin: Yeah, I'm working.

>> Mike: MacGyver. Yeah.

>> Darin: My stuff's vacuum back.

>> Mike: I did for freshness. I did the week and a half time. I was especially proud. The zipper was holding on for dear life.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: I was at the point where I if they. If they had changed for me, I'm like, no, I'm good. Keep the change. Put a little penny in there.

>> Darin: Libby's convinced that if she rolls all her stuff up.

>> Mike: Okay.

>> Darin: She rolls all her stuff and packs it, and she's convincing. You can get more in there.

>> Mike: You can.

>> Darin: I don't. I don't necessarily believe that. Although we haven't.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: You know, disputed it and actually put it to the test.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: but. Cause she's like, why didn't you roll yourself? I'm like, why don't you just fold your stuff? Why don't you roll it? Why don't you fold it?

>> Mike: Why are you yelling at me? What are you.

>> Darin: What's wrong with you?

>> Mike: We're on vacation. Yeah, the vacuum, the flattened bag. I'm looking. My clothes look like those. Like those poster things. I had, like, three or four of those.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: Lay them in there like weird legos, because you'll have, like, a collar, a shirt collar. That just makes a weird thing. And you kind of. Yeah, I'll put my shoe in this little thing. It's. It's. It's like Tetris.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: Coming back is because you don't have the vacuum thing with you when you're over there. Mm And now you gotta deal. And now you got dirty drawers.

>> Darin: Yeah. For the first time ever, Libby and I left something out of place.

>> Mike: Oh.

>> Darin: When we were leaving our Vrbo and Yosemite, there's a closet in our room, and I had walked past it. Libby had hung her jacket, and I hung my. I brought my. A, raincoat because I was like, what are we gonna do if it rains over on hike? I'll just take a raincoat with me. And I have a raincoat that belonged to my dad. Okay. This is something that they gave to dad when he drove the school bus, okay. When he worked for the Russell county school system. So, on one side, it has Marvin, and on the other thing, it's got a school bus on it, and it's dad's school bus jacket. It's a raincoat. So I brought my raincoat with me, had it hanging in the closet. We checked every room, everything. We checked the shower, make sure we didn't leave. We brought our own washcloths, by the way, because whenever we go to a place, they have two, like, we're here for three days.

>> Mike: We need more than two washes in a rental like, place.

>> Darin: Yeah, yeah, we need more than that.

>> Mike: I've done that.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: I bring iron soap.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: I hate the little soapy thing.

>> Darin: We've started doing that, too. Yeah, because they don't. Now we're going to start bringing our own toilet paper because apparently they don't stock those up either. But we, checked everything over and over and over again. We get in the car. It takes about 2 hours to leave Yosemite.

>> Mike: Okay.

>> Darin: We've left Yosemite. We filled up on gas. We're driving to Reno. I'm like, the jacket. We left my dad's jacket. We left Libby's jacket in that closet.

>> Mike: Did you go back or did you?

>> Darin: No. My God. It would have taken us 2 hours.

>> Mike: That's true.

>> Darin: And then 2 hours.

>> Mike: Did you try contacting them?

>> Darin: Libby reached out and asked if she would mail it to us.

>> Mike: Okay.

>> Darin: So I think she's gonna mail me.

>> Mike: Okay.

>> Darin: My dad's jacket. Yeah.

>> Mike: That's awesome. I do. I love vacation stories.

>> Darin: again, there were so many people who had it worse than we did.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: But it was stressful. It was stressful as hell we got there, though.

>> Mike: That's awesome. The pictures are amazing. Oh, Tahoe pictures. I was like, what the hell did he know? They look like they're in a different I planet.

>> Darin: All I did was point the camera and click. Yeah, I'll. I gotta show you some of the other ones I took.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: Oh, my God.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: I mean, I got the best pictures I've ever taken ever at Yosemite and Lake top.

>> Mike: that's awesome.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: All right, let's cut this thing. See ya.

>> Darin: Bye. Recording stopped. And.