US in US – 2026 summer

To all the lovers of my travel blogs,

I know how much you wait for my stories; tons of craziness, chaos and confusion packed into one holiday suitcase! How can the Patils’ 2026 trip to the USA be an exception? Well, absolutely not, it’s one full month we’re talking about this time around! But if you’ve really read all my travel blogs, there’s an exception to the law of our travel rule that will come to your attention. Find out for yourself!

Episode 1

It’s a ritual to stop by at my parents’ place to pick up something on our way to the airport; ranging from food for the kids or a potty seat. The kick-off of our 2026 Patils US trip was no different. She had packed some comfort food on the boys’ demand and had handed it over to us in a brown paper bag. 

Now here’s the thing about flying to the US. You can’t have it all when it comes to timings. Our Emirates flight was scheduled at 4.00 am and the icing on the cake was the layover – 75 minutes! Dubai Airport is bigger than the entire state of Kerala and depending on what gate your connecting flight is at, you may have to even take a train to another terminal! Nothing beats the adrenaline rush from running in an airport with a howling toddler in your hand. No wait, hold that thought.

Just as PP buckled up Mokshi into an airport stroller at Dubai, I realised we were one bag short! Where was the brown food bag? One may suggest that I let it go and focus on catching the next flight since the layover was too short to squeeze in such misses. EXCUSE ME! My mom stayed up to fix that food and I wasn’t going to let that go in vain/ plane. I made a dash for our seat in such a filmy way that the cabin crew could have easily assumed what I had left behind was a child! What certainly didn’t help the situation was the seat being located at the end of the extra long Boeing! Thank you Murphy.

The scene at the security check was not one for the faint hearted. A parent? Yes. A parent comes with built-in incredible tolerance and patience to handle such turbulences and the ability to smile through gritted teeth, “Yes, that is my child, unfortunately!”

A long walk later, catching our breath at the gate of our connecting flight felt like winning a trophy at the end of a maze! Just imagine the shock on our faces when the ground staff asked us if we had no check in luggage! Wait a second. WHERE WAS THE KIDS’ TROLLEY BAG?

This time it was PP’s turn to run. It was only when I spotted the bag in the hands of a man that I assumed was PP (eyesight problem you ‘see‘!) that I resumed my breathing. Turned out the bag was forgotten at the security check, thanks to a toddler tantrum! On the bright side, the guy at the desk assured me that the flight wouldn’t take off without my Hero!

Did you know? – Funnily, the Patils have experienced a similar episode in the past when we left behind a toddler bag at Dubai airport. The realisation struck only after boarding the flight, by when it was too late!

Episode 2

Heard of Muir Woods?

It’s a National Monument in the state of California. Known for its ancient towering Redwood trees, it’s a very famous spot for hikers and forest lovers. We loved it instantly and decided to cover it during our stay in California.

The woods is… ‘magical’. The ancient trees, so tall that you got to squint to look at its top, have a very fairytale-like feel to them. And if you’re lucky you even get to witness fairytales! A husband celebrating his 80th birthday in the woods and his wife sporting a funky hairdo; an inspiration you don’t chance upon everyday! It was a sunny day but not enough to bother the explorers. Humidity? Haha! What’s that? Crowded, yes indeed, but that’s the thing about US. People don’t enter your space. Then again, there IS a lot of space. lol. 

At the entrance, just as we were looking for the perfect spot for a family photo, a lady approached us. She came forward to hand over something. A something that had fallen off though I suspect it was thrown. And had the nice lady not observed the act, it would have lain there forever, a donation to nature. Or some lucky being.

Mokshi’s GOLD KADA. How he managed to slide it off will remain unknown to us.

Episode 3

When you try too hard for something to NOT happen, it’s bound to happen. Law of attraction or whatever that’s called! Believe it or not, it happened to me. Of all the places on Earth, in the dreamy waters of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Wait a second! How did I land up in Mexico in the first place?

Poonam and Abhi are lovers of cruise vacations. Three years ago they took us on our first cruise  from Boston to Bermuda. Yes, the fear of disappearing in the infamous Triangle had me worried silly but here I am, silly as I can be! We had enjoyed the experience and were all gung-ho about our second cruise – Long Beach, LA to Baja California, Mexico

On the morning of our reaching Cabo San Lucas, I decided to dress up all pretty for our day out at the beach and while I was at it I had a quick change of mind regarding something. The thought that crossed my mind was, “Oh let me put this on instead, it will be safer!”

The water was the prettiest shade of blue that makes you want to stay forever with golden sand, warm and welcoming. Except for my duo that chose to play in the sand, we headed straight for a dip in the ocean. In a split second, what I thought to be a playful moment with my niece, turned into an “Oh S***T” moment! The earring that I had chosen to be a safer choice earlier that morning turned against me when it came off and fell to the floor right before my eyes! Needle in a haystack? You could say that!

Was the earring made of gold? NO, but it was very special to me because it belonged to my Mom. Aksh, my nephew, loves nothing better than a challenge and there began his treasure hunt! With his water goggles on, he took to diving down in regular intervals to comb the sand in search for the shiny white ornament. There were a couple of times when what he thought was jackpot turned out to be shells but that didn’t dampen the boy’s spirit. Sometime later, by when my hopes had already sunken like the earring, the boy’s hand surfaced and secure inside his fist was the little white earring!

My will: That earring, now a priceless piece of jewellery, shall be safe with me and pass down to his wife!

Episode 4

‘Tell me you went to San Francisco without telling me you went to San Francisco!’

No Patil vacation is ever complete without a fridge magnet, the best and most easily available souvenir. But when the chilly winds of San Francisco hit you hard, your next choice for a souvenir becomes a hoodie. After a lot of window shopping, these San Fran hoodies were the best we could get at 22$ each! Conversion hits hard. What hits harder is when you’ve to check out and disembark from a ship in one hour’s time and it suddenly dawns upon you that the hoodies are MISSING!

I ran out of our room and made a beeline for the elevator before the confused Mokshi followed me. The corridor was bustling with people waiting to get into the elevators with their luggage and kids and everything under the sun. I squeezed myself into the first one that came and got out on the 5th floor deck only to find barricades blocking the access to the stairway. Urrgghh!! I would have to find a different path. I sprinted like none other than Rose in the Titanic! She needed to rescue Jack from the office where he was locked up, I needed to get to the Central Atrium to retrieve those hoodies. Same level of tension!

The hoodies weren’t lying around in the spot where we had left them the earlier night. Duh! Who was I kidding!? I hardly expected myself to find them so easily. A lady suggested I enquire at the Guest Services Desk. Obviously there was a queue! When it was my turn finally, the man asked me to describe the hoodies. The colour. The print. It was no less than top level security! I could hardly stand still when he went into the office to check. I could have burst out crying with joy when I saw him come out with the two hoodies in his hand!! I profusely thanked the man and made my way back to the family!

P.S. The hoodies shall be buried at the deepest end of my wardrobe when I get back to our hot and humid motherland but not for once did we miss Mumbai in the one month that we spent in temperatures ranging between 35 – 45 degrees – Fahrenheit*!

Episode 5

Using a family heirloom is a precious emotion. Losing that family heirloom is not.

While leaving from Boston to San Francisco, we decided it best to take with us the tandem stroller for the boys, the stroller that had served my sister-in-law’s kids well. The stroller became an integral part of our FUN-tastic holiday starting with the flight from Boston to San Francisco where it explored the quaint village of Sausalito, completed a trail in the Muir woods, treated the kids to roller-coaster rides on the famous uphill – downhill streets of San Francisco. Thereafter, it rode in the backseat of a Rubicon Jeep along the scenic route of California’s Highway 1 with a detour at Carmel-by-the-Sea, a small beach-city that felt more like a village with fairytale cottages, and finally reached the city of Los Angeles.

We were welcomed by our Boston family at the hotel in Long Beach where they had checked in the same morning. We were scheduled to board our cruise the next afternoon. On the morning of our check out, we both woke up with a startle. Call it Kismat connection or what but we both screamed out the same question at the same time – WHERE’S THE STROLLER?

Flashback:

When we reached the Hyatt Regency, we were greeted by the bell boy who offered to take all our luggage inside. When he enquired about the stroller, we informed him that we wouldn’t be needing it immediately. That’s it. Period.

Cut to the moment:

It was only the next morning when we were to pack and check out, that we realised our biggest luggage, the stroller, hadn’t gotten to the room at all. Several calls later it was confirmed by the Hotel that the bell boy had put the stroller back into the Jeep. The Jeep that PP had requested the Hotel to temporarily accommodate at their entrance. The Jeep that PP had later dropped off at the Budget Parking, completely oblivious of the fact that the poor little stroller lay there in the trunk patiently waiting to serve its two little passengers.

When PP called the Budget Customer Services, they suggested he drop a mail to the Lost and Found Department and await a mail. BUT….

We were set to sail in a couple of hours. Network reception while on the cruise was not guaranteed. What if the Company called? Or mailed? Well, stay in suspense!!!

6 nights later…. 

On the morning of the 7th day, we disembarked at Long Beach and no sooner did Abhi reach the cruise terminal with a new rented vehicle than we headed straight to the Parking where PP had dropped off the Jeep a week ago. In the absence of a mail from them, the Company suggested we stop by and have a look. The suspense was killing me and stress eating was the best way to kill time until..

Thirty minutes later, PP came walking toward to the vehicle. With the stroller in tow!!! What a moment of celebration it was for the Shinde – Patil family! WOOHOO!!! 

Episode 6

“KHAA NAMMA”

San Francisco’s Pier 39 is very famous for sea lions spotting and I’d say it’s quite a tourist attraction, given the crowd that had gathered to see the noisy animals spraying water, lazing on floating platforms. You already know how much my little one loves animals, so it was no surprise that he really took a liking to the sea lion. When we asked him to repeat “SEA LION” after us, his instant reply was “KHAA NAMMA”

For the uninitiated,

Namma = Water and KHAA = roar (a lion*)

So Khaa Namma translates into lion of the waters!

Brilliant right?

When Aksh earned a voucher on the cruise to redeem at a local jewellery in Ensenada, Mexico, he chose a sea lion pendant for his little cousin. The toddler held onto it tightly, even occasionally chewing on it, but refused to hand it over to us. When we stepped out of the elevator onto our deck after the day’s outing, the little boy started saying “Khaa Namma, Khaa Namma!” Turned out the pendant was LOST.

We looked  everywhere and even inside his clothes but it was nowhere to be found. I hurriedly took the elevator back down, where it was last seen stuck between his incisors! I stepped out on deck 0 with my eyes glued to the floor looking for that tiny object when a lady called out to me, “hey, are you looking for this shiny seal!?”

Had Mokshi been with me, chances are that he would have corrected her that it was in fact a sea lion, but since he wasn’t around I just let it be! I thanked the kind lady and returned to my room.

Episode 7

My last trip to the US in 2023 never made it to my blog. I’ll never figure out the reason but this time around I was dead set on blogging about this vacation. I even took to updating the events of each day in a diary that I shall preserve in my memory box. Seeing my dedication, the Universe decided to present me with a theme for the blog – LOST AND FOUND.

If the above chapters aren’t proof enough for you, this last one will certainly show you the pattern.

Watching movies on a plane is not everyone’s cup of tea. Firstly, I’m not a movie buff and secondly, with a hyper toddler on my lap I don’t have much space and choice. I can either eat from a tray precariously set on the barely-there table/ catch a wink in the weirdest neck position/ watch a movie with pauses and misses. PP has a theory regarding my interest in movie watching. He claims that I understand and enjoy movies ONLY when I watch them on mute. By reading the subtitles.

With a total of 6 flights on this entire journey I watched 3 movies. Surprised how? Turned out his theory was right. I watched them on PP’s screen. His choice of movies happened to pique my interests, so.

1) The Runner Man

2) The Shawshank Redemption

On the return flight he decided on a Hindi movie for a change. Any guesses what it would be?

LAAPATAA LADIES

Epilogue

It’s been nearly a week since we arrived home, and over a conversation during lunch regarding my LOST AND FOUND blog, my mother-in-law happened to hear about Mokshi’s Gold Kada story. Out of nowhere she asked me, “Also where’s the gold bracelet? I didn’t see that on him either!”

Oh. 

Crap.

Upon scrutiny of the photos in PP’s phone, it has come to our attention that on our visit to the Legoland in Boston on the 21st of April, Mokshi had the bracelet in the beginning and toward the end it’s NOT TO BE SEEN.

Will we ever get it back? Will there be another miracle? Time to call their Lost and Found Department. Will keep my dear readers updated. Stay tuned and pray for us.

Cheers 🙂