Galápagos 2017: Day 1

	Friday, March 10, 2017: We flew from Indy to DFW where the weather was forecast to be rain. It was full sun when we arrived, of course.
	Forty minutes later, we were in a rental car heading out to see the sights of Euless, Texas, ...
	... starting with Shipley Do-nuts.
	According to the documentation, Shipley Do-nuts Make Life Delicious. This is an accurate statement.
	Next, we headed to the north end of the airport to visit Founders' Plaza. This is DFW Airport's Aviation Beacon Tower. It's 50 feet tall with a rotating lighted beacon and alternating white and green light.
	This display is titled "Shower of Affection." Between 2004 and 2012, US military flights bringing soldiers on R&R were welcomed by water cannons making a symbolic arch over the arriving flights.
	This group of sculptures, "Share the Dream," was presented to DFW airport by American Airlines Foundation to commemorate the 25th anniversary of DFW airport in 1998. From this vantage point, you should be able to see planes taking off and landing on the runway in the distance but it was so foggy that we could hear but not see the planes.
	By 9:15, we were at the C. R. Smith Museum, ...
	... which displays the history of American Airlines.
	Airplanes everywhere!
	In one large room was the Flagship Knoxville, a DC-3 aircraft that delivered the mail.
	Let's go inside, shall we?
	It's hard to tell, but it was an uphill climb to the cockpit because of how the plane was positioned.
	Tom got a good look at the exposed wiring ...
	... and the cockpit.
	The floor in this room was covered with personalized bricks.
	Here is ours! (Just don't look at the incorrect last name under Tom's foot.)
	Oh, yeah, it's time to play City Codes.
	Here's the one we are most excited about: UIO for Quito, Ecuador.
	This series of panels depicted US Airways flight 1549, Miracle on the Hudson. It detailed the timeline from takeoff to bird strike to water landing and evacuation.
	Yeah, baby, here's a photo of the Boeing 747 LuxuryLiner lounge back in the 1970s.
	Here's a Boeing 747 Coach Lounge Piano. In August 1971, American Airlines added a 64-key Wurlitzer electronic piano to the coach lounge aboard one of its Boeing 747 airplanes. Passenger response to the piano entertainment was enthusiastic, and the pianos were soon added to all of American's 747 LuxuryLiners.
	There was a video showing places all over the world, but here's the one place in the video that we haven't been: Chichén Itzá. Let's see if we can fix this in November 2019.
	Display your travel photos in this beautiful airplane window picture frame! Well, it just so happens that we have a photo of this very beach in St. Maarten. But we didn't buy the frame.
	We also didn't buy this Brio set because it would be foolish to drag it to Ecuador with us, ...
	... but we were helpless to resist this plane and rubber duck for the grandkids.
	Next, we headed to Arlington, ...
	... home of Six Flags Over Texas ...
	... and the International Bowling Museum & Hall of Fame.
	In the lobby of the museum was the "Strike Bike" from American Chopper.
	Here is the history of women in bowling.
	Such a shame that the 1894 trend of circular bowling in the home never took hold.
	This display of pinsetters came to life as this young man told us all about his job.
	TV and Bowling: A Perfect Match. This one's for you, Bruce.
	Here's a full-size pair of bowling lanes.
	Here's Orion Shuffle Alley, 1967. Tom remembers this from his youth.
	Now here's a bowling shoe worth admiring.
	Bowling is the second-largest sport in Special Olympics behind only track and field.
	If you zoom in on the middle picture in the display above, you'll see teams from Indiana. We know "C. Neeb" in this photo. Cool!
	Near the end of the museum is a pair of lanes where you can bowl a couple of rounds. The pins are on ropes for easy resetting.
	Hey! The mural on the game featured many of the places we visited last year: Mt. Rushmore, Devil's Tower, and Seattle.
	Debbie tried a couple of rounds too.
	Tom searched for Pete Webber in the list of famous bowlers.
	We headed to the gift shop when we were done. What's that on the right?
	It's a bowling ball modified to hold shot glasses! Amateurs. The correct way to do bowling ball shots is to use the thumbhole in the bowling ball as a shotglass. Obviously.
	These bowling shoes look neither comfortable nor legal for play.
	We departed with two more little rubber duck friends for the grandkids.
	We drove around Arlington a bit to see the sights, starting with Globe Life Park, formerly Arlington Stadium.
	The "Unity Arch" by Owen Morrel is one of the sculptures on the Arlington Entertainment District Sculpture Trail.
	Here's AT&T Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys.
	Behold, "The last open Black-eyed Pea in the world," according to our friend John.
	That's not quite true, but it was hard to find an open one after another round of restaurants closed in fall 2016. It will be a sad day indeed when this amazing list of side dishes is no longer available in one place: mashed potatoes, fried okra, and oh, that amazing broccoli rice casserole.
	Add a basket of rolls and cornbread to an entree of Black-Eyed Pea's famous meatloaf, and you have an almost perfect meal.
	Invite good friend John to come along and then it truly is the perfect meal. It was great to catch up with John on his home turf.
	By 2:00, we were heading back to the airport to catch our next flight of the day.
	Check out this shiny sculpture, titled, "Crystal Mountain."
	We were at our gate by 3:00 and departed at 4:30. We settled in for dinner and got several movies watched, including "La La Land" and "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them."
	Six hours later, we arrived at Aeropuerto Internacional Mariscal Sucre de Quito.
	We collected our luggage, gave it to the Celebrity Cruises porter, waited for other cruise guests, then followed our Celebrity Cruises host to the waiting buses.
	Yeah, baby, we were in Quito.
	The bus was sparkling clean with Celebrity Cruises-branded headrests. By 12:15 AM, we were on our way.
	We were all given bottled water and encouraged to take as many as we wanted over the next two days of touring and traveling.
	We watched the sparkling lights of sleeping Quito as our host gave us all the information we'd need for the next two days, including meal times, tour details, and packing restrictions for our charter flight to the Galápagos two days later.
	We arrived at the JW Marriott hotel in downtown Quito at 1:00 AM.
	It is a gorgeous hotel ...
	... that serves as the headquarters for Celebrity Xpedition cruises weekly.
	We each received our room keys and info packets, ...
	... along with a welcome drink of local tea made with naranjillo juice and cinnamon. It was warm and delicious.
	Five minutes later, we were free to head to our rooms. We opted to look around the lobby at all of the beautiful floral displays.
	Wow.
	Here's a view toward the atrium that leads to the restaurant.
	This amazing display of pink roses was replaced with darker pink roses when we returned nine days later.
	Here's a closeup of one of the blooms in a suspended vase.
	More roses at the elevator bank. The next day, we learned that high-quality roses are very inexpensive in Ecuador.
	We were glad to see our hotel room at 1:15 AM.
	Here it is once we turned the lights on.
	The bathroom was huge, ...
	... with a large tub and a separate space for the toilet. Day 2 >