The photo above introduces Kongo’s new crew friends Cheeky and Valentine. It’s a bit of a story so bear with me.

A wonderful woman named Helen works at the Dulles Hyatt in Herndon, Virginia where Kongo usually stays when he’s working in the DC area. Helen sees Kongo get his picture taken after he arrived late by missing his scheduled flight out of San Diego and is wondering what in the world this monkey is doing sitting on her bar in the hotel lobby. So, Helen gets the whole Story of Kongo spiel and offers up her two monkeys, Cheeky and Valentine. These poor guys have been cooped up in a box in Helen’s closet for who knows how long and after hearing about Kongo’s jet setting monkey adventures all over the world, Helen decides to set them free and off they scamper with Kongo.

So, naturally one of the first things Kongo shows the guys is how to get a Bloody Mary at the F Terminal Sky Club in MSP. They figured out pretty quickly that hanging with Kongo was going to be a lot more fun than monkeying around in Helen’s closet. Of course the boys will visit Helen often because Kongo usually stays at that Hyatt more than 100 days a year!

Now the boys are heading to San Diego for the first time. Missy is sure going to be surprised!

Kongo normally doesn’t fly on Saturdays but today he can’t help but notice a whole lot of the good people of Minnesota heading to some place warm and sunny. The forecast for SAN today is 79 and sunny and it will be in the mid 80s tomorrow. At MSP when DL1987 pushed back from the gate it was windy, 15 degrees and snowing. Who can fault these people for getting out of town and heading for America’s Finest City.

Something else Kong noticed today. THEY ARE BACK! We’re talking about the Spring Breakers and the traveling school and church groups in matching T-shirts. The sprawlers were first spotted at Dulles this morning, a group of about 12 middle-schoolers in matching blue shirts that telegraphed to everyone that they were on a SCHOLASTIC ADVENTURE to the nation’s Capitol. As they waited to rendezvous with another group winging in from Detroit these hearty adventurers camped out at Kongo’s departure gate and went to sleep on the floor with their pillows. I do hope they read Kongo’s tips on how to travel nicely in airports.