Travel Details #2: Ask, and ye shall receive a car seat.

Check on car seats before you travel, and ask ridiculous questions like, "do you wash them?"

When you ask about whether a car rental company offers car seats, "Yes we do" is not good enough. In some states (like Oregon), companies will not generally offer car seats at the rental office. California does, but watch out...rentals can be questionable back-door-of-the-thrift-store contraptions that are often VERY used car seats that are barely legal (if at all) and filthy. And I don't mean moderately dirty. I mean stinky, sticky, and uncleaned ever since they were pumped out of the plastic factory 15 years ago.

Ask about the age and condition of the seats, if they have the latch system, if they are clean, and so forth. Some rental companies do a much better job than others, and it pays to ask a few questions.

Example: We flew to Coos Bay/North Bend, OR, not realizing that the rental agencies do not offer car seats. So we were stuck at the airport until I could figure out a way to get to Walmart (not our first choice, but effectively the only game in town) to buy a car seat. The saving grace of that adventure was that the employee was so helpful that he offered to first let us borrow an extra seat that he and his wife had, and then when that didn't work out (his manager threatened to fire him if he did, citing lawsuit reasons), he offered to drive me to Walmart and back.

The worst car seat mistake so far? Advantage car rentals "at" LAX. (WARNING: DO NOT RENT FROM ADVANTAGE AT LAX - despite what their listings say, they do NOT have a desk at the terminal - it is 20 minutes away, and the night time shuttles are infrequent at best). The infant seats had no bases to attach to the car (except 1 that I found by digging through the piles in the storage room myself), the seats were covered in sticky oozy putrescence, and each seat offered a unique olfactory experience, namely urine mixed with a few unidentified scatological aromas. In addition, the attendant was completely helpless, uninterested, and was coughing all over the transaction. I didn't anticipate any of that when I chose them because they "have a desk in the terminal (LIE LIE LIE)." Their price? $5 bucks each per day. I would gladly have paid more for a clean one.