Traveler’s Notes . . .

Through April 30, the 10-room Joshua Grindle Inn in Mendocino, Calif., will offer a midweek package for $142.50 per room that includes a docent-led tour of the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens (normally, only groups of 20 or more get tours), plus breakfast at the inn and lunch for two at the gardens. Reservations: tel. (707) 937-4143. . . . Amtrak is discounting sleepers by 25% on its Coast Starlight route through March 7. For details, call (800) USA-RAIL. . . . The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, which lent 70 paintings for the current show at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, will reopen June 24 after 10 months of renovation. . . . It’s not just your imagination: About 70% of U.S. flights take longer now than they did a decade ago, mostly due to longer waits on the runway, the Department of Transportation reported. Among the biggest increases were on Atlanta-to-San Diego flights, which are 20 minutes, 14 seconds longer, on average, than in 1987.