Travel Notes

Writing for most people like me is a way of expressing my feelings and also a release sometimes in dealing with day to day frustrations. Often it is both. Actually it is usually both. I’ve done a bit of travelling in the recent past some for pleasure and some for family losses.

Travel in all of its forms is resplendent with good material. I don’t care if you are flying or driving there is no end to the frustrations that can surface. For me it usually centers on poor service or people with very little courtesy or common sense. It is hard to narrow down bad drivers and try to come up with one area of the U.S. that has the worst drivers but I think I’ve got my own opinions developed from driving over a good portion of this country. Florida you win. Put a turn signal on in Florida and you are basically a laughing stock. You want to change a lane….just do it. Red lights? They are only mere suggestions. Speed limit? What?? Where??? My area is not exempt from bad drivers as are most parts of the country, especially around metropolitan areas, but after driving in and living in for 5 years I might add, Florida is the winner. I actually felt relaxed driving in Raleigh coming home from Florida and that is a pretty scary thought on its own!

Let’s talk about flying a bit. Frankly as the TSA continues to clamp down on everyone flying is becoming about as inconvenient as driving and in some cases worse. So it may be about a 10 hour drive from here to Orlando. The flying time is about an hour and a half. Flying time that is. Now let’s add the time it takes to get to the airport; 30 minutes. Oh wait turning in the rental car; better give it an hour. God forbid actually checking in a bag instead of trying to cram a weeks worth of clothes into a carry on and then getting through the most heavenly experience of the security line. Better give that an hour. Oh and you need to be at least an hour early before the flight and most people shoot for two hours unless you are those 1 or 2 people who are hell-bent on holding up your plane and arriving within minutes of closing the hatch.

So now you are on the plane. This can be a real cornucopia of human experiences. I always seem to get someone that sounds as if they should be in an oxygen tent sitting right behind me seething out their glorious germs upon my already stressed body. I may as well just call in sick before the plane takes off. I know I’ve said this before but why are they telling people how to put on their seatbelts as they are taxiing down the runway? If someone just can’t understand how to work those suckers will they stop the plane or turn around and go make them get off? It seems that should be the very first briefing before the plane leaves. BY the way, if I ever need a flotation device I am going to grab the big zip lock baggie that the foreign guy took on the plane that had some sort of God awful smelling, indeterminate food in it that he felt he had to share with everyone else on the plane. I digress.

The next pleasurable experience flying is retrieving your bags. The baggage claim area has a kind of Las Vegas feel to it. As the bags begin to show themselves, which could easily add another 30 minutes of frustration to this experience, I seem to envision a roulette wheel as you are waiting for the ball to drop on your number. Then you finally beat the house and get your bags, usually looking like they were thrown 20 or 30 feet on the pavement, and then you need to either call a cab, or find your car and get away from the airport. I think you get my drift. Flying is not the fast and efficient experience it once was. I know…I know…we live in a different world.

So there we have it. Another installment or should I say indictment on travelling. I actually enjoy driving. (in most states) My wife; not so much. As I get older I may just stop moving altogether and my travel will consist of the recliner to the refrigerator to the bed, which incidentally my wife would say I have already perfected. Here’s hoping I got a chuckle out of you and by all means fly the “friendly” skies and good luck!