I’m traveling today (well, actually not today, because I’m writing this on Monday…but today if you read this on the day it is posted…). I love to travel. I hate to travel. Ultimately, I love to travel.
I just want to do it on my terms, which is more and more difficult these days if you want to leave the country and/or don’t have the financial wherwithal to travel “best class.” For most of us, a plane ride is back to being a cattle car experience, and I’m not looking forward to my middle seat from LAX to ATL part of today’s excursion. It’ll be fine, and I have my netbook, so I’ll probably be working the whole time anyway (rated and experiential battery life: 5 hours+ yippee!), but still…
Are you a window seat or an aisle? I like window because I love to look out at the physical geography as it goes by (a habit developed when planes flew lower because there were fewer of them in the air at one time), and because (and this is the dealbreaker for me) I have long legs and arms, and I finally got tired of getting banged in the knee or elbow by a passing cart and/or purse/suitcase.
And I know nobody wants to check luggage these days, which I totally understand on a 2-3 day trip like the one I am taking, but it has gotten to the point of ridiculty (is that a word?) when people bring these behemoth suitcases on the plane and then seem incredulous that they won’t fit in the overhead bin. I think that instead of being nice and finding space in the cabin for these things, or gently insisting that they go in the baggage, that they should make these people sit with these suitcases on their laps the entire time. I know, I know….safety issues…but still…nice picture isn’t it?
I’ve now gotten to the point where the days of linen and silver and a hot meal in coach are a dim memory (I don’t go back to the nurse as stewardess days, but I do remember the PSA attendant outfits…). We’ve become accepting, as a society, of being treated badly on airplanes, in the name of efficiency, profitability, and hubs…(hmmm…just like we became accepting of large sized, fuel inefficient cars from Detroit?). Speaking of PSA, we’ve become accepting of planes becoming busses.
Which leads me to my preferred mode of travel. My car. I like to look out the window. I like to “see the country.” I like to stop at Mom’s or Pete’s or whatever the non fast food alternative is in a small town. I’m not afraid to eat at a “dive,” despite my traveling companion’s unease. But…can’t go to Europe from here in a car (without driving past Sarah Palin’s house, I suppose), so there you are. When you intersect time and distance, airplanes it is…
So anyway, I traveling today, and I may not be adding blog posts for the next few days. I intend to, but surely you know how that goes…
On the flip side, I’m going to a conference, so I expect to learn a lot of good things…
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