South African Sunset, Kruger National Park, June 2008

South African Sunset, Kruger National Park, June 2008
Sunsets...the older I get, the more I enjoy them.

NOTE:

I have set this blog up to show the posts in the order they were written so that it appears (and reads) more like a journal rather than a blog. That also makes it appear that I never add anything to it. That is not the case.

The Journey Continues...

November 25, 2009


But with a slightly different frame of mind.

I chose the two quotations beneath the main title because, while I still feel that to travel is the best way to enrich oneself, I also understand the comforts of being at home. I am becoming more and more content to do more and more of my traveling from the comfort of our newly finished basement.

It's not that I am through with actual traveling by any stretch... there will almost certainly be a continuation of the pilgrimages to the Mouse House... I also have an obligation to take Zeb on his Odyssey XIV (which, for now, still consists of San Diego and Phoenix) in 2011... and Mrs. Page will always be able to find a reason to go to New York.

It's only that I sometimes (actually more than just sometimes... 'often' would be a better word) find it to be just as enjoyable to take trips in my mind. The most pleasant aspect of that type of travel is that you don't have to travel by air, which I have come to loathe. That's a topic for a post of its own... and it will show up here sometime in the future.

For now, though, I am enjoying the opportunity to leisurely look through our photographs and brochures and maps from our previous travels and to just reminisce. Pardon me for a spell while I do just that.

A Little Ketchup

November 30, 2009

Between the time I finally closed out my other blog and started this one, we did a bit of traveling. We took two trips to see the Mouse and I took Lachlan on his Odyssey XIV to Pittsburgh and Boston.

Here are a few shots from each...

DISNEY WORLD
Winter Break 2008

We took the boys and a friend each for a week-long stay. It was a blast! We stayed in one of the family suites at the All-Star Music resort... lots and lots of our friends from all over, but nice nonetheless. The guys went out armed with cell phones, so we were able to let them run around by themselves for a bit. They did the usual... ride the same rides as every other time, get the same FastPasses for the same rides as every other time and I did my usual... find the same smoking areas as every other time.


The Mouse


The Gang


The Kitchen Sink


RE-DISNEY
End of School 2009

This time we went with our neighbors. Had a good time again. Did a lot of the usual stuff plus a lot of good eating and drinking. The smoking areas are all still in the same places.



We

They

Rapid Soaking

Re-Sink


ODYSSEY XIV
Summer 2009

I stole the idea from Ed Groth. Ed was a supe at TPA and he told me about taking his kids wherever they chose (within reason) after they became fourteen years old. It gave him the opportunity to have "some time" with each of them before they became full-fledged teenagers and before Ed became the greatest fuddy-duddy they had ever known. No slam on Ed there... just stating something that, to parents of teenagers at least, is a well-known phenomenon.

I liked the idea the first time Ed made mention of it and I stole it on the spot.

Lachlan turned fourteen a year ago and he chose this past summer as the time for his odyssey. Initially, he had planned to go to the Steeler's training camp but, after he decided to do marching band this fall, the timetable changed to where that was not possible. So he revised his plan to include Boston and to go to a couple of baseball games at each place.

We were away for nine days and it was a grand time. I had never been to Pittsburgh and came away from it suitably impressed. It is definitely a "return to" place. We rented a car and were able to do a little touring around the area as well as get into town easily. We took in two Pirates games at PNC Park and did more than a little sightseeing, as well. We also had a sandwich at the original Primanti Bros. in the Strip District.

Boston was great fun, too, despite some particularly rotten weather. Saw a game at Fenway, rode the ducks and did some dandy eating. We got around using the MBTA and it was an excellent system. Never did see Charlie, though.

Heinz Field

Atop Mt. Washington

Our Whereabouts Announced

Outside the Pahk
Inside the Pahk

Signature Dessert

ODDS AND ENDS

If you include Boy Scout summer camp (Clayton, GA), a few other camp outs (Ft. Benning, GA and Lake Martin, AL) two overnight field trips with the middle school class (Dahlonega, GA and Jekyll Island, GA) and a church conference (Hendersonville, NC), I have done quite a bit of actual traveling in the year and a half since we returned from our once-around-the planet tour.

Next on the docket is a trip to... yep... WDW, along with some jaunts to Ringgold and Raleigh to visit relatives. I'm still going to spend some time downstairs reliving it all and planning my scathing post about the airlines.





A Brief History...

Of My Air Travels

December 2, 2009


My first ever flight was in 1959. The circumstances were not so happy, though, as we were going from Seattle to Washington, D.C., due to the fact that my mom’s father had suffered a stroke. It was aboard a Northwest Orient Airlines DC-7C. I remember looking forward to that flight with eager anticipation, as my dad had made a calendar with a hand-drawn picture of an airplane taking off in the square that represented the date of the flight. I crossed off each day on the calendar as I went to bed each night.

My only recollections of that flight were that I enjoyed looking out the window at everything and that I always got a window seat. I do not remember how long the flight took, how many segments it consisted of, or if we changed planes anywhere along the way. I also can’t remember what meals were served or if there was more than one stewardess. I don’t recall visiting the cockpit, either.

My second flight came about a year later when we moved from Arlington, VA to Hawaii. We flew from Baltimore to Los Angeles aboard an American Airlines Boeing 707. I’m reasonably certain that I had a window seat for that flight, too. I distinctly remember being catered to by the stewardesses, as we were four kids traveling “unattended.” I recall being given chewing gum to alleviate the popping of the ears and playing cards with the AA logo on them as well as Junior Pilot wings.

I didn’t fly again until we left Hawaii and commenced my first trip around the world. After sailing to Japan on a military transport, we traveled via many carriers including Lufthansa, Pan American, Air India, Middle East Airlines, Olympic Airlines and TWA. I think I had window seats on all of them. I also recall never being without anything I wished for (and often things I didn’t) on those flights, be it a soft drink or some juice or a snack or a coloring book and some crayons or some other diversion to help get a ten year old through a flight. And that’s not counting the stuff my parents brought along for us.

After that, I pretty much didn’t fly anymore until I became an adult. For two years, I would travel between my home in Raleigh and school in New York at least a couple of times per year. Those trips were all on Eastern except one when I came home on leave from Ft. Knox and rode Piedmont. I was flying military standby on most of those flights and, even though I was paying half-fare, you couldn’t tell it by the royal treatment I received on every one of those flights.

In my mid twenties, I began flying in earnest. This was my “go to Europe as often as possible” era. It was also the first time in my life that I was paying my own way entirely. For that reason, I began to pay attention to all the finer points of selecting an air carrier, not the least of which was the price. In fact, if I do say so myself, I got pretty danged good at finding the best bargain… meaning the cheapest available flight. Remember, there was no Internet then and you got all your information from and did your booking through either a travel agent (my preferred method) or with the airline directly. I used both methods about equally and I found that travel agents were more inclined to find you lower fares once they knew that you might be traveling again (and again) in a relatively short period of time. The airlines, at the time, didn’t particularly care which method was used and made you feel welcome to be aboard regardless. I can honestly say that of all the different airlines I used to get to Europe and back, they were pretty well neck and neck insofar as service was concerned… they were all pretty good. That opinion stayed with me for all the other air travel I did in the early portion of my professional career and later on when I began to travel with a family of my own. It’s been only relatively recently that my enjoyment of flying has dwindled, and it has faded exponentially in the last eight years. Reasons coming up.

Why I Hate Flying

January 19, 2010

Here are the top three reasons why I hate flying:


Reason #3…

It scares me.

This is a fact. I didn’t used to be afraid of flying but I became that way on a single flight. Although this falls outside of the eight or so year timeframe (it happened in the early Seventies), it has stuck with me since.

I was traveling back to West Point from Raleigh and somewhere over Virginia, we encountered clear air turbulence… what is commonly referred to as “hitting an air pocket.” I usually do as I am told aboard airplanes and was seated with my seatbelt loosely fastened about me even though the seatbelt sign was turned off. I noticed that my seatbelt was gradually tightening and, as I looked down at the buckle, my attention was drawn across the aisle to a woman with her baby in her lap who were slowly rising out of their seat, but were still in a sitting position.

Suddenly they shot up to the ceiling between the overhead bins and paused there briefly, stretched out face down like Peter Pan and company. Then just as suddenly they were both lying face first on the cabin floor and my seatbelt was loose again. The baby started to cry and the passengers beside them were helping them up just as the flight attendants arrived. No one was seriously hurt, the airplane was still flying and, after an announcement from the flight deck commenting on and explaining the situation, we continued on to New York in noticeable silence.

I never flew again in anything remotely resembling a relaxed state, nor with any degree of anticipation as I did with my first ever flight. I did fly again, though, and have gradually gotten to where I can tolerate it fairly easily. To say that I “hate” to fly because of that event is probably less accurate than to say that I simply don’t enjoy it any more, but I’m going to say that I hate flying because of it anyway. At the very least, that experience turned me into a bona fide white-knuckle flyer.


Reason #2…

TSA

Anybody who has boarded an airplane in the United States since 2001 knows what those three letters mean… and the reaction to seeing or hearing them, almost without exception, includes some form of groaning or shuddering.

You have probably heard the expression, “Do something, even if it’s wrong.”

Well, after four airplanes of U.S. registry get hijacked in a single morning and all occupants of all four of them plus thousands of others on the ground wind up dead… something must be done. And the U.S. Government did something for sure. They created the Transportation Security Administration. And, boy has it ever turned out to be wrong. This new federal agency was created one week and one day after the 9/11 attacks and due to a complete lack of forethought, it has done little more than create a whole new set of “Do something…” situations. TSA has earned a less than stellar reputation for a variety of reasons, many of which are listed here.

Among my own gripes about TSA are that I absolutely cannot stand to have to remove any of my clothing just to prove that I am not carrying anything that will disrupt a flight. I mentioned in my other blog that I have never been too keen on technology, but that doesn't mean that I don't have high expectations regarding technological advances.

A few years before the first flight I ever took, Sputnik 1 was launched into earth orbit and the space race went into overdrive. I have no sources to cite, since this is only my opinion, but I can’t help but believe it was only a short while later (probably by the time I took my first flight) that the US at least had on the drawing board, if not in pre-production, satellites that could read the license plates of cars parked in front of the Kremlin. I suspect the Soviets concurrently had satellites with similar capabilities to use against us. I would certainly expect in the fifty years that have elapsed since, that someone could have developed a device that can detect explosives in a pair of shoes while they remain on the owner’s feet. I am very glad that the dolt who tried to bomb an airplane that way didn’t opt to use a jock strap instead.

Otherwise, my complaint list would end with the fact that I haven’t found the TSA folks to be overly cordial. With due respect to the few TSA employees who are conscientious and caring, I make the following observation: Overall, I find the TSA employees to be surly toward and disdainful of the people whom they are supposedly serving and protecting. Their existence serves only as an attempt to make us believe that we are more safe because of their actions (described as 'security theater' in the above link). The reality to me is that they only serve to make an already unpleasant experience worse. They are the hair on the wart.

Note: I drafted the above part of this post between late November and mid-December. On Christmas day, there was an attempted bombing of a US airliner inbound to Detroit from Amsterdam.

The suspect had concealed plastic explosives in his underwear. Not exactly a jock strap, but very close. Fortunately, TSA did not immediately implement a plan to have all passengers remove their underwear for inspection. Instead, there will be a surge in the procurement and use of full body scanners, which is a controversial issue due to privacy concerns as well as a possible conflict of interest (what else is new?) situation, but I feel it is at least better than the interim quick fix that was applied. Among other restrictions, passengers aboard arriving international flights may not do anything other than sit in their seats for the last hour of the flight… no trips to the potty, no laptops or other devices, no blankets (not a problem on United), no fetching anything from the overhead bins. This temporary fix is yet another example of TSA’s commitment to doing something even though it’s wrong.


And the #1 reason why I hate flying…

The airlines have managed to make it an absolutely miserable experience.

In my previous entry, I mentioned that flying, from my point of view in terms of customer service, was generally satisfactory and continued to be, up until about eight years ago. I will use September 11, 2001 as the turning point in my enjoyment of air travel. Doubtless, the industry had been suffering economic woes for a variety of reasons from long before that date and has since. However, the overall business attitude beginning after 9/11 seems to have shifted away from customer service to maximizing income through any means possible, except for charging realistic fares.

One of those means was to curtail amenities. It started with stretching out a can of Coke to serve two and sometimes three passengers. Then it went to cutting down on food service to not serving food at all. It got to the point that you couldn’t find a seat that didn’t have a grease stain on it from where prior passengers had set down their pizza box or Taco Bell bag. Other amenities are being reduced as well. On our trip in 2008, we flew from Honolulu to Chicago… 8 hours… overnight… and there were not enough blankets and pillows available because it’s cheaper for them to provide only a fraction of what might actually be needed.

They also have significantly reduced the amount of space between the seats. I am a large person but I still can fit my rear end into the seat and get the seatbelt around me. However, I have difficulty fitting my legs into the severely reduced space made available for them. If the person in front of me reclines their seat, it causes me physical pain. Granted, I could do something about my girth so that the seat-back tray is more usable, but no matter what I do, I cannot change the size of my skeleton. Unless they stop reducing the width of the seats and the space between the rows, it’s not going to get any better for me.

And then there’s the issue of added fees, most notably for checked bags. Imagine making a reservation at a hotel… any hotel will do, but for the sake of this post, let’s say it’s something like a Sheraton or a Marriott. Those are the type places where I would expect a level of service to be provided that could be classified at least as “above average.” I would equate those types of hotels to the current major airlines… not the type of businesses that would be described using words like “discount” or “cheap.” Now, imagine checking in to that hotel to discover that if you want linens for the bed or towels for the bathroom you will need to pay an additional fee. That is how I view the airlines’ recent decision to impose checked baggage fees. It just exudes a sense of cheapness. (Ironically it’s the actual cheap hotels that offer free Internet access, but I digress.) The past few times I have flown, if I wasn’t among the first third to board, there was no more space in the overhead bins. I fully expect that there will soon be a charge for using the overhead bins. If not, there probably will be an additional fee for carry-on bags. Pay toilets are a not-too-far-fetched possibility either. I don’t really feel that the airlines value me as a customer as much as I sense that they regard me as a source of as much additional revenue as they can squeeze out of me. As far as I know, none of these extra charges are being applied to the classes of service above economy. Yet.

At this juncture I would like to point out that I freely admit to being a cheapskate when it comes to paying airfares. Only twice have I ever paid full-fare economy and never have I paid anything higher than that. I am fully aware that many of the amenities that I am bemoaning the loss of are available at higher fare structures. I also admit to being stubborn. I choose not to purchase a higher-class fare, partially because I’d rather spend the money saved on other things… like hotels and beer (and maybe some food) after I arrive at my destination. Also there are several levels of service that I simply cannot afford. Mostly, though, it’s because I contend that the airlines were previously able to provide those amenities to those of us in steerage and I think that they should be able to do it still. And they should do it.

Earlier I slammed the airlines for not charging realistic fares. That probably seems a bit contradictory considering the above paragraph in which I admitted to being cheap. I made that confession on the basis that, as a cheapskate, I would seek the lowest possible fare… not that I think that fares need to be lowered. On the contrary, I believe that fares should probably be raised in order to provide the maximum level of service per class as well as operate the equipment and pay all the personnel involved a decent wage. When I was traveling to Europe regularly, which was between 35 and 25 years ago, the average cost for an economy class ticket was around $500. A quick Internet search of four airlines’ websites puts the average fare today at around $780. That’s not much of an increase over that amount of time. It also looks like a pretty good deal… until you consider that you’ll be spending eight hours in an airplane that has you jammed next to your fellow passengers in all directions with little or no service being provided by someone who doesn’t really have any interest in providing what little service there is. Personally, I'd rather pay a much higher fare in exchange for a return to a higher level of service provided by outwardly happier employees.

A recent survey I heard of done by one of the country’s larger airlines asked customers if they would rather buy a ticket for $100 with a $35 fee for a checked bag or a $125 ticket with no baggage fee. Considering that most people who fly take along at least one suitcase, it’s a little strange that the majority of the responses to that question were for the lower fare even though the overall cost would be higher. So the airlines charge the lower fare. This works very well for them, though, as when they ask their workers for concessions, they are able to tell them that revenues (based on fares collected) are such that the concessions are desperately needed. Funny how they seem to be able to pay the executives handsome compensation packages regardless. Maybe that’s where the baggage fees go. Or else it’s how they can afford to repaint their entire fleet when they go bankrupt.

It has gotten to the point that I would really rather not fly anywhere. However, I will fly again. I have Zeb’s Odyssey XIV coming up in less than two years and, since he has his eye on the west coast, there will be little choice but to go by air. With any luck, by then there will have been a magical transformation back to the way things were a quarter century ago, but I won’t be holding my breath. No matter what, I will be searching for the lowest possible fare. I only hope it’s enough.