travel

This will be…interesting

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Tomorrow morning we head for PA for Christmas.  This will the first time we’ve driven more than half an hour with Jack, the first time we’ve spent a night somewhere other than home with Jack (not counting the hospital), and the first time he’ll be around more than five people at once.

I’m not terribly worried about the drive.  He’ll probably sleep much of it (although I most likely just jinxed it).  And the people – he’ll be fine.  It’s the nights away from home that have me a little worried.  No, I’m not worried.  I’m resigned to the likelihood that we won’t get any sleep.  He’ll be in a new place, in an unfamiliar crib (or something), new noises (including another baby), so he’s likely to have trouble settling down, and since he’ll be in our room, I think I’m likely to have trouble settling down.

Maybe he and I can tire each other out during the days enough to sleep like logs at night.  That’s actually pretty likely.  🙂    And maybe, just maybe, the experience of sleeping somewhere other than home will make sleeping at home that much more attractive to him and he’ll go down for naps easier.

I can dream.

Connecticut seems small but OH MY GOD IT NEVER ENDS.

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Things I should do now that I’m home:

  • Unpack suitcases
  • Start laundry
  • Put the car snacks away
  • Put the presents away
  • Pick up the random clutter we left behind in our hurry to get out the door Friday night
  • Clean up the dripping mess we tracked on the floor inside the back door because our landlord didn’t send anyone to shovel or salt the driveway or the back steps.

Things I’m going to do because it took us 6 and a half hours to get home instead of 5 because I-95 SUCKS:

  • Sit in a chair.
  • Eat the Chinese food that will be delivered any minute or so I hope because the car ride took forever and I’m hungry.
  • Sit in the chair some more.
  • Look at the wall because I’m too tired to brain.
  • Stop looking at the wall and try to watch some TV that doesn’t require concentration.

Okay, I might clean up the mess by the back door.  There’s a towel RIGHT THERE.  I can manage that, as long as I’m waiting for food.

This is what happens when I travel alone. It’s super exciting.

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Here’s a thing I do not regret: getting rid of cable all those years ago.  I’m sitting in a hotel room, having worked late at the office (gag), eaten too much takeout Indian too late in the evening, and I turned on the TV.  This hotel has DirectTV, and there are a ton of channels, and is anyone going to be surprised when I say that there is nothing on?  I should hope not.

I eventually settled on an episode of Friends, which is half over by now.  It’s the one where Rachel gets closure.  Except, you know, not.  Except, actually, maybe yeah.  Anyway.

Why did I turn on the TV?

Fleeting thoughts about traveling

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  • Oh my god, I love being this close to an airport.
  • Maybe I should start booking two aisle seats, same row, for us when we fly.  Then I don’t have to sit in the middle seat, I get the aisle (always my first choice anyway), and we can still sit next to each other.  Of course, John won’t get the window, but I feel like I’ve spent enough years sitting in the middle for him to owe me this one.
  • I find airports to be peaceful places. As long as I’m not late.
  • Mosquito bites are the WORST.
  • That was not a travel thought. Stick to the theme!
  • I like travel size things, like the little containers of Advil and the little bottles of contact solution and the little packets of Benadryl that aren’t helping with the itching.
  • I hope the TV screen in the seat back shows our flight progress.
  • Holy mother of god the itching.
  • My seat mates won’t notice if I gnaw off my legs, right?
  • Maybe I can buy enough tiny bottles of wine to light the bites on fire.
  • Fire!
  • $&#*”&-@$&@

A Typical Day

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Cross-country moves really screw with your daily routine.  Before we left Oregon, here’s what my day usually looked like:

5:45am: Alarm

6am: At my desk, 9am (eastern) meeting started.

6am – 9am: Work.  Coffee and toast around 7am.

9am – 10am(ish): Run in the park.  Maybe.  If not in this hour, then it happens after work.

10am(ish) – 2pm(ish): Work.

2pm(ish) – 6pm(ish): Run, if it didn’t happen at 9am.  Maybe a riding lesson.  Errands.  Read.  Your standard after-work stuff.

6pm(ish) – 9pm(ish): Dinner, TV, clean-up, shower.

9pm(ish): Bedtime.

Repeat.

Then we started the cross-country drive.  Over 6 days, we developed a pretty good routine.

7am: Get up and work out, if the hotel has a gym. Shower. Check out.

9am: Hit the road.  Breakfast and coffee somewhere.

9am to 2pm(ish): Drive drive drive.  Usually John took the morning shift.  Maybe lunch.

2pm(ish): Switch drivers.

2pm(ish) to 7pm(ish): Drive drive drive.  Usually I took the afternoons and evenings.  John got sleepy.

6 or 7pm: We figure out where we’re stopping for the night and John books us a hotel room.

7pm or 8pm: Check in to hotel, find dinner.

9pm or 10pm: Crash hard.

Repeat.

We knew exactly what had to come out of the car each night, and we knew exactly how to put everything back in the car each morning.  We listened to audiobooks (the first Ellis Peters monk detective book (good enough, but MAN it was slow-going), two MC Beaton Hamish Macbeth books – I love Hamish Macbeth), podcasts (mostly Hello from the Magic Tavern), and music (Sirius XM’s Pop Rock channel is good, and for Labor Day weekend, they had a road trip channel that was fun), and mostly stayed off the internet because we had basically zero reception nearly the whole way.

Then we got to Providence and moved in to our empty house.  Since hardwood floors are not a comfortable place for sitting and I still have to work, we’ve had to develop a new routine.

7am(ish): Get up.  Run.  Breakfast at home (cereal – we did some basic shopping).

9am(ish): Arrive at the office, otherwise known as the Starbucks about five blocks away, to work where we can have internet, tables, and chairs.

9am(ish) to noon(ish): When I can work quietly, I work inside where there are outlets.  When I have to talk during a conference call, I pop outside, where I can speak loudly enough to be heard (and also where I mute for passing traffic).  Then back inside.  If I have a call with clients, I head back to the house to avoid the background noise.

Noon(ish) to 1pm(ish): Back home for lunch (sandwiches).

1pm(ish) to 5pm(ish): Same as the morning, back at Starbucks because chairs are a wonderful thing.

5pm(ish) to 9pm(ish): Clean the house or run errands or take a long walk (one afternoon we drove to Narragansett to find a beach) or otherwise kill time outside of the house, find dinner, bed.

Repeat.

And it is a routine – we’ve been doing approximately this for a week now.  The baristas at Starbucks recognize us, and a number of the regulars recognize us, too.  Oh, the regulars.  I don’t mean regulars in the sense of people who always go to the same place at the same time every day and order the same thing.  I mean the people who come to this Starbucks every day to work.  Like, every day.  And they stay all day.  I mean, it’s exactly what we’re doing, but we’re only doing this until our furniture gets here.  These people have been doing this for years.  One guy brings a power strip to get past the limited number of outlets and has been nice enough to let us use it.  So, you know, we’re making friends, but I’m not going to be too sad when I can go back to something resembling my Oregon routine again.

Too many nights in hotels

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Speaking of hotel oddities, there was this gem in the hotel in Wisconsin.

Too bad for the people in room 121.  Our room in Erie, PA is quite nice, although the bathroom door doesn’t close all the way. There’s always something. We’re in the type of hotel I stayed in the night I walked into a dresser and tore my toenail off (three years ago in Philadelphia) so I’m going to be extra careful when I get up in the middle of the night. My toenail has STILL not fully recovered.

Hotel oddities

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We had two hotels in a row with soft water, which I HATE.  For two days, I felt like I was covered in soap that would never rinse off.  John’s parents’ house has soft water, but it’s never this bad.  Makes my skin crawl.

Oddly, both of those hotels had weird gym situations, too.  The one in Montana advertised a gym, but when we asked at the front desk, the guy said they have an agreement with a gym downtown.  When we’re ready to go, he can give us a key and direct us there.  It’s like 5 miles away.  We didn’t go.  The next night, in Minnesota, there was a gym in the building, but our room keys wouldn’t give us access.  We had to go get special keys made for access to the gym.  Why would you set up a gym for your guests and then not give them automatic access to it?  At least they had one, and once we could get in, it was nicer than the one in Bend – this one had a window.  And water.  And an A/C unit and a fan.  The one in Bend was like a cave.  A hot, sweaty cave with no windows, no water, and no fan.  Turns out I have expectations for a hotel gym.

Ramada: you can freeze to death and eat soggy cake!*

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*To be fair, the soggy cake was not Ramada’s fault.

Neither of us slept last night, not more than a couple of hours.  The bed was super uncomfortable, the kids didn’t leave the pool for at least an hour after we went to bed, some light (maybe from the A/C unit) was glowing too brightly, and I was fuh-REEZING.  I can’t sleep when I’m shivering, there weren’t any extra blankets, and we were too tired to figure out the A/C plus it was mounted really high on the wall.  We were both awake an hour before the alarm went off, awake enough that we just got up at 3:30 instead of waiting for it, and then our flight to Seattle was too short for napping (only 30 minutes in the air).  We are going to crash so hard tonight.

So with the uncomfortable bed, the mildewy smell in the room, and a couple of other things, I think I have validated my resistance to Ramada hotels over the years.  I mean, last night the price was right and obviously it was okay, but given a choice, I’ll choose something else.

The last time I can remember staying in a Ramada was for our first anniversary, 2001, in San Diego.  John and I had just driven across the country for the first time, moving from Newport, RI to San Diego to get to my first ship.  We didn’t have a place to live yet; the plan was to find an apartment within the first few days and stay in cheap hotels in the meantime.  When we got there, we spent a night or two in a Motel 6 (where one night I got up around 3am and got in the shower because I thought it was morning), and then decided to splurge on the Ramada for our anniversary night.

Mom had packed the top layer of our wedding cake in dry ice for the cross-country trip.  The dry ice lasted until we got to San Diego, and then we replaced it with regular ice for the last day or two.  We realized that might have been a bad idea when we started to unwrap it in the hotel room.  There was some dripping, and we moved to the bathroom sink.

First layer of aluminum foil: water from the ice. No big deal.  Next layer of foil: more water.  Next later of wax paper: water and a few crumbs.  That’s when we started to worry.  Next layer (foil or wax paper – can’t remember): more water, more crumbs.  When we finally got to the actual cake it was pretty water-logged.  The middle was still edible, but I can’t say it was good.  Still – we ate it.  I mean, not the whole thing, but enough to count.

The beginning

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Our trip has begun!  Sort of.  Tonight is Erev Trip, or maybe that was last night.  Our flight from Portland to Seattle is at 6am tomorrow, so we’re doing the park-sleep-fly thing in the airport Ramada tonight.  The airport Ramada is…not so great, but it’ll do for a night.  The biggest issue is that it’s 8pm and our shuttle leaves the hotel at 4:20am so we’re getting up before 4am and we need to go to bed but it’s still broad daylight outside and our room overlooks the pool and there are kids playing in it and tomorrow is going to SUCK.  But we’ll be on vacation!  It’ll be a bearable kind of suck.

I think they live in paradise

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California is a lovely place, with lovely weather, and lovely friends, and GIANT TREES.

It’s kind of funny – we visited Erik and Margaret (and their two adorable, smart, and funny children) for a little more than three days, but the only pictures I have are from the day we went to see the redwoods.

We followed the creek and found a nice picnic spot, and then the kids (and Margaret) played in the creek.  It was all so wholesome and fun, and I mean that – no sarcasm here.

I made this last one big ’cause otherwise you can barely see us.

It was so good to see them again, and it was such a relaxing weekend.  They did a good job of making California seem like the place we want to be.  It’s not, not long-term, but they did such a good job of showing us all the good parts that we temporarily forgot that, and it was really hard to leave.

Freedom and a lighter bag

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I have decided to travel light this weekend.  John and I are in one suitcase, and neither of us is bringing a laptop.  My carry-on is my Paris tote, and John will be walking on to the plane with only his Kindle in his hand.  I’d be able to go lighter if I didn’t have to carry prescription meds everywhere I go.

I always think I’ll use my laptop on trips more than I actually do.  In Seattle, the wi-fi in the hotel was terrible, and I don’t plan to have much free time for laptopping this trip.  I expect we’ll only head to our hotel late at night, tired and ready for sleep.  That is okay with me, so I am bowing to reality and leaving my laptop at home.

You’ll barely know I’m gone.

The earlier the start, the longer the weekend

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Friday morning we’re getting up at airport-thirty for an 8am flight.  We’ve considered spending Thursday night in Portland, but we’d still have an early start and what’s a couple of hours when it’s already early to begin with?

That might be stupid.

On the plus side, it’s a short flight because for the first time in a year and a half (a little more for John), we aren’t flying ALL THE WAY across the country.

Now that I think about it, I’m not so sure that’s a plus considering what time we’ll be getting up.  A longer flight means a longer nap.  And I think we’ll need it.

Still!  The weather is supposed to be beautiful (sunny and not too hot), and we’ll have gotten an early start (which I usually enjoy), and we’re off to visit dear friends we haven’t seen in YEARS, and coffee is a thing.

My unsolicited ad for Johnson Berry Farm

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The first time I ever went to Seattle was in February 2003, on a 3-day liberty call when my ship was on its way to Alaska.  It was cold, but crystal clear – no rain.  I don’t remember all of the details of that trip (I mean, it was 14 years ago), but I remember going to Pike Place Market and the Space Needle, I remember the crab legs (more on those another day), and I remember Johnson Berry Farm.  They’ve got a table in the market, selling jam and preserves, and they hand out free samples.  I don’t remember exactly what I tried that day, but they had these pepper jellies that were SO GOOD.  So good that when I found out a coworker was going to Seattle for work in 2010, I asked her to find them and bring some back to me.  Of course, I couldn’t remember the name of the farm, but I figured she could find them.  She DID find them, and she didn’t bring me anything, but the name got me to their website and I ordered some.  That was 7 years ago.

This past Saturday morning, John and I wandered the entire multi-story market, sticking our heads in just about every store (and buying books in 3 out of 4 bookstores – I’m almost all set for book club the rest of the summer), and then I stopped dead in front of the Johnson Berry Farm table.  All that build-up and I had COMPLETELY forgotten about them.  At no time while planning this trip or walking through the market did I think to myself, “Hey, remember those pepper jellies you really liked?  They’re here and you should get some.”  Nope.  Didn’t even cross my mind.  I was so surprised and SO HAPPY.  And I gotta tell you – they’re still really really good.  We bought three: two types of blackberry and (this is my favorite one EVER) raspberry habanero jam.  They have all kinds and they have LOTS of spicy ones.  Go!  Order!  Enjoy!

Johnson Berry Farm

The Netherlands have got nothing on Seattle

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We’re home and back on wifi, but I don’t have the energy to give you the details of our trip tonight.  However, I will deliver pictures of the belated Mother’s Day tulips* that FILLED the market this weekend.

*I typed “tupils”.  I need to remember that.  Speaking of tupils, there’s a farm in Oregon that has a festival every year, but we missed it.  Christina invited me to go the last weekend, but I already had plans.  Sad me.

Crossing time zones is exhausting

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We’re back home from a trip to PA and MD that included a very cool anniversary dinner and quality time with our new nephew, and I will tell you all about those things, but not tonight.

Goal: get back to regular posting

Deadline: ….soon

Right now: sleep

We got up at 4am this morning so we could leave the house at 4:45am so we could be at the Philadelphia airport by 6am so we could get on a plane at 7am.  We landed in Portland (after a stop in Denver) at 1pm, which felt like 4pm, and then we had to drive back to Eugene, where we stopped at the grocery store before finally getting home about 4:30pm, which felt like 7:30pm.  Now it’s 7pm but it feels like 10pm, and I’ve been awake for 18 hours and traveling for 14 of them, and I’m going to stop typing now and go to sleep.

I am VERY happy to be home.  I love our bed.  It’s better than every other bed.  All of them.

Next time won’t you sing with me

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In the airport again (LaGuardia this time), same deal with only 30 minutes of free WiFi.  Whatever, airports.

In the same vein, we got here, following the signs to Terminal C to check in for American Airlines.  Got our boarding passes for gate D-something.  The guy who took our bags said we had to go to Terminal B for the D-gates.  Don’t terminals usually have the same letter as the gates?  So we checked in at C and got a shuttle to go to B to get on a plane at D.  I am now reciting my ABCs.

It’s not THAT confusing (we made it to the gate, after all), but I’m cruising on very little sleep over the last few days.  Saturday started early, with a long day of travel and a late night when we arrived.  We didn’t have to get up especially early Sunday, Monday, or today, but I slept pretty badly.  The hotel walls were thin, there was constant activity in the hallways, and the pillows SUCKED.  They looked all fluffy and nice, but they flattened into nothing as soon as you put your head down and the air squeezed out.  My neck hurts.  Plus all the emotions and the public face on the whole time and I’m. So. Tired.

We land in Portland at 7:30pm local, but then we have to get our car and drive home, so it’ll be 10pm at the earliest before we get home.  Probably closer to 11.  And tomorrow morning has to start on time, so there will be no sleeping in until Saturday.  On the plus side, there’s no one to tell me I can’t go to bed at 6pm tomorrow night or every night the rest of this week, and Saturday isn’t that far away.

Eating badly

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I don’t think I have ever eaten normally while traveling.  It’s difficult, of course, but I don’t even try.  Yesterday, we got up at 5:30, got to the airport at 6:30, and bad coffee and a stale, crunchy croissant near the gate for breakfast.  Lunch was too much Italian food during our Chicago layover because we knew we’d land in New York too late for dinner so we figured we’d eat a meal and a half mid-afternoon to cover both meals.  Then we snacked because, well, we got hungry again.  But it was all sucky food, pretty much.

We could make the attempt.  I could have had a banana at breakfast.  I could have had a salad at lunch.  I could try harder and do that on our way home in a few days.  Right now, though, I don’t want to do that.  I want to go the other way.  My plan is to have nothing but chocolate (or at least nothing but dessert-type food) when we travel back.  I don’t think it would make me feel worse, and it has a decent chance of making me feel better.

Entitled

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Is free WiFi an unreasonable expectation in public places?  I mean, sure, someone is paying for it, so I can see how it’s not reasonable to expect it in a park or pretty much anywhere you can hang out for free.  But most places we spend any period of time are places we go to buy things (food, drinks, coffee) or see things (theaters – why not free WiFi in the lobby?), or wait to go somewhere else (airports, train stations).  Lots of those places DO offer free WiFi, and for the most part, people are buying things so the cost can be covered, and that makes sense.  Even in places where an individual might not buy anything, like, say, an airport, the vast majority of the people around that individual are nearly guaranteed to buy something, so again – cost covered.  So why would O’Hare only offer 30 minutes of free WiFi?  The airport is enormous, they probably make a ton from parking alone, and everyone who walks through here buys snacks, water, magazines, whole meals – the money goes to the stores, sure, but O’Hare didn’t give those stores space for free.

I suppose I should be glad they’re offering any WiFi for free (I wouldn’t be typing this right now if they didn’t), and I know it’s not the airport’s responsibility to make our layovers fun (FOUR HOURS this time) or to make up for the airlines who make us pay for every little thing, but they could help.  If I know I can’t get online at a particular airport, I might choose to fly through a different one next time.  Maybe they should consider THAT.

Aaaaaannnnnddddd #firstworldproblems.

Not ready for it to be over

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(Written on the plane, posted later)

At the end of most vacations, while I haven’t been happy for the vacation to end, I’ve been happy to be going home, or at least ready for it. Not so much with this one. I’m not sure what’s different. I’ve hardly thought about work, and I still have days before I have to, so I don’t think it’s work avoidance. I’m not reluctant to go back to Oregon – I like it there, and there are things I’m planning to do once we get home. As much as I love Disney World and I hated to leave it last night (even though it was POURING DOWN RAIN again during the fireworks and as we were leaving), we had done everything there was to do, so I don’t feel like I’m missing anything by leaving it. But after fewer than four hours of sleep, a five-and-a-half hour cross-country flight, and a two-hour layover in LAX, I was fighting this urge to postpone our flight to Oregon for a couple of days and check out LA. Maybe it’s sleep deprivation. I overcame that urge and got on the plane to Portland, and we’re not even going straight home, so I don’t really know what I’m talking about anymore. Maybe it’s sleep deprivation. The plan is to spend the afternoon and night in Portland (bedtime will be SO early), meet up with Will and Christina in the morning, and go to this fairy/fantasy-themed festival thing tomorrow. I’m picturing a renaissance fair with fairies, but I don’t really know what it’ll be like. I’ll let you know how it goes. THEN we go home.

Oh, but now I’m on the plane to Portland, NOT sitting next to John because the airline surprised us with upgrades to first class. I have no idea why we got the upgrades, and I’m not complaining. I can manage being two rows away from him for less than three hours. American is my new favorite airline.

I usually have Disney songs within easy reach in my brain (most of the time it’s “Part of Your World” and “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes”), but for the last three days, I’ve been cycling through “Let It Go”, “Be Our Guest”, and “We Can Fly”. Can’t get rid of them. Not sure I want to (although “Let It Go” is free to go away whenever it wants). Maybe it’s sleep deprivation.

I probably won’t have time to write tomorrow, but hopefully I’ll be back to my regular posting schedule by Sunday. With pictures.