Comments on Traveling

My friend Lucas(I have been to his farm) posted his observations on traveling in the Cafe and I thought it would be good to share here today.

"Three weeks ago we traveled to the Notill conference in St. Louis. We flew. You get there early so you can be demoralized by a metal detector and no drinks through the check point because they are connected with all the food joints inside so they throw away what they can so you have to buy a 5 dollar drink , $2 pack of gum, $5 sandwich. Because what else can you do but eat when you are there two hours early. Oh then you can't have a direct flight you have to go for a 40 minute ride to the next feed trough (airport) and another 1 and half wait. Heck might as well buy another $5 dollar drink oh and there is all those danishes and cinnabuns. Finally get to the last flight . Takes all day to travel by plane.

Then I did it all over again this past week to Des Moines to go to Ames Iowa For some Agleader training so I got to add the joy of a rental car which I picked a compact because it was cheapest. I get there I was concerned I am 6' 3" all I could see was some little toy, I ended up with a Chevy Impala so not to bad. I was there for five days last training day wasn't over till 5 Thursday so I get to pull my hair out cause I couldn't get a flight back east until Friday morning. Did I mention I had my fill of flying for awhile."

Another friend Omar(he has been to our home) replied "I've got to the point where my cutoff point for driving is 15 hours. In other words, a full day. That's because a flight to almost anywhere is going to cost me a day anyway. For exactly the reasons you stated.

It takes me under an hour to get to Toronto, but I have to allow for two in case the traffic is bad. Then, I'm supposed to be there 3 hours ahead for international flights. Usually, you sail through, so that's 2 hours plus the remainder of the driving time I didn't use to kill. Or, you don't sail through so you have a couple hours of stress worrying whether you'll make your flight. So you are up to four or five hours and the plane hasn't even left the ground. I may technically have saved a bit of time flying, but there's really nothing else I'd be able to do on the travel day anyway. I might as well be driving and seeing a bit of country.

Since you can't carry anything on (say shaving supplies) unless you pay for the mini-sized containers ahead of time (assuming you remembered to buy them), you end up checking stuff in, but now you have to pay extra per bag to do that.

If you do make it through easily, there's that challenge of what to do. Sit in a bar? Well, you could browse the internet, but most airports nail you for 10 bucks for a 24 hour login to the internet. Knowing I'll only be there for a couple hours, that just doesn't match my idea of good value.

My stress level is way down when I drive. It's amazing how far a person can get with a full day of driving."

My observations were "Very good observations, Lucas, I agree. Just reading that makes me see why I don't like to fly, doesn't fit my farmer mold. But I do love to travel and meet new people and see new things so it's put up with or find something much slower.

I am sure the seasoned traveler doesn't like it much better and the airport is a center of angst and frustration, just ripe for a blow up like we see on TV news. Homeland Security is a joke to me, padding down some old lady who would like to blow the person up doing it and letting some suspiscious character walk on by who looks like they intend to. But no that's racial profiling or whatever. What a joke, no common sense.

This modern travel shows the epitome of society, mixing all these people together from everywhere and every possible background.

Cruising is in the news but it's probably safer than walking down some city streets, definitely safer than automobile or plane and statistics show that. That captain might really be a hero or really lucky(blessed) because he almost sent 4000 people to the bottom of that drink. That ship teetering over that 600 feet deep ledge has been something to watch. Geraldo was pretty intertesting on the subject last night, we never watch him and it was so melodramatic it was sickening but it was very interesting.

You are right though, nothing like getting home and walking around on your own farm."

What are your recent observations from traveling?

Ed