Sunday, January 29, 2012

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

5 comments:

  1. Hi,I came over by way of gorges,no I'm not a farmer,but I do love to garden.Thanks for sharing all the information,maybe you could do some tips on gardening...bet that would get you some commenters,I am now following your blog.you are welcome to follow mine as well. Blessings Jane

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  2. Thank you! Alpacas, inspired by my neighbor's former herd is my number one all time blog! Yes, I love gardening too and it is that time of the year again! LuAnn is having a cold frame made in her woodshop at Turning Point so your question just started a conversation how we should do that.

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  3. Helo Ed, Gorges sent me Too...HubBee & i drove truck a year or so, so to me driving is no big deal..since i can not deal with peoples perfumes & all, i Avoid flying like the plague.

    i took a sememster of Farm management years ago & loved it but we live in the desert now... not much loam to work here except in planter boxes!)
    i have an Avocado sapling struggling to thrive and a Chard planted last spring thats about 4 inches tall now:) We plan to torture more plants This year!
    Nice Blog! Think i'll follow 'Gorges' and 'russ_stickacres' around some More. They are great Bloggers...neat peoples..sharing great Blog finds with the rest of us.
    Blessings & Buzz's!!

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  4. I have been able to avoid flying since 2001. I refuse to put up with the whole thing. I've gone by train, which was nice but doesn't really save much time over driving. I would say 15 hours or it would pay to drive, but I'm to stubborn to fly at all so I'm sticking with the old mini van. Start adding up the tickets for a family of 5 and gas and meals for a couple days ain't too bad.

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  5. I think I share your observations...But the worst trip for me is from Brisbane to Tennessee.. The shortest trip we had when all of our flights met, was about 23hours and the longest was 34Hrs... Sure was tired when we hit Knoxville. Then we had over an hours drive home. The one good thing about driving in the U.S. are the interstates.. Hey, some of our highways over here go through towns where you have to reduce you speed down to a crawl. We have red light camera's everywhere, and lots of Tolls, (not so many in Queensland) to pay. We are retired so can mostly take out time now. But my hubby likes to keep going where I prefer to sleep over and take off fresh again... Thats life. Nice to meet ya.

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