Category Archives: Travel

I just got back from a long trip: TOL-ATL-MLU, followed by a short stay and family visit at Lake D’Arbonne State Park, followed by MLU-DFW-SEA, a few days of work, and a return to the park, thence home. A few notes in no particular order:

• Whoever set up the state park at Lake D’Arbonne should get a raise. It’s beautiful: secluded, quiet, with clean, well-maintained, well-equipped cabins. Bonus points for not putting TVs in the cabins.
• It was wonderful to see my sister and my grandparents, neither of whom I get to see that often. The food and company were both great.
• Seattle consistently has the rudest TSA staff of any airport I’ve ever been in. Ruder than Detroit, ruder than Newark.
• In this month’s issue of Delta Sky, there are profiles of several Delta employees, including Phil Bartholomew. He’s the best DL flight attendant I’ve ever seen: super courteous and very much on the ball. In the same magazine, there’s a big ad from Sykes congratulating Delta on their 75 years of success. I noticed that the one reservation/ticket agent included in the profiles works for a city ticket office in Rio; I wonder how the current (and former!) US-based reservations employees feel about Sykes’ ad.
• I’ve taken probably 200 or 250 trips with a laptop since I graduated from college. I’ve left my laptop behind twice. This was one of those trips. Fortunately, I left it at the park cabin, where Mom was able to toss it in her car for her return trip to Ohio. Rookie mistake!
• Delta gets bonus points for putting a Crown Room Club in their satellite terminal at DFW, but they lose them again for having it close at 9:30pm when the last bank of flights leaves after that. C’mon, guys: if there are departing flights scheduled to leave, have the club open. It’s not that hard to figure out.

It’s true; EPCOT really does stand for “every person comes out tired”. This has always been my favorite park, mostly because there are so many gadgets and so much techno-stuff– but also because of the pervasive spirit of optimism that pervades both halves of the park. When we arrived, we headed straight for Test Track and got FASTPASS tickets for it. While Matthew and I strolled around people-watching (and eating popsicles, of course), everyone else went to Ellen’s Energy Adventure, which broke down mid-ride on our last visit. It got good reviews this time; Mom and I traded groups, so they went to bird-watch while the rest of us rode Test Track. David loved it as much as he did last time, and Arlene and Thomas both were impressed (although it didn’t make GM look so good when our car got stuck three times, once in the “cold climate” test room). We puttered around for a while afterwards until it was time for our Mission: SPACE fastpasses. How was it? It’s so good that I am prepared to forgive HP for their long history of writing crappy Mac software for their products. Thomas and I rode (David chickened out at the last minute), and you should have seen the look on his face! He got to be the mission pilot and was enormously proud of his accomplishment. The ride itself was really slick: very immersive, with a terrific blast-off sequence that gives realistic G-loadings and buffetings. IMHO, Walt himself would have approved (although this story about Disney freaks points out how many of them talk about what Walt would, and would not, have liked– eek! am I crossing the line and becoming a Disneytrekkie? Let’s hope not.)
While Tom and I were riding, everyone else headed over to the World Showcase. I’d never been there before, and it was quite enjoyable, even though I didn’t do anything more than stroll through the pavilions. We had lunch at a surprisingly good Japanese yakitori restaurant, then walked around a bit more until it was time to go. Arlene and I had set a hard departure time of 1530 because we had tickets to the 1800 performance of Cirque du Soleil‘s La Nouba. What a show! I’d never seen Cirque before, but I’d heard a lot about the athletic skill and design of their performances, and I wasn’t disappointed. It’s hard to summarize it, so I won’t try– but if you go to Orlando, see the show if you have time. It’s well worth the (rather expensive) ticket price, and there’s not a bad seat in the house. While we were doing that, Mom and the boys ate at Downtown Disney, and then to bed. Pictures:

Verizon has a cool service: sign up and when you’re on an airplane, your Verizon cellphone calls automatically arrive at your seat for either $0.10 or $0.69/min, depending on which plan you sign up for.

Three years ago, when Matthew was still a passenger and Thomas had just turned three, we went to Orlando to visit Disney World (chronicled here). Now it’s three years later, and we’re +1 on the boy count– Matt is a little younger than Thomas was for his first trip, but I suspect he’ll enjoy it.
This time, we’re taking Mom with us; this should be fun for her and will make it easier to counterbalance the different things that everyone is sure to want to do. Unlike the last trip, where I used Priceline for hotel and car and frequent-flyer miles for airplane tickets, I bought everything via Expedia. Why? Airfares are cheap, so the miles are worth more when converted (say) to a business-class ticket to London than for a $220 ticket to Orlando. Second, availability for hotels is really tight since we’re going during the peak season (oops; we’ll remember that for next time), so the best balance between time spent and money spent turned out to be buying the package. Thanks to tips at MouseSavers, I spotted Expedia’s attempt to sell us full-price park tickets and bought them for a discount straight from Disney instead. Ha! Take that, robotic travel agent-oid!

Seems that American Airlines hasn’t been showing the love to Brazilian customs. This story explains what happened: the 52-year-old (read “old enough to know better”) pilot gave customs officials the finger when he was being photographed, whereupon he was arrested. The rest of his flight crew was denied entry to Brazil, so presumably they had to wAAit until the next flight home.
Here’s the airline’s explAAnation:

“The company apologizes to the Brazilian government, the airport authorities, the police, or anyone else who perceived anything they believed to have been disrespectful,” the airline said in a statement. “The captain and other crew members certainly meant no disrespect.”

Obviously American has found a new job for Don Carty‘s speechwriter, since only a person of vast imagination could construe the international peace sign as “[meaning] no disrespect”.

This morning, the TSA people pulled me out of the X-ray line and asked if they could search my bag. “Sure,” I said, knowing there was nothing in there. “It looks like there’s a wrench in there,” said one of them. To shorten the story as much as possible: yes, there was a wrench in the pocket of my trousers. I’d picked it up to safeguard it from Matt The Tool Bandit; when I took them off after my dinner date with Arlene, I folded them neatly to be packed and packed them. Lo and behold, they took my wrench, all 5″ of it. I guess they thought a 7/16″ box/open-end qualifies as a banned item. At least it wasn’t one of my good ones.

Those wacky folks at SaveSkyMiles are at it again; they posted this ad in the Atlanta-region edition of USA Today. It basically says “hey, DL employees, we’re sorry your management doesn’t get it, but we’re leaving. We still love you, though”.

There’s been a lot of complaining about Delta‘s decision to downgrade the benefits offered to their most frequent flyers. I voted with my feet at the beginning of this year and have accumulated almost enough miles on NW for their midtier elite program, which gives me unlimited free upgrades on any fare class.
Today I got some mail from Delta announcing changes to their Platinum Medallion benefits for next year. (See a summary of the changes here.) The resumption of unlimited upgrades is nice, but it’s limited to the most expensive (Y, B, and M-class) fares. No thanks.
On the other hand, with Continental’s recent decision to backstab their elites, can NW be far behind? One speculation is that CO and NW are aligning the details of their FF programs with Delta, which means that it may be in my best interest to spend a couple hundred bucks on a mileage run to Singapore or Tokyo to make sure I hit NW’s top tier– if CO and NW both slave their upgrades to DL’s program, I’ll be in trouble as a midtier member.

I’m in the south terminal WorldClub at the Detroit airport. Behind me are two overstressed business travelers. One is arguing with her daughter, who has apparently invited some hussy named Dorothy to sleep over while Mom’s out of town. Mom’s take seems to be that Dorothy should be at her ill father’s hospital bedside, but in any event no one is welcome to sleep over while she’s out of town (and she’s home a lot). Competing with her is a middle-aged man who had a short, angry conversation with what I assume was his wife, muttered (rather loudly, actually) “I need a beer”, and returned to pick up the conversation anew. Someone in his family is ill too, and claims to want to die, but won’t, or isn’t, or something. All I can tell is that he’s very angry about the whole situation. I would move, but then I’d have to give up my chair and, much more importantly, my power outlet. Nothing doing. At least I can drown my angst with some excellent Vermont sharp cheddar, which NWA has thoughtfully provided for those of us who would rather graze than eat aboard their flying spam cans shiny 757s.

Yesterday was our slowest day; we didn’t do all that much, even though we covered lots of ground. We started the day by driving south to Provo, about 40 mi south of Temple Square, to drop by BYU and hit the bookstore. Surprisingly, there were lots of young Mormons there. Even more surprisingly, lots of the people we saw were wearing long sleeves and long pants– this in 105+ degree weather. If any of our kids go there I hope they have the sense to dress appropriately for the weather.
When we left BYU, we drove north again, taking I-80 east to Park City. We stopped at Utah Olympic Park, where I had high hopes of riding the bobsled. Unfortunately, I didn’t read the part of the web page that says “Tuesday through Saturday”, so I missed out. We drove back from Park City, rested at the hotel for a while, and went back to Rodizio with our friend Pete (a.k.a. Elder Brainard of the Alabama Birmingham Mission, 1998-2000) and his new wife. We had a delightful time.

Yesterday, Arlene and I embarked on our semi-regular annual anniversary trip. This year, we decided to go to Salt Lake City to see the sights, visit some temples we hadn’t been to, and visit some friends who live in the Valley. Our trip here was uneventful; we flew Delta, changed planes in Cincinnati, and arrived on time. (Unfortunately, even after two requests, the DL folks couldn’t get my NW account number on the tickets; maybe I’ll have better luck on the return).
Our rental car turned out to be a Mustang. While that might seem just the ticket for cruising Temple Square, there were two minor problems: Arlene’s megasuitcase wouldn’t fit in the tiny trunk, and I couldn’t fit in the driver’s seat. We swapped it for a boring, but commodious, Taurus and went to our hotel. Unfortunately, our room wasn’t ready, so we parked our car, left the bags with the bellman, and walked the two blocks to Temple Square.
It was a beautiful afternoon for sightseeing; we stopped at the south gate’s visitor center and got a map. I got to see the original Tabernacle, which has that famous pipe organ– it’s just as impressive in real life as I thought it would be. We saw a few wedding couples outside, and learned from one of the volunteer hostesses that there were 55 weddings held yesterday– with about the same number today! That’s astonishing, but I guess you’d expect it given our beliefs on marriage. I got a few good pictures of the west side of the temple; I’ll try to post them tomorrow.
Next, we went to see the film “Legacy,” a retelling of some of the events surrounding the original pioneer migration to the Salt Lake Valley. It was really humbling to consider the obstacles that those pioneers faced; some of them rebuilt their houses, careers, and even families three or four times as the LDS settlers were driven from place to place. While I’m not one to endorse the occasional bragging that goes on among longtime LDS families (similar to the “well, my family came over on the Mayflower, and…” lines from New England), it’s quite a testament to the settlers’ faith and dedication that SLC was established at all.
For dinner, we ate at Shula’s, conveniently attached to our hotel. Arlene was learning toward the lobster until our server brought the presentation cart and held up the lobster to exhibit it. The lobster gave Arlene a companionable sort of wave, at which point she recoiled (but only slightly) and decided on the steak instead. Brief summary: best steak I’ve ever eaten. Yes, better than Johnny Walker’s Black Angus in Sydney; better than Morton’s; better than Mancy’s. It was phenomenal. Arlene actually had the steak; I had a cut of salmon that was easily in the top three I’ve ever had.
After that, we were so full that we had to walk around a bit more. We browsed around some of the shops surrounding Temple Square. At Mormon Handiscraft, I was surprised to find an entire quilting store tucked away in the back. As you might expect, Arlene ended up with a new addition of soul fabric for her stash. After that, we’d both had enough for one day, so we want back to the hotel and hit the rack.

Arlene and I are heading to Salt Lake City for a mini-vacation. Mom and Betty are keeping the boys. Last night, I got Betty checked out on the new TV, so she has now fully mastered the use of all the remotes and can watch HD, plain TV, DVDs, or (gasp) the Xbox. As a backup, David knows how to do most of those, so he can help if need be. I’m taking the Tablet PC with me and intend to do some picture-taking; if I get a chance (and if there are any good pictures) I’ll start a new gallery.

No, not that kind of hot spot. Ernie the Attorney maintains a partial list of WiFi hot spots on his blog, and there’s an article about local connectivity from the Times-Picayune. MGB attendees, now you know where to get wireless. Just don’t spill your Dixie into your laptop or bad things will happen.

Spam from Delta today:

Delta recognizes that as airline travel has changed, so have our customers’ lifestyles and preferences when on the go. What hasn’t changed is your need to save time at the airport. That’s why we are pleased to announce that we will begin testing a new in-flight food program, offering restaurant-quality food to customers onboard select U.S. flights.

Riiight. If Delta really cared about helping me save time at the airport, there are lots of things they could do– starting with bringing back their redcoats– but this ain’t one of them.
What follows in their note is a description of their new pay-for-food program, brought to us by the Atlanta Bread Company (good) and Gate Gourmet, their current catering provider (not so good). They’ll also be pimping Fritos, Harry & David stuff, and various Nabisco products. Note that this doesn’t save me any time, since every airport in America has vending machines and newsstands that dispense the same fat-filled greasy partially dehydrogenated goodness. he best part is that PMs eat free, just like in the old days:

Continue reading →

When I lived in Huntsville, I used to work with two guys who traveled insane amounts of time (48+ weeks a year!) One of them (Hi, Johnny!) turned me on to The Ticket, a newsletter for Atlanta-based travelers. Even though I wasn’t based in Atlanta, it was useful since just about every trip I took resulted in a flight change in ATL.
Now that I’ve moved, and especially now that I’m not flying DL much, it’s not as useful– but I still read it for the occasional gems. If Tim had been able to read it, he’d have known about the secret security areas, f’rinstance, and he might have made his Monday-morning flight. So, here’s the July issue, from which you can get archives and subscription information. Enjoy!