“Air Travel Is So Glamorous” — Vacation Prelude and Part One
Prelude
Some of you have heard my explanation about the genesis of this vacation, and you probably want to skip this paragraph because it’s the same thing I’ve always said. And that is: After my dad died last year, my mother — a burnt-out caretaker 13 years his junior — was talking to her priest, who said to ”Pat, I want you to travel.” She replied, “I’m going to.” He then asked “Where are you going?” And she said “Wyoming — Yellowstone!” This is that trip.
We could not have done this trip without Dave, and we were fortunate that he wanted to join us. After much consultation, we agreed on a 3-part trip: short visit with relatives in Utah/Idaho, 2 days in Jackson WY and Grand Teton National Park, and Yellowstone National Park.
I carefully aligned our flights so that Dave and I were scheduled to arrive in Salt Lake City about 20 minutes before Mom, allowing us to meet her there. However, the morning we were to leave, as I was taking Eddie to the vet for boarding, I got an uneasy feeling that we had not made sufficient contingency plans. So I did something I rarely do — I called Mom while I was driving.
My car is manual transmission, aka stick shift. I need two hands to drive. There is no third hand available for the cell phone. So I called while sitting at what is normally a lengthy stop light.
“If something goes wrong, we’ll use Aunt Joyce as the switchboard,” I said.
“Why can’t I call you?” Mom asked.
“Because the voice mail on my cell phone doesn’t always work,” I said.
“Why?” Mom asked.
“Just trust me and don’t leave a message,” I said as the light turned and I had to make a left turn with a cellphone wedged between my ear and shoulder.
“But that’s not right,” Mom said.
HONK!!!! went the car behind me as I failed to put on my turn signal for the next sharp left I had to make.
“FUCK YOU!!” I yelled into the phone, meaning the driver, not Mom, which I had to explain once I was parked at the vet’s.
So we’re off to a good start already. I left my dubious Mom with instructions to call Aunt Joyce if there were a problem, and I said I would do the same.
Part One
Those carefully scheduled arrival times I mentioned above? They didn’t happen.
Dave and I were flying on Frontier, which is currently at the top of my list of Airlines I Don’t Hate Right Now. The day before, I did online check-in for the two of us because that’s the kind of thing I do.
Here is why online check-in is important: Say, hypothetically, you’ve booked a flight from Washington to Salt Lake City with a transfer to a connecting flight in Denver first. And say, hypothetically, that your flight to Denver is delayed 3 1/2 hours due to a mechanical problem. Under this hypothetical scenario, if you have checked in online, the airline may automatically rebook you on another connecting flight, maybe even on another airline, so that you do not have to stand in line with the teeming masses and figure this out at the airport. Which is what happened — we didn’t have to stand in line, because Frontier rebooked our second flight before we even arrived at the airport.
So thanks, Frontier Airlines and whoever came up with online check-in! Also, thanks for the two $50 vouchers, which are around here somewhere because I haven’t thrown out a single piece of paper since we left, although I will confess that I don’t actually know where the vouchers are. But I have them. Somewhere.
This begins a round of trying to contact Mom. As it will turn out, when we are on the ground, Mom will be in the air, and vice versa. All. Day. Long. So I call Aunt Joyce and tell her what’s happening. She wants to leave messages on my cell phone, however. I tell her no. Why is it that the 70-somethings don’t accept the notion of failed voice mail? Later that day, I spend the better part of an hour talking to my unhelpful carrier, and I still don’t have voice mail on my cell phone. This will be solved, but it wasn’t going to be solved while we were traveling.
Having nothing better to do, Dave and I go to the United counter, which is the airline that now has our second flight, from Denver to Salt Lake, and which is incredibly busy. The man who stands there directing people to his colleagues asks us what we want. Seat assignments, we tell him. He says his colleagues won’t be able to help. I look at them. They are under siege. But we decide to stick around and take our chances. Sure enough, when we do get to an agent, she gives us great seats in Economy Plus, for an extra charge. What do you get in Economy Plus? Nicer seats with extra leg room. I am 5′ 10″ and expecting to put in a 20+ hour day by time we land. Of course we’re going to pay the extra charge, which is only $39 each.
I then call Aunt Joyce, who volunteers to meet Mom at the airport since we won’t be there. It’s a 90-minute drive for her, but she and her husband will do that because otherwise my 76-year-old mother will be stranded.
Hours later, Mom calls my cell phone (and I have several voice messages from her and Joyce on my phone — too bad I can’t get at them) and actually reaches me.
“I’m in baggage claim, where are you?”
“Denver.”
“What?”
“Did you call Joyce?”
“No. Oh, wait, here she is.”
So that part works reasonably well. Dave and I then make reservations for a Hampton Inn near the Salt Lake City airport. Because our flight out of Denver is weathered in for a while, we arrive there just before 2 a.m. With the time change, this comes to a 22-hour day. We are not in the best shape at that point. The Hampton Inn is not all that easy to find, although the guy at the Hertz counter got us fairly close. But it is worth it. The clerk puts us in the quietest room he has open and, mercifully, we sleep. Sort of. If you don’t count Dave’s leg cramp in the middle of the night and my general inability to sleep from having been wired all day long. But eventually, we are something approximating rested, and get up in time for the free breakfast.
Hampton Inn gave us a great room, a better-than-decent free breakfast, and a few hours of sanity when we were desperate, all at a very reasonable price. Thanks, Hampton Inn!
Next up: Aunt Joyce, Sam, and the Idaho Cousins.
(Very) Odds and Ends
It’s another link day — cats, cooking, and common sense healthcare.
First, let’s look at the cats. Specifically, let’s look at 1,000 pictures of cats. Some of these animals are absolutely gorgeous.
As for cooking, a question that comes up now and then — and especially now, in the shaky economy– is whether certain items we consider panty staples are cheaper to make at home than to buy at the grocery store. An article on slate tells us one woman’s experience making bagels, cream cheese, yogurt, jam, crackers, and granola. She evaluates not just cost, but taste. The results might not be what you expect. I know I was surprised by one item in particular.
Finally, there’s common sense in health care, a hot topic these days with our devastatingly expensive “system” and the various thoughts on how to address it. This satire starring Fred Willard gets right to the point.
Does the Dog Die? A Brief Review of A Wild Sheep Chase, by Haruki Murakami
Surrealism usually doesn’t do much for me, and it took a while before I got into this book. But I’m glad I stuck with it, because it’s extremely funny in spots. It’s also hard to describe, but I’ll give it a shot.
An unnamed 20-something Japanese advertising executive inadvertently uses an image of a sheep that has great meaning to some sinister entities. As a result, he’s got to find that sheep! And sheep tend to look alike, although there are a few breed distinctions. (Actually, there are more than a few — check this comprehensive list, complete with pictures, from our helpful friends at Oklahoma State University.) But really, finding a single sheep? Not simple.
So Ad Exec frets about this for a while, at which point his helpful girlfriend gets involved and they take a leisurely approach, even though they only have 30 days total before the dire consequences occur. And weird things happen, and there’s symbolism and self-discovery and growth, blah-de-blah-de-blah. I think this is a good book, but I’m not one to make a sales pitch for surreal literature. Amazon has 113 reviews, 92 of which are 4 star or better. I’ll defer to my fellow readers there. Yeah, I know, I’m supposedly doing book reviews. Some are easier than others, and I don’t get paid to do the hard ones, so I’m punting this time.
As for animals, Ad Exec has a cat for whom he makes arrangements before taking off on his quest, so he’s fine. The cat even has a couple of funny bits. An elderly border collie shows up, to no real effect. And the sheep mill around and act like sheep. Of course they have more complex personalities than most of us realize, but a lot of animals are like that — ciphers until we get to know them. Anyway, this book is entirely SAFE for animal lovers.
Does the Dog Die? A Brief Review of Bachelor Brothers’ Bed & Breakfast, by Bill Richardson
I have to thank my Internet friend, Karen from Nova Scotia, for this little gem. And it’s little–only 152 pages. But it’s packed, with hardly a wasted word and at least one quotable phrase per page. I loved it!
Narrated by 50-something fraternal twins Virgil and Hector and a few of their guests, the book takes us to a remote town on a forested Canadian island, where Virgil and Hector operate a B&B for bibliophiles. In fact, some guests visit simply in order to read Proust without distractions. Some of the stories are sad, some wildly hilarious. For example, there’s the man whose office goes on a retreat (is there anything so vile as the office retreat?), leaving him in the woods to talk to the trees — one of which orders him to “get the hell out!” Then there’s the ne’er-do-well cousin who, after an epiphany, “spent the rest of his days, and the rest of his income, traveling the world, seeking out musical eggcups. He picked them up in Istanbul and Paris, in Geneva and Beirut.” Waffle, the brothers’ cat, and Mrs. Rochester, the parrot they inherited from their mother, hunt mice together, with Mrs. Rochester calling “kittykittykitty” when she spots one. I laughed out loud about every other page.
This is great book for animal lovers. Mrs. Rochester has one salty phrase in her vocabulary, which she uses at some of the most inopportune moments. There are also some very happy chickens, a music-critic Pekingese named Valentine, and a vast assortment of other pets. The only sad thing that happens is a brief mention of a parrot — not Mrs. Rochester — who died elsewhere. Plus, Waffle is a mighty huntress of small prey. But I have no qualms about recommending this book as SAFE for animal lovers, including and maybe especially bird lovers. Enjoy!
About
This is a picture of Priscilla, who lived to be an old lady cat of 19 1/2 and passed away on July 21, 2008. As Dave put it the next day, she was a great cat. I was privileged to adopt her in 1994, when her first family moved overseas and decided they couldn’t take her along. I don’t know if there’s an afterlife or a real “Rainbow Bridge” or any of that. But love lives on, and so I would like to dedicate this site to Priscilla and my first two cats, Hillary and Rabbit.
Like most blogs, this one includes random thoughts and observations, but its primary purpose is to provide book reviews for animal lovers. Please feel free to add comments or make suggestions of books that are animal-friendly.
