I’m planning a trip as we speak. It is a trip South to see my youngest offspring, who has decided that living among alligators and in the path of hurricanes is preferable to Pennsylvania weather. Ok, Philadelphia humidity and our annual real snow storm aside, it isn’t too bad here. I mean look at California. If its not fires or mudslides, its earthquakes that are a billion times worse than ours. Our wimpy 4 point something’s wouldn’t even make the news in LA. But I digress.
Now most normal humans would hop on a south bound plane for an hour and a half and arrive in Orlando all ready for the day…not. To catch a plane anymore involves more planning than the Normandy Invasion. You have to get to the airport earlier enough to check in and, if you can’t pack more than one pair of underwear and a travel sized toothbrush, put your luggage into the luggage roulette game. You pay extra to see if you get your luggage at them end of trip. Great game! Anyway, next comes security. Your stuff gets xrayed. You get xrayed. Oops! Forgot those tweezers in your purse? “Over here, please.” I think if you can hijack a plane with a pair of tweezers, you have mad skills and they should hire you on the spot! Then you climb on to any plane headed for Central Florida and you will have your very own 50 inch high by 19 inch wide space in a plane carrying 300 adults and 4 billion children. At the other end, the good part of the luggage game starts. There is a 50-50 chance that you may never see your clothes again. But as a consolation prize, your locks fail on your bag and everyone gets to share the joy of seeing reunited with your clothing…one piece at a time. Then there is car rental, etc. Day one…shot recovering.
You could drive. Seventeen hours of grueling highway, roadside diners and arrive exhausted. Even if you stop half way, it still is time consuming and nerve wracking.
Me…I take the train. It still takes 17 hours but someone else is doing the driving. Meals are included in the room. And since we take the auto train, no car rental needed. I can read, play games on my phone, drink wine if I want. All of these activities are frowned on when driving. I can even doze off and catch some shut eye. (Really frowned on if your driving). Not that there are not some interesting moments on the voyage. But I’ll get into them later.