“Man does not simply exist, but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment.”---Viktor Frankl
“It’s a magical world, Hobbes, ol’ buddy…let’s go exploring!”---Calvin
The logistical nightmares inherent in readying for travel make a guy pine for olden times, the days when a rambler like Jack Kerouac could toss a box of saltines in his knapsack and head for The Coast. Ah, the romance of traveling light and free! The fly in this ointment being that when you arrive all you’ve got is half-a-box of saltines. You have to start all over again assembling the Necessities of Life, the cast of characters which make a body unique among all others, the medicines, the slathering lotions, the life-enhancing supplements, the comfortable hiking shoes, the Astroglide, the underwear, the socks, the iPhone charger. There’s no end to one’s daily requirements. It makes more sense to take it all with you, to stuff those suitcases with one more mini-tube of Colgate. Just try to keep that bag lighter than a blacksmith’s anvil, the better to swiftly swing it over your head and into the ever-shrinking overhead compartment. Nothing is more embarrassing than taking three futile tries at this, all in front of an impatient audience blocked from reaching their seats by your clumsy ineptitude. Oh, and by the way, make sure you slap a mess of multi-colored bows and ribbons on that generic black bag so you can quickly separate it from the other 500 clever impostors on the airport baggage belt. Otherwise, you arrive at the final destination with a suitcase full of dirty laundry and grimy sex toys while someone else settles into your new silk pajamas and smokes up all your fine Cuban Cohibas.
The fabulous Pike Place Market in Seattle
We Have Reservations
Of course you do. Everyone has them. After all, there’s many a slip twixt the cup and the lip. Things can go wrong. Siobhan and I once arrived in Anchorage around midnight to discover the delightful agent at the American Express Travel Bureau had made our hotel and rental car reservations for the day in May we called rather than the date in July we were actually traveling. She got the plane tickets right but never seemed to notice the discrepancy. Ever been at an Alaskan airport at one in the morning with no place to go? Well, you can always sleep in the car, right? Oops, never mind.
We’re more careful these days. Now, we keep sheaths of emailed confirmations, checked and rechecked for accuracy. When possible, all reservations are made directly with the hotel rather than the booking agency somewhere in the bowels of Uttar Pradesh. Those Indian folks speak English, but they don’t speak American. You correct them three times and the reservation confirmation still arrives with your final destination being Ankara instead of Antelope Canyon. We got five of these people in a row before we finally reached Jake at a Best Western in Kelso, Washington. “Jake!” we exclaimed, “You are an island of sanity in a roiling sea of confusion.” “Wow,” replied Jake. “I’ll have to call my mother and tell her about that.”
In recent years, we’ve opted for multi-city trips rather than spending our entire vacation in one place. More often than not, this requires arriving in one city and leaving from another, which is usually not a major issue. This year, it was. Traveling into Seattle and back from Portland, Oregon, was cause for the gnashing of teeth at the reservation desks, which either offered astronomical charges or impossible flying times. We gave up and called Dawnyell (no, it’s not Danielle) at the Ocala Travel Agency. Dawnyell is Salt of the Earth. She came up with four options, the best being a trip out on United and a separate ticket back on American, and she wouldn’t take a nickel for her trouble. The airlines don’t pay travel agents commissions any more so we asked Dawnyell why she took on the job. “Well,” she answered, “you sounded a little frustrated and I wasn’t all that busy.” Give that girl a raise and a large box of Godivas. Where have all the flowers gone? One of them moseyed on over to the Ocala Travel Bureau. Let’s hear it for Dawnyell, everybody.
Living it up at Olympic National Park
Step Right Up
As every traveler knows, the modern equivalent of the old-time snake-oil salesman is the smiling rental-car agent. Doubtless, these characters are required to attend endless hours of classes in such subjects as Guile 101 and Deception Lab, scaring the bejezus out of customers who refuse their expensive insurance offerings or worrying that “you might think about an upgrade to get through those mountains” or tsk-tsking your decision on the various fuel options. Fine, we’re used to these guys. Instead, we got Kabir (American name---Pete), anxious to be of service. Despite the fact that all American Spelling Bees are invariably won by children of Indian descent, Pete was a terrible speller . He got names wrong, addresses incorrect, email addresses botched. Conversation deep into the night eventually managed to correct these shortcomings, but Kabir just could not accept the fact we were taking possession of a vehicle in Seattle and delivering it back to Portland. It was a matter of great stress to the fellow, an insult to his standards, practically a heresy. Nonetheless, after several explanations as to why we would perform this crime against nature, Kabir/Pete got everything down. “That will be $406,” he said, proudly. Accepted, we told him, feeling like we had just summitted Mt. Everest in Winter. But that was, alas, not the end of the story.
Next day we got an email confirmation of our transaction. The Enterprise automobile would be picked up in Seattle and returned to—look at this!---Seattle. We could just picture Kabir, hiding in the bathroom, his hand over his mouth, trying to stifle a laugh. We managed to corral a white-collar representative and the matter was promptly resolved with just one minor detail. The new charge would be $1100. As in ELEVEN HUNDRED FREAKING DOLLARS! Enterprise, which has more rental vehicles than anybody in the country, apparently didn’t want too many cars piling up in Portland. Well, excuse us, but we didn’t realize we were damning the thing to some vast abyss in the Oregon wilderness. We have rented cars at one site before and returned them to another without being directed to the Penalty Box. They have an NBA basketball team in Portland, right? They film TV programs there. It’s not like we were shipping off to Sheboygan.
We eventually discovered that fellow rental-car companies were equally disenchanted with the place. Prices ranged from Enterprise’s $1100 to Hertz’s $1300. We checked in with Triple-A, which dredged up a smaller option for a mere $900. It was time to pull out the big guns. We moved on to Orbitz, which had exactly what we wanted for a chilly $700. All we had to do was take a fifteen-minute drive to Bellevue in the Seattle suburbs to pick it up. I’ll drive fifteen minutes into the jungles of Cameroon to save $400. I tried to call Kabir back to report our smashing success but he was temporarily unavailable. Something about Open Mike Nite at the Mumbai Comedy Club.
The iconic Crater Lake in southern Oregon
On The Road Again
Bill and Siobhan, the senior citizen version of Lewis & Clark, will take their annual leave from today until July 18, visiting lovely Seattle to check on expat Marty Jourard, emigrating over to Olympic National Park for hiking and sightseeing, then down to Mt. St. Helen’s for volcano inspection and hijinx with Jake. From there, it’s off to Oregon to see what Woody Guthrie was talking about when he wrote Roll On Columbia. Eventually, we’ll work our way down to Crater Lake, not too far from the California border. It’s the deepest lake in the country, so we’ll try not to fall in. After that, it’s up to Portland (if we can find it) and its immense overload of airport autos. We’re a little nervous about Portland because we’ve watched all those Grimm TV programs where tons of Portlanders turn into monsters at a moment’s notice. All it takes is a little irritation with the Little League umpire or a spat over a parking space at Trader Joe’s and whammo!---the snarling begins. And forget about calling in the police, the chief is one of them. I was thinking of dropping a note advising these characters of the rental-car disparities but nobody likes bloodshed at the airport.
Next week’s blog will be a travel column from the past and we’ll return in time for the July 20th installment if we can ever get out of Portland. Those of you off on vacations of your own, enjoy yourselves and don’t forget to bring me back a present. As for the rest of you, get out of town for a few days. If you’re broke, you can sleep in your car at the Daytona Beach Walmart and forage for nuts and berries. I used to do it at Mardi Gras for years and was none the worse for wear. You just have to learn to shave your tongue in the morning.
That’s all, folks….
