What a long day. Flight to Charlotte. Flight to Pensacola. Drive to Fairhope, Alabama. I’m sick and my ears won’t clear from the second flight. Anything interesting happen while I was traveling into the Deep South?
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
What’s in Fairhope, family?
Charlie Crist became a Democrat. I think I’m excited. I dunno. Really, really hate Rick Scott.
I think that qualifies as “interesting” — barely. Definitely not exciting but manages to just clear the bar of interest. What else was poor old Charlie to do? One he spoke at the Democratic Convention, there was no going back.
Welcome to my world, Booman. Second-class travel. Betcha had to get up at some ungodly hour to make the first flight. Right? Why? Because the airport is miles away; parking is a bitch and expensive; so is a cab/limo/whatever and public trans to most airports takes well over an hour even from the middle of most cities..Maybe you had a friend or family member drive you there. If so…lucky you.
Then of course you have to be several hours early for the flight. Why? Well, the whole unwieldy, inefficient, ineffective and in some instances downright criminal TSA security apparatus is a total drag number one, and number two most airlines are working on such a slim profit margin that the whole check-in thing…at least in major airports…is usually a can of worms.
Then there’s the whole hub thing. It’s very difficult to book a non-stop flight in the U.S. unless you are traveling between two major cities. Again…why? Because the immense money pressure…I liken it to the atmospheric pressure under which we all live…has so increased over the post-Clinton years that it’s almost impossible for any business or individual human to survive. It’s as if the very atmosphere under which we live gradually and inexorably increased until…almost without our realizing it…the air pressure began to crush us.
Why has the U.S. not built a railroad system to equal that of Europe or Japan?
The automobile/oil industry lobbied against it in every way possible until we were so enmeshed in a car/truck society that there was no money left to take care of some kind of rational transportation plan, that’s why. Planes and road travel use immense amounts of fuel compared to trains, so there we are, fighting wars in backwater places for the right to get cheap enough oil to maintain our completely inefficient societal system.
And do we hear any of this…besides vague promises from the occasional DemocRat (all of whom are owned by the same corporate PermaGov system that owns the RatPublicans and the above-referenced cash cow that we laughingly call “America”)…from our national (equally laughable) leaders?
No.
So in order to take care of almost any kind of business or pleasure outside of our own little bailiwick we have to do so…as you are finding out today…feeling “sick.” Unless one is a corporate whore and thus able to travel first class all the way…limos, non-stops, front of the cabin, convenient hotels etc…then the travel adventure rapidly turns into some kind of bad travel/bad accommodations/bad food/not enough sleep nightmare.
Welcome to my world.
I’m a pro at this, so I have minimized a few of the worst parts of the experience, but still…my bottom line is that if the automobile time is less than 7 hours from my door to the destination, I always drive. It’s cheaper than flying; it’s less humiliating on any number levels and that “7 hours” thing (door to door) is the same 7 hours that the total flight experience usually takes to get to the same place.
Now…you flew to Charlotte first, right? Thence to Pensacola on your way to Fairhope, AL. Probably from the Philadelphia area. That’s a little over 1100 miles, door to door. A far piece. How many hours did it take you, door to door and how expensive was the whole journey, one way? I’m curious. Barring time considerations, I might have chosen to drive. It’s about 16 hours total driving time, but at least no one is feeling you up sans shoes and belt trying to find out if you have a bazooka concealed somewhere on your being and you can eat well if you so choose and stop anytime you want to stretch your legs. Plus you are not breathing unbelievably polluted air. (Airplane cabin air is truly poisonous, bro’. Bet on it. A coupole of hundred people farting, coughing, sneezing and belching their various poisons into the cabin? Please.So’s the radiation in the upper reaches of the atmosphere bet on that as well.) 1100 miles at 30 miles/gallon, $4/gallon is about $150 in gas…better if you have a more efficient car…plus say $80 (or less if you know how to shop) for an overnight at a Motel 6-level stop and maybe $30 in food, coffee etc. Say $250. I just paid about $1200 to go three times as far…NYC->Vancouver, BC…round trip. That’s $600 one way, and I got a good price. Fairly competitive, especially when you add in the travel to and from the airport or parking and the ridiculously expensive airport food. Make it $700, at least.
And when you get where you are going, you have seen America, if you so choose. You can get off the highway and eat at local restaurants, buy gas at local stations. I’ll never forget an experience I had doing that sort of thing in the piney woods of Georgia/South Carolina and or another in a little holler in the middle of West Virginia. Priceless.
Sorry you are feeling sick. I can relate. All I have to do now is to do is see a picture of a plane to get a little rerun of that “travel sickness” experience. Believe it. Been doing it for 40 years. Since 9/11, every domestically-based air trip has been worse than the one before. So it goes. America. Love it or fly over it.
Later…
AG
P.S. Enjoy the area. My Atlanta friends call it “The Redneck Riviera.” Cheap and good unless you walk into the wrong bar.
In Michigan Governor Rick Snyder will sign several draconian measures Tuesday that will create the nation’s 24th right to work state.
Is that as devastating for Labor wait sounds?
As what? Of course it is. Snyder is a lyin’ scumbag. They even attached a fiscal element to it so that it couldn’t be repealed via referendum.
No public hearings. No comments. Shut the doors to the state capital. Pepper spray.
And law enforcement is exempt. Divide and conquer – the oldest tool of tools in the world.
I’ll be at a rally Tuesday morning There are several more radical right bills I am sure this lame duck session will push through.
It was a long day. I had an awful trial with an old attorney that we like to call Denny Crain. When he’s not around, of course.
Oh man, that is way worse than our travel day. I’m sorry!
Flight to Pensacola. Drive to Fairhope
I’m so sorry.
My in-laws live in Foley, Al. There now. The redneck Riviera is more down in Gulf Shores with the rides and cheap souvenir shops and in parts of Foley where cheap strip malls and a huge outlet mall are the attraction.
Fairhope is a nice little town. Lots of artists and wealthy retirees, along with interesting shops and several outstanding restaurants. It’s the high-class part of S. Alabama, which isn’t a high bar admittedly, but I enjoy visiting there.