Happy Trails from a Terrible Tourist!

 

by Pa Rock

Former and Future Traveling Fool

A couple of relatives and I planned to make our first-ever trip to Nantucket Island a year ago this past March.  We had rented a nice home on the island and made all of our necessary hotel and travel arrangements for the trip to and from the East Coast.  Then, of course, the pandemic hit and all of that planning had to be scuttled.

Most of the arrangements were easy to cancel.  People understood because the pandemic affected us all.  Hopes were dashed, refunds were made, and life went on . . . kinda . . . sorta.  The only glitch that came about unplugging from the trip -  at least for me - happened with those good folks in America's airline industry.  Delta Airlines decided that since the pandemic wasn't their fault, why should they have to suffer - and so instead of refunding my completely insured ticket, the big boys at Delta decided I would be just as well served with a time-limited travel credit - never mind what I thought.

(I thought "racketeering!")

So I have until this November to take a Delta flight wherever $286.17 will take me.  Up, up, and away!

One thing that I hoped to take away from the pandemic experience was to have been less reliant on air travel.  I have long resented having to take my shoes off to walk across sticky airport carpets in my stocking feet so that I be poked, prodded, and scanned in order to have the privilege of being crammed onto an overcrowded, flying hog pen  - and I determined that this year I would begin relying on other modes of travel.

I already had two trips planned for this spring and summer.  This week, on Thursday, several family members and I are climbing into a rented van and driving to Goldsboro, North Carolina, where we will see - over the weekend - two performances of a play that I wrote a couple of years ago - live on stage.  (More on that trip in this space later.)   Then, most likely in July, my sister and I are planning to drive to the Pacific Northwest to visit an assortment of my grandchildren and other relatives.

I really did not intend to get back on a plane, but Delta was holding my payment from last year as a hostage.

So I struggled with where to travel on my "credit" that felt more like extortion.  This year I have been putting a lot of effort into writing ancestor profiles that run in this blog each week, so I decided that a trip to Salt Lake City to spend some quality time in the main Mormon Library (I think they call it the "Family History Center") might be in order.  I went to the library's website hoping to find a schedule and be able to plot my trip around any major events and annoyances, but when the page came up I was greeted with a notice that due to the pandemic, the library was closed until further notice.

Drats!

I called the hotel next to the library to try and get the inside scoop on when it might reopen, and learned from the desk clerk that the reopening date was some sort of closely guarded church secret - but then he hinted that it would likely be sometime in late summer.

So, in the meantime, I wait to make a decision on which airport carpets will have the pleasure of oozing through my socks as I race to the furthest gate in the airport in order to be shoved into an overcrowded super-spreader and stuffed into a seat that is two sizes to small for an ordinary human being - let alone me!

Oh the joys of travel!

Happy trails from a terrible tourist!