A few more daze
Apr. 3rd, 2010 04:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skyringIt's Easter. 0300 on Easter Saturday. Normally, this time of a Saturday morning I'd be thinking about my last fare of a busy night, gassing the cab up, washing it, vacuuming it out and getting home to bed.
But I figured, Good Friday, it'll be a quiet evening, why should I spend it sitting on random cab ranks to find out I've been working for five bucks an hour?
So I made dinner for the family - salmon with antipasto, egg noodles and a thick tomato sauce. A bit worried about mixing pasta and antipasto, but it worked out okay and nobody went hungry.
We went through a bottle of wine. A sweetish wine which DD liked, but Kerri didn't, so she had some Pepsi Max before taking herself off to listen to an audiobook, while DD, DS and I finished off the bottle. And then hunted around for any other readily available alcohol, short of opening a warm bottle of shiraz or something.
I updated DS on the upcoming travels. He's an easy-going spirit and if he's happy just trundling along day to day - which he usually is - then things tend to pass him by. "What, you're travelling around the world next week? Why didn't I know about this? Who's going to cook dinner?"
"I get dibs on Mum's car!" DD crowed. A step up from the jaunty yellow Getz she drives. It's a fun car to rollick around town in, but short on comforts like cruise control and seats with decent padding.
Tweety the yellow Getz.
Sylvester the silver Mazda 2 DS drives.
And Greg the Golf. Kerri's car - I rarely need to drive anywhere.
I listed the itinerary. Basically, DD wants lollies bought at every exotic stop along the way, especially Turkish Delight from Turkey. She tells me I can buy a few kilos of whatever weirdness we find in Kyoto. I might make more of a token effort this time around and make up for the deficit with a big bag of Ghirardelli squares in San Francisco. After all, I've got to lug all this stuff around.
And then we got to talking about travels past and future. DD and I went RTW on points last July. We had a ball in every First lounge we could find, usually boarding the onward flight sozzled on good booze, all the better to fall asleep in our comfy Economy chairs.
Two weeks and seven great cities and we basically walked our feet off in every one of them. Had a tonne of fun. We giggled and remembered some of the highlights. One day I've got to write about the Most Expensive Brownie in the World, just as an excuse to blog about Paris.
This upcoming trip is more leisurely. Five wonderful cities and a four day roadtrip spread over three weeks, Kerri and I.
Boston and New England in August, still sketching in details, though I've made a few key bookings.
Next April will be the big Route 66 roadtrip. My day driver, his wife, DD and me, two friends. Three weeks, San Francisco to Washington DC and return, one direction being a trip along all of Route 66, likely in loose convoy.
DS expressed interest, especially when I mentioned the cheap, abundant and largely carnivorous food.
I'm accumulating Route 66 material at an alarming rate. Guides, maps, songs, videos, novels... In Chicago I'll have two days and a car, so I'm hoping to get some time to do a little bit of the Chicago end, down to Wilmington, perhaps, where there is a ginormous thing.
Mmmmm. Half the fun of a trip is in the planning.
Once we'd polished off the ready alcohol, we cleared the table, loaded the dishwasher and snored off to sleep.
Today I'll start getting out my bags and assembling the things I need to take. Thursday arvo and my day driver, revelling in a whole rich day of the cab to himself, will pick up Kerri and I for the short fare to Canberra International Airport.
Only five more sleeps!
But I figured, Good Friday, it'll be a quiet evening, why should I spend it sitting on random cab ranks to find out I've been working for five bucks an hour?
So I made dinner for the family - salmon with antipasto, egg noodles and a thick tomato sauce. A bit worried about mixing pasta and antipasto, but it worked out okay and nobody went hungry.
We went through a bottle of wine. A sweetish wine which DD liked, but Kerri didn't, so she had some Pepsi Max before taking herself off to listen to an audiobook, while DD, DS and I finished off the bottle. And then hunted around for any other readily available alcohol, short of opening a warm bottle of shiraz or something.
I updated DS on the upcoming travels. He's an easy-going spirit and if he's happy just trundling along day to day - which he usually is - then things tend to pass him by. "What, you're travelling around the world next week? Why didn't I know about this? Who's going to cook dinner?"
"I get dibs on Mum's car!" DD crowed. A step up from the jaunty yellow Getz she drives. It's a fun car to rollick around town in, but short on comforts like cruise control and seats with decent padding.
Tweety the yellow Getz.
Sylvester the silver Mazda 2 DS drives.
And Greg the Golf. Kerri's car - I rarely need to drive anywhere.
I listed the itinerary. Basically, DD wants lollies bought at every exotic stop along the way, especially Turkish Delight from Turkey. She tells me I can buy a few kilos of whatever weirdness we find in Kyoto. I might make more of a token effort this time around and make up for the deficit with a big bag of Ghirardelli squares in San Francisco. After all, I've got to lug all this stuff around.
And then we got to talking about travels past and future. DD and I went RTW on points last July. We had a ball in every First lounge we could find, usually boarding the onward flight sozzled on good booze, all the better to fall asleep in our comfy Economy chairs.
Two weeks and seven great cities and we basically walked our feet off in every one of them. Had a tonne of fun. We giggled and remembered some of the highlights. One day I've got to write about the Most Expensive Brownie in the World, just as an excuse to blog about Paris.
This upcoming trip is more leisurely. Five wonderful cities and a four day roadtrip spread over three weeks, Kerri and I.
Boston and New England in August, still sketching in details, though I've made a few key bookings.
Next April will be the big Route 66 roadtrip. My day driver, his wife, DD and me, two friends. Three weeks, San Francisco to Washington DC and return, one direction being a trip along all of Route 66, likely in loose convoy.
DS expressed interest, especially when I mentioned the cheap, abundant and largely carnivorous food.
I'm accumulating Route 66 material at an alarming rate. Guides, maps, songs, videos, novels... In Chicago I'll have two days and a car, so I'm hoping to get some time to do a little bit of the Chicago end, down to Wilmington, perhaps, where there is a ginormous thing.
Mmmmm. Half the fun of a trip is in the planning.
Once we'd polished off the ready alcohol, we cleared the table, loaded the dishwasher and snored off to sleep.
Today I'll start getting out my bags and assembling the things I need to take. Thursday arvo and my day driver, revelling in a whole rich day of the cab to himself, will pick up Kerri and I for the short fare to Canberra International Airport.
Only five more sleeps!
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no subject
Date: 2010-04-02 08:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-03 09:51 am (UTC)Know just what you mean about half the fun of travel being in the planning.
We know we are going to France mid July with around 2 weeks in Brittany, Ploumanac'h to be precise but between then and returning home via Heathrow haven't got anything sorted yet. To an extent we are dependent on our son who is in the middle of ending his stint in Chessington (UK) and settling into the new position in Paris so can't be sure of his dates exactly. That makes planning a little difficult. We are taking daughterfan's daughter with us then we all meet up with DF herself who is heading for London and then coming to Paris so ou see there are lots of possibilities with nothing set in stone yet.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-03 06:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-03 11:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-03 06:14 pm (UTC)Three weeks should see the thing done, though that will be pushing it. If people want to come along for all or part, that would be fine, though we'll need enough drivers to get the cars there and back again or else face an almighty relocation fee.
Driving from Washington to SF in a week (which is the flip side of doing Route 66 in (say) ten days with a side trip to the Grand Canyon) probably means cutting straight across the middle on I-40 or something. If I stretched it out to two weeks - four weeks total - I'd be looking at LA to Vegas to Fort Worth to New Orleans to Memphis to Charleston to Washington (and other stops along the way).
Mind you, a four week trip with petrol and meals and accommodation runs into serious money. Car hire (for a Mustang) is about four hundred a week. Savings can be made by sharing cars and hotel/hostel rooms, but even so it would likely be something like a hundred USD per day per person plus airfare. Likely some people would only do one leg, or maybe we could pick up and drop off. Flexibility rules.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-04 03:34 am (UTC)So friendly and mature. I hope to have lunch with you all again one day when I'm a bit more myself.
Both trips sound like lots of fun!
"life is a highway"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvsmRuRp4cM
no subject
Date: 2010-04-04 06:01 am (UTC)Might add it to the roadtrip playlist I'm compiling. I've had some awesome roadtrips recently, and next April could be the grandaddy of them all!
So good to see you, pass along some sunshine. You are well loved around the ridges.
My kids are pretty good. Had some rough spots here and there, but despite me, they have turned out darlings.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-04 06:16 am (UTC)Where you are
Bless the broken road
I'm movin on
"but despite me, they have turned out darlings"- Must've been their Mother :)
no subject
Date: 2010-04-04 06:38 am (UTC)She blames the occasional obsessive behaviour, weird humour, compulsive collecting, love of airline travel and so on on me.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-04 06:49 am (UTC)