Ohio, oh, my, oh.

I spent yesterday traveling - that's right, it took me 7 hours to make a trip that involved a one hour plane ride. Living the car-free live, I'm used to trips taking longer than they would otherwise. The market is only half a mile from my house, but when I'm making the trip with my granny cart we're talking 15 to 30 min, depending on sidewalk construction and how laden down my little cart is. I went to the doctor for a check-up on Friday, that's a solid half-hour walk with traffic lights and such, and that's not a full mile. These are trips on foot, as well. Add in public transportation, and my life just moves slower than people who drive. I don't usually mind this, but when a slow train causes me to miss a bus I should have made, I get a little annoyed. Get to the station, dump the strange people who talk to me despite my attempts to ignore them, and get moving. I wasn't annoyed at missing the bus to BWI at the time, actually, but all of my travel yesterday was delayed. I got on the plane and we pulled away from the gate only to sit on the tarmac for over an hour because thunderstorms to the west made a mess of flight plans. The two old women next to me where chatty, particularly over my head with the flight attendant. I just wanted my headphones and the newspaper. Even the headphones didn't block them out, and by the time the plane landed I'd had enough of backwoods thoughts on international travel. I bolted for the door. I was at the rental car place in record time, but the guy in front of me decided to slow down and flirt with the lady behind the counter (oh, and she was not worth it) and then a "member" of the rental agency popped in asking questions and got dealt with before me. She says she gave me a snazzier car for the inconvenience, but what do I care for a Chrysler Sebring? Sooo, not worth it.

I got to a hotel where I can't close the curtains (!) and all restaurants within a mile are of the Taco Bell, McDonalds, variety. Yucksters! I managed to find a little Mexican place open until 10pm on a Sunday night (whew) so my client and I could grab a quick bite and strategize about the meeting ahead of us. Now I'm headed that way - hope you all had a lovely Sunday...

rising prices

So a discussion of rising gas prices prompted me to do a quick look at my proposed August trip. I'm headed to a meeting in San Francisco, and decided to take the week after the trip off and spend some time in Boston - actually, half a week on Block Island with JanemyJane and Neeners, and half a week in Boston. I'm already in countdown mode! But back to flights... I typed in Dulles to San Fran to Boston and back to Dulles... wowsers! The cost made me gulp. So I thought, "let's check the cost of the work trip - the roundtrip to San Fran for which I will be reimbursed..." Turns out, the cost of going to San Fran and back to DC is MORE expensive than going to Boston on the way back - I'm SAVING the government (and therefore the taxpayer) money by going on vacation! Yay, me! This calls for a Tavern night when I'm in town - or as I like to say, economy stimulus!

As an aside, I checked with my office mate, and we estimate that the cost of gas (at the pump) has gone up about 30% in the past six months - airfares, from my admittedly small sample of one, have gone up 65%. And that's before you pay the fee for checked luggage.