Archive for the ‘Travel’ Category
I returned yesterday on Continental flight 687 from Orlando to Houston, where I committed a heinously boneheaded-ish crime when deplaning. I left my brand-new iPad2 in the seat pocket in front of me. This hell-ish fairy tale of woe has a happy ending, but you’ll have to come along for the narrative ride to get to the “happily ever after” part. Here’s the blow-by-blow (dang I can’t get that Ke$ha song out of my head) that really highlights my ineptness-ish. I’m using a lot of “ishs” in this post because an ish sounds really disgusting and a little moist, which by definition is disgusting and accurately describes my feelings about the whole ordeal.
(Warning: In several places I use multiple exclamation points to demonstrate the direness-ish of my situation.)
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I’ll be getting on another airplane Sunday morning to travel to Orlando, Florida for an industry conference. Already my heart is filled with dread about the flight. The plus? It’s only a 2-hour flight. The minus? I’ll yet again be playing Seatmate Roulette.
I’ve flown a lot over the last 20 years and have sat next to a lot of “interesting” people. My extensive tour in Seatmate Hell has made it pretty easy to categorize these folks into several main types. I have nicknames for them and can accurately predict from a distance who will be in the seats next to me as I observe the boarding process from my middle seat (I have a really bad travel agent).
The Ginormous Oozer.
I see him lumbering down the aisle, 6’4” and 300 lbs of ginormity. Yep. Without a doubt he’s gonna be in the window seat.
“Excuse me, but I’ve got the window.”
“Right. I figured you did. I’ll step out so you can get by.”
“Unnnggh. They just keep making these planes smaller and smaller.” [The whole row in front of us now has whiplash as Mr. Oozer squeezes and twists his way into the window seat.]
“Whoo! Now I can relax. Mind if I raise the armrest? It’s cutting something fierce into my thigh.”
“Um, okay I guess. But dude I am in the middle seat. [Three inches of his thigh meat now oozes like Flubber into my 12 inches of allotted middle seat space.] They don’t serve meals on this airline anymore, right?” [Please God, no.]
“Well…they’re not free anymore, but you can buy whatever you want from the goodie cart. I stopped by the ATM in the terminal and got $60 to cover my in-flight dinner. Can’t wait for the Double Cheeseburger and Foot-long chili dog! And then for dessert…”
[Sigh.]
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My final Big Adventure in Big Montana was skiing at Big Sky Resort. Harley, Thor, and I got up early the morning after the hot tub debacle, packed our things in Thor’s 4WD SUV, and headed to McDonald’s for a quick drive-thru breakfast. Thor was not happy with me for ordering the Big Breakfast with Hotcakes (“Dude, you get syrup on my fine Corinthian leather and I’ll cut you.”)
We drove into the ski resort about an hour later, parked three miles from the lifts, and waited 20 minutes in the frigid cold for the open-air shuttle-tram-bus-thingy. That gave me plenty of time to get agitated by all the annoying people waiting with us. I guess at any ski resort of this caliber you’re gonna have to put up with the hard-cores. 
The guy who plopped his rear next to me on the icy metal shuttle-tram-bus-thingy seat was pimped. I’m talking logo-for-show everything: UnderArmour, Oakley, REI, Bose, The North Face, and Marmot. And that was just what I saw on his head. (Later I walked into one of the ski shops and nearly had a stroke when I saw what that guy paid for his designer gloves with the tiny heaters at the end of each fingertip.) I reached down and quickly unzipped the duffle-bag-o-stuff that Pastor Vern had loaned me and began to rummage around to see if he had loaded anything unique and/or designer-ish. All I found was mostly normal stuff – like bibs and coats and gloves. There were a few other items that didn’t really look anatomically correct for a human, but I just shoved those into a corner because I didn’t want to ask.
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When I left you hanging last, my Montana adventure had just heated up with a very manly snowmobile jaunt (wait – “jaunt” sounds kinda wussy – let’s call it a “trek”) across 60 miles of frozen mountain tundra, at elevations requiring supplemental oxygen and where moss doesn’t even grow. Cool.
At the end of the day, Thor, Harley, and I were almost too sore to scratch our backsides, and Thor was starting his waddling-platypus thing, but we managed to get to our motel despite the groaning, whining, and mumbled “Kill me now”s.
Thor had a brilliant idea to buy some cheap swimsuits and sit in the motel hot tub to relax our sore muscles. Harley and I were a bit skeptical. Picture six feet of snow piled up on both sides of the street in this small town sporting a total of six shops, four of which were closed for the season. Seriously – were we gonna find beach attire? Once again, we under-estimated Thor’s resourcefulness. He did indeed find a store selling $12 off-brand swimsuits. They had these weird ties on the sides instead of in front, and all the sizes were in, like, European numbers. I found that a 16 worked good for me, and Thor and Harley were comfortable in 18’s and 20’s. These things were a lot shorter than my usual board shorts and they fit a little awkward, but it was probably as stylish as we were gonna get in a shop called “Cyndi’s Treasures” in Montana.
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If you read my first post about my trip to Montana, you’re aware that this place is very different from my hometown. They have snow. Lots of it. And funny looking rides called snowmobiles that sort of float on top of the snow. If you drive fast enough.
My friend Thor* thought it would be fun to ride one of these snow-cars in Yellowstone Park, so he coerced his friend Harley* to plan the whole adventure. We drove from Billings to the little village of West Yellowstone on a Thursday afternoon and checked into the StageCoach Inn. (If you ever decide to stay there, be apprised: there is not a single stagecoach in the whole motel; only lots of scary stuffed animals.)
The next morning we showed up at Snowmobiles R Us at 7:30 AM, in anticipation of a rugged back-country adventure, just the three of us: Thor, Harley, and Joltin’ Jon. We were totally gnarly to the max and ready to go. Fer Shur. Thor almost peed himself like a Cocker Spaniel which instantly lost me half my street cred.
We got some quick instruction, were sternly warned not to scratch, dent, or wreck the snowmobiles (Thor and I took the collision insurance, but Harley opted out – he’s a rebel that way), and we rode away to the first “trail.”
After six hours and 63 miles we returned our undamaged equipment to Snowmobiles R Us. An overwhelming funk settled over me over me as we parted (a sadness, not Harley’s perpetual barking spider). That snowmobile had taught me a lot throughout the day, powerful lessons that apply to life in general. Here’s what I learned.
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