MODERN TRAVEL BY THE NUMBERS

Modern travel is a miracle, the sort of miracle too many ignore.

Even thinking about the logistics makes me want to never leave the garage.

Somehow it all hooks up, but when it doesn’t, doubt creeps in.

Doubt and travel are not good companions.

First, find the designated destination.

Book a flight, a car, and a room.

Good so far?

Then buzz around and do the things, do the work, see the places, and come home.

Easy, right?

Not when Alaska Airlines can’t round up enough pilots to fill their schedule.

Whether it’s a protest, a fluke, or just bad luck, modern travel says work it out.

Call customer service? It might be a ten hour wait on the phone, so be patient.

Who is that patient?

You might decide to take your concerns to the airport.

There could be a two hour wait in a long line, but you’re still eight hours ahead of the phone.

The solution? Alaska Airlines pays for the extra nights in your hotel, gives food vouchers, and books you on United two days later. Two days?

Yes, two days of more modern travel

So you stay two extra days for free, until you realize your 5:30 am flight means getting the car back, which in some places is an extra ordeal since the car rental site requires a shuttle bus that may or may not run twenty four hours.

Changing hotels for one closer to the airport with its own shuttle solves the problem? Yes, but the airline only acknowledges the first hotel, and the food vouchers are only good for one day.

Book the new room, take the car back, get on the rental car shuttle back to the airport and call the new hotel for its shuttle service.

“Fifteen minutes” turns into an hour, but who’s checking?

Now it’s manageable. All it takes is getting up at 2 am to catch the 3:30 am hotel shuttle to the airport for the 5:30 flight.

Instead of a direct flight, you make a stop in San Francisco, then the final leg.

While you wait you notice the Alaska Airline check in across the way has a 7 am direct flight to Portland, but that’s none of your business.

Just enjoy the ride from your seat by the bathroom.

If this sounds like a bitch and moan post, it is. I’ve never wanted to be on an airplane more. Any plane anywhere.

But I’m an Oregon guy and that’s where I was going.

If you are married, all of the modern travel problems will bring you together with a stronger bond.

Keep that in mind when you feel like you might snap, and you will.

Imagine flying from decent weather to the broiling, punishing, god-awful bake your brain if you’re not careful sun, then returning to snow and ice from an overnight storm instead of decent weather like it was a few days earlier.

Decent in Portland means rain, cool rain, cleansing rain. But that’s not what’s on the plate. Snow and ice.

That’s when this song hit home:

I been warped by the rain
Driven by the snow
I’m drunk and dirty, don’t you know
And I’m still… willin’

I smuggled some smokes
And folks from Mexico
Baked by the sun
Every time I go to Mexico
And I’m still…willin’

And I been from Tucson to Tucumcari
Tehachapi to Tonapah
Driven every kind of rig that’s ever been made
Driven the back roads
So I wouldn’t get weighed
And if you give me weed, whites, and wine
And you show me a sign
I’ll be willin’… to be movin’

Tom Petty is still willin’.

Lowell George is still willin’.

Are you willin’ to move?