Road Trip

Bad Glen Campbell Song

Norm & Queen CharlotteWell we did get the 30% off the room making it almost worth staying the night. We woke up earlier than the alarm and just got moving. We checked out at 6:00 a full half hour before breakfast started, but when Donna went back into the lobby to get a Charlotte area map we had seen, she coaxed the front desk guy to let her snag an apple and an almost warmed up Cinnamon Bun. The drive to the airport took us right by the same shopping center that we got ice cream at last night and it had a Panera Bread place, so we stopped in for a bagel and a banana.

We pulled into a long term lot but it seemed like every spot was taken. We wound our way further and further back where we parked against a back fence or as Captain Barbossa would say, “You’re off the edge of the map Jack.” Our shuttle bus driver was a hoot and made whatever we pay for parking out there worth it. She stopped the bus to pick up one group of five, three women and two men. The guys were in the back and the women were up front and started stacking the luggage inside the door of the bus and the driver yelled out at the guys to come forward and put the bags on the rack as they were big strapping fellows and she was just a bitty older women. Once loaded up all was forgotten and she gave them the same spiel as she did us. “To get back here you have to get on a bus for Long Term One, but a short bus and tell them you are in the north west corner. Remember a short bus, like this one, not a long bus as it couldn’t make the tight turns.” We stopped and picked up one lone woman and when she asked what airline of her, she just sighed when the woman answered Jet Blue. Everyone so far had answered US Air. She told the new woman that she would have to get off at the US Air stop as the one she wanted was always backed way up with rubes. She could just walk back to it, it wasn’t far.

Trouble started when I tried to check in using the self service kiosk, it didn’t know me. Not by name or flight or swipe of the credit card. I flagged a clerk and he couldn’t find us in the system either. Off he went to find someone with a clue. She arrived and fingers flew. Seems that US Air stopped flying the morning non-stop to Seattle months ago. They were nice enough to offer us seats on the 5:55PM non-stop, a mere 11 hours later. When we expressed displeasure at that, her fingers flew around the keyboard in a blur (obviously she done this a few million times before.) She could get us on a flight to Phoenix

By the time I get to Phoenix she’ll be rising
She’ll find the note I left hangin’ on her door
She’ll laugh when she reads the part that says I’m leavin’
‘Cause I’ve left that girl so many times before

where we could change planes and hop one to Seattle. One 4-1/2 hour flight just became a 3 hour flight with a 2-1/2 hour layover followed by a 2-1/2 hour flight. “Oh, you want to sit next to each other? Impossible,” she says.

For the first flight we were placed 3 rows apart and the second we were 6 rows apart. But for both flights we managed to find a nice person to swap places, so that we sat right across an aisle on one flight and next to each other on the other. With the amount of other seat hopping that was going on, this seems to be standard flight operations on US Air. Judging by the long lines at the service counters, everyone last one of them, canceled, delayed and changed flights I guess I shouldn’t expect anything less.

Our next surprise was at the car rental desk. Seems that if you rent through Travelocity or Orbitz or some other intermediary company and miss your selected pick up time the quoted price doesn’t need to be honored. Our ridiculously low price for the car jumped by about 100%. After what we had dealt with so far yesterday and today we didn’t put up a fight. Plus it was still lower than the price quote we got directly off the rental car site.

Now everything is just fine. The weather was great for driving with the top down, the Seattle traffic was not nearly as bad as expected, the B & B in Snohomish is nice and new nephew James is as cute as a button. Although he took to me right away about 5 minutes into the visit he decided he didn’t like me at all (no problem, because now I won’t have to change any diapers.)

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 177

Started up, went down, back up, back down, up again, still up.
PT Cruiser Top Transitions since 05/25/07: 4

Stay Smart?

Stay Smart?The adventure begins. After work today we went home and had a quick dinner of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese (as Rachel would say, “Yum-O”) and hit the road. I-20 to I-77 to Charlotte in about 3 hours with one pit stop for gas.

Gnorm says he sure hopes he wakes up a lot smarter for staying in this Holiday Inn Express (805 West Arrowood Rd., Charlotte, NC 28217) because right now it isn’t looking like a smart stay. First there was only a half used bottle of shampoo in the bathroom. A walk to the front desk brought a new shampoo and a new conditioner. Wireless connectivity was nearly flat lined, I hooked up, but could only surf at dial up speed. That explained the three people in the lobby area with laptops open as I passed through on my way to the ice machine. After Donna had showered and she peeled back the sheets hop in bed a little black bug hopped out, a flea. A call to the front desk brought the desk clerk to us with a couple of room keys for something on the third floor and a promise of 30% off the charge. It looked OK, so we moved our stuff. Second room has shampoo and conditioner and three out of four bars of wireless signal strength. When Donna got into bed here she only found three black specks in the sheets. They weren’t moving so we figured they were tiny meteorites, so she just brushed them to the floor.

Tomorrow morning it is up and a short drive to the airport. The guy at the front desk said it is about a ten minute drive and then asked what time were we leaving. When we told him 7:00 AM he went uh-oh. Seems traffic is stop and go around here in the mornings because we are close to both I-77 and I-485, he said better leave earlier, about 6. When asked when breakfast starts, his answer was, “6:30 AM.” Whatever the consequences, I’m getting a cinnamon bun for breakfast, so I guess we leave at seven and take an hour to drive what should take 10 minutes.

Started up, went down, back up, down again, up again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 175

Mmmm Mmmuffins

Miataless Post OfficeWe bought this morning’s breakfast from the New Moon Cafe after yesterday’s hike, a low fat Blueberry muffin for her and a Raspberry Coconut muffin for him (which we ended up splitting 50-50.)

Meal Cost: $2.65
Tip: 35¢
Spent This Meal: $3.00

After breakfast we tried to make up for the last 3 weeks on non-activity in the Post Office quest by heading to the capital city of the Great State of South Carolina and getting a photo of all 13 POs. Mission accomplished. The only Post Office not accounted for that lists Columbia as the city is the one on the Army base, Fort Jackson. (They have an Open House on the 18 & 19 of May for Armed Forces Day so we might try and sneak in then.)

A few years back a favored Sunday lunch spot was an Italian fast food chain called Fazoli’s, but they closed up shop here in Aiken and we have missed eating their food quite often since then. Well, Columbia has two Fazoli’s and both are close to some of our destination Post Offices, so we thought it might be a treat to eat there for lunch. I guess our memories have been colored by time (or maybe it was this particular restaurant) because it didn’t seem worth the trip. The Twice Baked Ziti with Hearty Meat Sauce was good and the bread sticks were practically dripping in butter, but the salad and the dressing left a lot to be desired. I had a fountain Coke and Donna had water.

Meal Cost: $10.76
Tip: None
Spent This Meal: $10.76
Spent Today: $13.38
Year to Date: $923.03

Five out of six isn’t half bad. As a matter of fact it is 83% good. After looking lackluster on Fox yesterday the FRS came out swinging against the dreaded Yankees today and came out on top of a 7 to 4 score. Big Papi contributed a homer, as did the coming out of his funk Manny Rameriz, but those guys are expected to smack the long ball. A nice bonus was a homer from our utility infielder Alex Cora. Now we have 19 warm up games until we come back to the “House That Ruth Built” on the 21st of May.

Started down, went up, back down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 133

Shopping Center Post Offices

Main Anderson Post OfficeI started the morning with a Cinnamon Bun, then well fortified, Donna and I started our quest for the four Post Offices of Anderson. The first one was a little hard to find as it was in a shopping center hidden behind a line of businesses. We knew we were in the right block and looking on the right side, but we couldn’t see it. Good thing it was early on a Sunday and traffic was light or we might have given up. We did find it finally by trying to turn around and stumbling onto to parking lot of the shopping center. After that, the other three became progressively easier.

When we left Anderson we took our usual route home, down the two lane, very scenic SC81. This took us by another 5 small town post offices that I gladly photographed for my growing gallery. There are now 94 Post Offices there, which is maybe 20% of the state’s total. So over this two day weekend there have been 13 new photos added in the gallery, but I still have no way of highlighting the new additions. There is no option for sorting the images in any other way than filename. Because I have used the zip code as the file name I’m kind of stuck. I might have to rename the files and put a large number in front of the first file and decrement as I add new files.

Lunch was at a Blimpies. Blimpie Best for me and a Meatball Sub for her. We made one a combo so we split a bag of Ruffles and a small Sprite.

Meal Cost: $10.77
Tip Jar: 23¢
Spent Today: $11.00
Year to Date: $665.83

Before settling down on the couch to watch March Madness on TV for the rest of the day we went out and took a nice long walk in the Hitchcock Woods. I hope I don’t jinx it by posting it here on the big ol’ internet, but I’m at the top of the charts in the office pool having missed just 2 of the 16 second round games. If you are remotely interested, I listed my winners in a post the other day and I have gone back and crossed out the losers.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 86

Mural, Mural on the Wall

Mural, Mural on the WallDonna felt good enough to go out to eat lunch and grocery shop. Chick-Fil-A Sandwich combo meal for me and a Kiddie 4 Nugget meal combo for her. Because we had a coupon the Kiddie Meal was free.

Meal Cost: $5.08
Tip: None
Spent On This Meal: $5.08

After the shopping she was still feeling alright, but didn’t really want to go to Anderson as we had planned, so she asked me to cancel the room reservation. When I went to the Holiday Inn site to cancel, there was some red lettering at the bottom of the page warning me that even if I canceled I would not be getting my money back. Ooops, I guess when I made the reservation I selected a room with a low rate that was non-refundable. So we packed a change of clothes, our tooth brushes and got in the car. Of course we packed some Post Office maps too. We hit 4 towns on the way up, we will do the 4 in Anderson in the morning and will try and get 4 more on the way home tomorrow.

The mural above was on a building right next door to the Post Office in Donalds. Clever use of perspective. And the tree as utility hook-up is genius.

Right next door to our hotel in Anderson is a place called Buffalo’s Southwest Cafe, where we have eaten before, which was calling our name for dinner. We split the Navajo Chops (two 6oz pork chops topped with bourbon, roasted apples and brown sugar butter, served with loaded mashed potatoes and steamed veggies) and a large dinner salad. Water for her and iced tea for me.

Meal Cost: $18.76
Tip: $2.74
Spent on This Meal: $21.50
Spent Today: $26.58
Year to Date: $654.83

It is unseasonably cold here this weekend, not news to most on the east coast, so the top will be up in the dozen or so photos in the Post Office Gallery that we take, but unlike those in the northeast there will not be any snow in the background.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 85

13

29101 - McBeeMy favorite outtake from today’s Post Office Photo Safari, I like the way the raised letters toss shadows on the brick wall.

Yesterday evening I used Google maps and printed out how to get to nearly every Post Office in a rectangle with the lower left corner being the outskirts of northeast Columbia and the upper right corner being at Wallace because today we were going up to Chesterfield, SC to visit Donna’s cousin Laurie and her husband Ted. Depending on which route we took we could probably snag a bunch of fresh Post Offices. We took photographs of seven on the way up.

I was taking photos of the one in Chesterfield while Donna called Laurie for directions to her house. We had been there once before and I was only sure that they lived north of town, but little else. If we needed to find any of 16 Post Offices in north central South Carolina, I was ready with full color street level maps, but when we needed to know how to get to Laurie & Ted’s house for lunch, I was no help. Guess I should have printed out that map.

Because it was such a beautiful day, we took a different way home and added 5 more Post Offices to our trophy case, for a total today of thirteen. Maybe tomorrow I’ll have enough time to add them to the gallery.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 78

The One That Was Suposed To Be, Wasn’t And The One That Wasn’t Supposed To Be, Was

Spanish MossMy longest post title yet?

We went on another Post Office Photo Safari today. We started with a longish dip in Georgia for lunch. Ever since last November’s visit to the Blue Moon in Statesboro, GA we have wanted a return trip, today was it. The small iceberg salad & crab cake were for her and the roast beef sando was for him, but we mostly shared everything between us. Donna drank water and I had sweet tea to drink. This place is now 2 for 2 in excellent meals.

Meal Cost: $22.25
Tip: $3.75
Spent Today: $26.00
Year to Date: $493.74

We hunted and hunted all over the little, and I mean little, downtown of Hilda, SC for the Post Office that the USPS web site was located at 125 Broughton Ave. We drove up and down that street several times, any further cruising and I’m sure a resident would have called the sheriff on us if we did it one more time, but it just wasn’t there. The only thing we could think of was that it was located inside the one little convenience store located at about where 125 should have been, but there weren’t any outward signs of a PO. No flag, no blue mailbox outside and no sign. For the heck of it, on Monday I may call the phone number listed and see what happens.

Hilda was our last official Post Office destination of the day, but I was lobbying for a brief stop in Windsor to retake the picture there. They used to have a rundown trailer for a Post Office, but now they have a new building. Donna doesn’t want this to turn into a project like painting the Golden Gate Bridge, i.e. once you’ve finished one end, it has been so long that you need to start all over again at the beginning. I am arguing that it won’t be like that, as I won’t actively seek out newer structures, but if I happen to pass by one during the normal course of life it should be OK to retake the image. While we were spiritedly discussing the matter, we came across something that both of us felt solidified our argument.

Back when I first started this foolishness, I mapped out a couple dozen Post Offices that were close enough to us to make nice short half day outings. Some of the bitty towns strung out along eastbound US78 made for one. Between the SMALL towns of Windsor and Elko, both with Post Offices, sat the decent sized town of Williston without one. I didn’t see the logic in that. As we drove through Williston today, what should we spy on a parallel street to our route, that’s right, a Post Office. We stopped and took a picture.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 62