Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

Thanksgiving '24 Travelog #1
OAK airport - Sat, 23 Nov 2024, 6:20am

Hawk and I were up early this morning, like alarms set at 4:30am early, to begin our Thanksgiving trip. It was still pitch dark out when I checked Uber and Lyft at 5:10am to roll to OAK airport. The fares were ± $100. I chose Lyft and... waited. It was still pitch dark out at 5:15am when I gave up waiting on their shenanigans with how long it would take for a driver to arrive, even after trying the more expensive "priority pickup". It was still pitch dark out at 5:17am when we decided "Fuck it, we'll drive our car to the airport and pay for parking," as I backed our car out of the garage. The enshittification of everything.

It's mostly pitch dark out now at 6:20am as I write this, sitting comfortably in the airport gate area. The first light of day has just appeared over the trees. Actual sunrise isn't for another 38 minutes.

Oh, and the decision to park at the airport was not quite the over-under I thought it would be. When Uber/Lyft cars were running ±$100 each way I figured that parking, 9 days at $20, would be cheaper. Nope, parking is now $26/day. So driving is not cheaper, even at eye-watering ride costs. Well, at least we have certainty about our schedule. And don't have to wait for pickup-time shenanigans when we arriving home 9 days from now, late at night and tired.

Our flight departs at 7:30am. Tracking shows the inbound aircraft operating on schedule. So chances seems good we'll depart on time. The airline is even estimating we'll arrive on the east coast 20-25 minutes early. This is Southwest Airlines, though. I'm all but certain they'll find a way to leave 10 minutes late and waste that 20-25 minute buffer somewhere.

Thanksgiving '24 Travelog #3
At the hotel in Falls Church, VA - Sat, 23 Nov 2024, 11:20pm

We're checked into our hotel for night now. Actually, not just tonight but the next 4 nights. When I was planning out the details of this trip I considered moving hotels every night to be closer to what we were doing the day of or the day after.... Then I looked at how much extra driving it would be to stay in one place the whole time and decided that saving 30-45 minutes a day, even as much as an hour a day, of driving is not worth the hassle of repacking a bag, checking out, checking in somewhere else, and living out of a suitcase. I expect it'll be more satisfying to have the same room for 4 nights.

While it certainly sounds nice to say we've picked a hotel that's sort of centrally located to all the things we're doing for 4 days, the flip side of that statement is that it's equally inconvenient to everything we're doing. This afternoon, for example, we drove ~30 minutes from BWI airport to visit friends in Silver Spring, MD then afterwards drove another ~30 minutes here to Falls Church, VA. But having dinner and some hangout time with old friends was lots of fun.

We only see these friends, Adrian and Joe and their son, Luc, about once a year. And it's usually during these extended Thanksgiving week trips back East that we see them. They're friends of Hawk's from college days, and I enjoy their company, too. As I remarked to Joe when he was musing on the nature of our friendship, "I enjoy talking to people my age... who can conduct an intelligent adult conversation... and aren't assholes because think they're way more intelligent than everyone else." That may seem like setting a low bar. Sadly, nowadays, it is not.

What about dinner? Oh, yeah, we went to a local bar in Silver Spring that also serves a full menu. I noted as we entered, "Hey, it's a bar-themed bar!" It looked like a classic bar. It sounded like a classic bar. It even smelled like a classic bar. Y'know, stale beer spilled on the floor that hadn't been mopped up yet because they're too busy. But it wasn't too smelly as it's also a family-friendly place. Lots of families were there with young kids.

After years of living in California, where things are generally new and manufactured, it was fascinating to go to a bar that genuinely looks like it's been a bar since 1950. Adrian teased Joe about going there in his robes after college graduation to order a celebratory drink. Heck, I could imagine my father visiting here with classmates when he was in college, as the bar is roughly halfway between UMd and where he lived in Wheaton with his parents. I'd call him up and ask, "Hey, dad, did you ever hoist pints with friends at ___ except he's several years gone now." I could only imagine his spirit there next to me as I poured out the last sip of my pint of Guinness.