Trippin’
This week suddenly saw a flurry of travel activity in our lives. We decided several weeks ago that we would rebook our motorcycle group’s Silver Anniversary, which got postponed last year due to COVID. That is a May event, which the perfect time of year to see southern Utah. We also postponed a planned trip to Mendocino in the northern coast area with Frank and Loretta, which we have now rebooked for April. This was also our Mission Trip in that we planned to see as many of the fourteen missions in the California Mission Camino Real that we have not visited. And once we had those two on the books we decided it was high time that we rebooked our postponed October trip back to the East Coast to see my kids and visit friends across the country and in New York City. A quick look at the calendar suggested that June was the right month to do that. That makes the next three calendar months of April, May and June travel months for us. Since they are all planned as car trips, they total 1,500, 2,000 and 6,500 miles respectively. That is one year’s worth of driving racked up in three months.
I should begin by saying that Kim and I are not ready to come out of our COVID isolation and jump on a plane just yet. We have plenty of friends who have flown already, but we are just no so compelled to do so yet. That day will come but we are happy for several reasons to keep our feet, or more specifically, our wheels on the ground. To begin with we now have Betty with us. One of the three trips (the motorcycle ride) will see us leaving Betty at home with a caretaker, but she will accompany us on the other two. Betty is a good traveler (we think) since she spends most of each day sleeping anyway. The other thing is that I have always hankered to spend time traveling across the country. That was going to be the plan for 2020, but other than our Oregon Trip with Frank and Loretta in July, everything else needed to get postponed. I’m beginning to think that 2021 is become the year of the do-over. I quite like the idea of doing road trips. The Las time I drove cross-country, it took me three days. This time it will take me a week each way, enough to not feel we are on a forced march, but not exactly a leisurely pace either. Strangely enough, the length of our trip east and our desire to spend as much time as possible with friends and family makes it less interesting to wander cross-country. Next time…as we all always seem to say.
It turns out that I’m getting pretty good at booking and canceling travel arrangements online. I’ve used several different apps, and have decided that the ease of cancellation makes one better than the rest. That would be booking.com. My method is kind of interesting. I use Roadtrippers for the trip mapping, but find their hotel booking less than efficient. Therefore, I use a combination of those two and Apple Maps and Google to plan the trip. The Apple Maps is used to determine the length of days I want to drive and the approximate overnight locations. I then use Google to search for pet friendly hotels in that location. Once I find something that looks good I go onto booking.com and book it, but not before double checking the pet friendly policy of the hotel. It seems that both Google and Apple Maps don’t differentiate between truly pet friendly and pseudo pet friendly (meaning that they only take service animals). This distinction has caused me no end of cancellation and rebooking hassles, so i am more careful now to double check the pet policies. I occasionally even call the hotels to make absolutely sure. I am also learning that everyone has discovered that pet people are willing to pay for little Fido to accompany them. It can cost as little as $35 to as much as $125 for a pet. Let’s be clear, you can probably have a child stay with you more cheaply than a pup or kitty. In theory this is for added cleaning costs, but I have yet to see Betty or Cecil before her create a mess at a hotel. I guess the hospitality industry needs all the added sources of revenue they can get these days, so I do not begrudge them this added cost.
So today, after coordinating with Kim and speaking to Loretta and all three of my kids (as well as one cousin and several friends that are joining us for parts of the trip), I got to booking. I booked sixteen nights of lodging and drew up three separate itineraries, which I forwarded to Kim and those others involved. I’ve given the kids the schedule and confirmed that they are all available to gather with me in Brooklyn on Father’s Day. Understand that two nights were booked by someone else for us, two nights we are staying with friends and the remaining eighteen nights we are staying at our house in Ithaca. We will be joined there by several of our friends and all of my kids for some of the time. This year promises to be the most active use of Homeward Bound, the name I have given to my Ithaca home in the twenty-five years I have owned it. It has finally come in handier than the few days I’ve used it per year in the past.
I am in an interesting position with that house in Ithaca. Technically I leased it for 99 years from the University. I then took a twenty-five year life use of the property and gifted it after that to the Business School at Cornell. So, technically, the property reverts to the school later this year, but here’s the thing….I suspect the Business School doesn’t realize it has this asset available and furthermore, does not probably care much. They would become liable for the real estate taxes (not avoidable unless the house were used directly as a teaching facility, which will not be the case), the utilities, and the upkeep. I have done the math on all of that and have determined that the school will likely lose money on the transaction even if they rented the house for the entire year. It should also be noted, that I have always made the house available to the school for whatever it wants to use it for, which has mostly been for outdoor backyard tent gatherings at Graduation, Reunion, Homecoming and several other annual gatherings. For this they pay nothing and know that I will always have the landscaping in top condition to make a good showing. I think it is fair to think that nothing will change with our arrangement as we come to our twenty-fifth anniversary of our Homeward Bound arrangement. That is certainly the hope of my children and grandchildren who have come to enjoy spending the summer months in situ.
Just in case, I have a Plan B to come to some arrangement with the school to “rent” it for as long as my children want to have access to it. I doubt that plan will be necessary, but I think that its always good to have a contingency plan. The same can be said for these road trips I am planning. Everything can change at a moment’s notice and all my practice at cancelling and rebooking makes the ease of trippin’ across the United States a good use of my retirement time.