Tag Archives: Florida

Laptopless in Florida

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An iPad-only weekend.

I just got back from a trip to Jacksonville, FL. It was a business trip for my husband and I went along because my mother lives only 30 miles away. I hadn’t seen her in about a year and figured I’d tag along and spend some time with her, my stepdad, and my sister.

I was determined to pack light for this trip, so when it came time to decide whether to bring along my laptop — a 13-inch MacBook Pro — I decided to leave it home and rely solely on my iPad for access to e-mail, the Web, etc. It would be a good test of the iPad as a computing tool.

I should mention here that I’ve done this before. In May, I flew my helicopter up to Seattle by way of Lake Powell. My iPad was new back then and I decided to use that trip as an experiment. I was relatively successful and that must have been at the back of my mind as I made my decision to do this again.

As it turned out, it wasn’t a good decision. The problem is, my iPad doesn’t have 3G. I’m already paying for Internet access in three other places — at home, at our Phoenix condo, and on my BlackBerry — and I simply wasn’t interested in paying for yet another access point. On my laptop, I can take advantage of Bluetooth tethering to my BlackBerry to get online just about anywhere. (And believe me, I’ve put this to the test in some pretty remote places.) But Apple doesn’t allow Bluetooth tethering on its iPads, so anyone without a 3G iPad or access to WiFi is pretty much screwed.

Bottled WaterWe were staying at the Marriott Sawgrass Resort in Ponte Vedra, near Jacksonville, FL. This is one of those fancy resorts where you pay a bunch for your room and then pay through the nose for everything else. Hell, a bottle of Fiji water they’d considerately put in our room for our consumption had a $6 price tag on it. (Can someone please explain why we need bottled water imported from Fiji?) Even the Starbucks in the lobby was charging a full dollar more than regular prices for a latte.

And Internet access via WiFi? Well, that would cost me $13 a day.

Can someone explain why my $89/night room at a Holiday Inn Express comes with free WiFi and our $205/night room at a Marriott didn’t?

I don’t want you to get the idea that I’m cheap — despite how this sounds. I’ll admit that I do try to save money when I can. And frankly, since this was a business trip, if we’d paid the $13/day, it would have been billed to the room and Mike’s company would have paid it. So I could easily argue that it was free for me.

But it’s the principle of the thing. $13 a day! That’s obscene. No one should be paying that for Internet access.

And no, even the Starbucks didn’t have free WiFi.

Of course, without WiFi, my iPad had limited use. Sure, I could read ebooks, do crossword puzzles, and make notes in my journal, but I couldn’t check e-mail or the weather or get directions from point A to B.

On the day after we arrived, I went down to my Mom’s house and sucked Internet there. I checked e-mail and tweets and weather. I even showed them the video of the cat on the Roomba — appropriate because I’d bought my Mom a Roomba for Christmas.

Later, it was back to the hotel, without WiFi.

ReflectionsI thought about how I was neglecting my blog. (This is the first real entry in over a week.) I wished I could write and post something about my trip — the great fish dinner on the first night, one of the other wives getting her luggage lost by the airline and our subsequent shopping spree at Target, the luggage size of our companions who apparently packed for three weeks instead of three days, the great deal I got on a rental car, the surprisingly peppy ride of the Hundai Accent I wound up with. Or maybe the authentic Spanish tapas I enjoyed with my family in Saint Augustine and the huge ice cream sundaes we consumed afterwards. Or the weather, which dipped down to the 20s (F, not C) at night, with a wind that obliterated the wonderful reflections I’d photographed from our room the day we arrived and ruined what might have been a nice walk along the ocean on the last day of our stay. I couldn’t blog about any of this because (1) typing a long document on the iPad’s “keyboard” is likely to result in insanity (2) I didn’t have access to the Internet to post anything.

SeashoreWith all this in mind, it’s pretty clear to me that I should have brought along the laptop. With it, I could have used my phone to get online. I could have blogged daily. I could have kept up-to-date with tweets. I could have realized that the weather would turn sour and those wonderful reflections on the pond outside the hotel would be gone the next day, giving me no second chance to photograph them properly.

Of course, I could also argue that not having Internet access made me more social and physically active. Although I didn’t hang around the spa with the girls after my facial to “catch up,” I did take two of them shopping in my rental car. And I did treat myself to a solo shopping spree — one pair jeans, one dressy jacket, one pair shoes, three pairs socks, one long-sleeved tee shirt — that required a bunch of walking and a nice drive along winding, tree-shaded Florida roads. These are things I might not have done if I’d had a WiFi connection to hold my attention.

But what’s surprising is how much I’ve grown to depend on the Internet for information and entertainment. For example, while at my Mom’s house, I showed my stepdad how to use Snopes.com to check the accuracy of the information in e-mails he receives. (No, his cell phone probably can’t do all those things.) I showed my family pictures of the hotel we were staying at. We looked up menus for the tapas restaurant. And yes: we watched at least five videos of cats with Roombas.

Internet access has become such an important part of my life that when it’s taken away, I feel handicapped.

And I can’t imagine that being a good thing.

Two Kinds of Road Trips

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Reflections on traveling long distance by car.

The TruckThis past week, I traveled with my sister as part of a convoy of vehicles moving her from New Jersey to Florida. The other vehicles included my dad in a Budget rental truck (see photo) containing the contents of my sister’s recently sold condo and my dad’s wife in an SUV. We buzzed down I-95 at highway speed, stopping only for food, fuel, and bladder demands.

If you’ve ever driven I-95 — or most freeways, for that matter — you know how mind-numbingly boring the trip can be. You’re moving at 55 to 75 miles per hour down a corridor that’s often straighter than an arrow shaft. Although there are occasional scenic vistas, they’re usually ruined by the tractor-trailer trucks you’re passing (or passing you). The main points of interest are the billboards and the variety of fast food joints and hotel chains at exits. The only excitement comes when some jackass cuts you off or something falls off the trailer in front of you.

The benefit of the interstate highway system is speed, of course. If there’s no construction or accidents or rush-hour traffic in a major metropolitan area, you can zip right along to your destination. We travelled almost exactly 1,000 miles over a day and a half. My dad routinely makes this drive to/from farther south without an overnight stop. It’s a lot of driving, though. And it just isn’t fun.

Each year, I drive from the Phoenix area to Central Washington State and back towing a travel trailer. It’s about 1,200 miles each way. Although Google Maps tries to put me on freeways for the entire trip, I don’t go that way. Instead, I take the back roads that criss-cross the western states. Last year, I was mainly on Route 93. This year, I was mainly on Route 95. These are long two-lane, so-called “blue highways” that pass through small western towns and cities. Along the way, you can get a feel for the landscape and the way folks live. There’s seldom any traffic and the speed limit is often as high as 65 mph so you can move from place to place at a reasonable pace. You can stop just about anywhere along the way and although your choices for meals and fuel and hotels might be limited, they’re not just the same chain establishments you’ll see along the freeway. It’s a whole different way to travel, a whole different experience.

What I like about the blue highways is the opportunities to stop at interesting spots along the way. Instead of pulling into a McDonald’s for lunch, I might stop in a parking area with a scenic view and have a picnic lunch there. Instead of staying overnight at a Super 8 motel adjacent to a truck stop or parking my camper in a Walmart parking lot, I might roll into a state park and camp alongside a creek. If there’s a historic site or roadside attraction, I can easily pull over to take some time there and enjoy it. I can change my route at any intersection. Best of all, I set the pace.

Back in 2005, I conducted what I like to call my “midlife crisis road trip.” I hopped into my little red Honda S2000 with some luggage and credit cards and hit the road for 16 days. I traveled almost every day, getting as far away from Arizona as Mt. St. Helens in Washington, western Montana, and Yellowstone National Park. I had a general idea of where I wanted to go, but no reservations and no need to be anywhere on any day. I slept in motels, hotels, rustic cabins, and even a yurt. I ate all kinds of meals, from crappy fast food and terrible coffee at drive-thru joints to fine dining at the foot of Mt. Shasta. I made side trips daily, visited parks, and talked to lots of strangers. I put more than 5,000 miles on my car, got two oil changes on the road, and even replaced the rear tires after wearing them out. (Z-rated tires just don’t last very long.) I had a great time — better than most vacations — and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

While I realize that this week’s trip wasn’t for pleasure — the goal was to get my sister, her car, and her belongings from New Jersey to Florida in the minimum amount of time — it certainly did highlight the differences between my usual kind of road trip and motoring down the interstate between points A and B.

And it reminded me why I prefer the blue highways when enjoying the trip is more important than getting to the destination.

Travel Plans

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Three trips in just over a month.

Pity me. I’ll be on 9 different airliners over the next 40 days.

First Stop: Florida

There’s a joke that New Yorkers “get” and I’ll be so bold as to try it here:

Q: What’s a good Jewish wine?

A: [whining] I want to go to Florida.

While midwesterners and northwesterners retire to Arizona, New Yorkers (and others from the northeast) retire to Florida. Not only do they retire there, but they vacation there. And since New York has a huge Jewish population that vacations and retires in Florida — mostly in the Fort Lauderdale area — this joke is funny. Well, at least it’s funny to New Yorkers. (And having heard it from a Jewish person, I don’t think it’s offensive to Jews. You may correct me if I’m wrong.)

Both of my parents retired to Florida. While many people think that might make sense — that they retired together — it’s not as easy as that. They’re both remarried and they each moved to different parts of Florida with their spouses.

My mother, who I’m going to see next week, moved to the St. Augustine area. Technically, she lives in Crescent Beach, which is on the far southern reaches of St. Augustine. She lives with my stepdad on the barrier island there. Her home, which she had custom-built about 10 years ago, sits on a tiny canal.

She and my stepdad used to have a boat, but fuel and maintenance costs made that impractical, considering the amount of time they actually used it. So now they have a bulkhead with a bench overlooking the canal. Their neighbors have boats that they seldom use, too, and they can look out on those.

The area is nicely treed and quiet. There are lots of sea birds.

My mom’s house was built in a U-shape. On one end of the U is the master bedroom and bath. On the other end is another bedroom with its own bathroom just up the hall. That was supposed to be my grandmother’s bedroom, but like so many people back east, she couldn’t leave the area she’d lived in for her whole life. (In fact, she died within 50 miles of where she was born, having lived in only three or maybe four places her entire life.) Grandma’s room is the best room in the house, with privacy, easy access to the pool and hot tub between the arms of the U, a nice bathroom, and its own thermostat. Although the house has four bedrooms, I try to manage my trips so I get Grandma’s room. I stayed in the “kid’s room” once with Mike and was incredibly uncomfortable sharing the tiny space beside the trundle bed with a treadmill’s bulk.

My mother and stepdad are going to Italy at the end of the month for two weeks. This is a huge deal. They don’t travel much and I can’t remember the last time they left the country. They’re going with a tour group (of course) and I don’t know the itinerary, but I’m sure I’ll be filled in when I get there on Tuesday evening.

I haven’t been to my mother’s house since Thanksgiving 2006. She hasn’t been out here since Thanksgiving (or perhaps Christmas?) 2004 (?). She really doesn’t like to travel by plane. One year, they decided to drive out. Yes: St. Augustine, FL to Wickenburg, AZ, a distance of more than 2,100 miles. You might be asking yourself: what were they thinking? The answer: they weren’t. It was a long drive and they were on freeways the entire way. It might not have been so bad if they didn’t hit a dust storm in the Tucson area, but they were tired when they encountered that and it really rattled them.

It takes two planes to fly to visit them — no one has a direct flight from Phoenix to Jacksonville or Daytona (she lives right between them). I could get a direct flight to Orlando, but then I’d spend more than an hour driving from there. I’d rather spend that hour on the ground, in Houston, looking for a nice lunch and shopping in the airport terminal.

I’ll be in Florida for five days: Tuesday through Saturday. Two jets each way equals four different jets.

California, Here I Come!

My next trip is for business. I’m flying into Burbank, CA to meet with a new client for a brand new job. I can’t go into details because I’m under nondisclosure (NDA), but I can say that I’m working on a new project that should be completed by the end of May. I’ll talk about it more then.

I’m flying Southwest into Burbank. I don’t like flying Southwest. The lack of seat assignments is a royal pain in the butt. I like to know before I get on a plane where I’ll sit on that plane. And since I’m likely to have carry-on luggage, I like to know for sure that I’ll be able to stow it. Southwest makes knowing these things impossible, so I tend to avoid it.

But my client paid for this trip’s airfare and booked it for me, so I can’t complain. It’s a more convenient flight than I’d get with another airline — Burbank is closer to my final destination than LAX, and a heck of a lot less crazed. I’ll probably save a whole hour of travel time by avoiding traffic. And maybe, just maybe, Southwest isn’t as bad as I remember it.

Because this trip is for business, I don’t expect to have much fun. I have to finish the entire project in 4-1/2 days. (I arrive on Sunday and depart on Friday at about noon.) The quicker I work, the more time I’ll have to goof off, so that’s a good motivator. And not finishing up on time is not an option.

It’s just one jet each way, but if you’re counting, that brings the total up to six jets between now and May 9.

The Washington Trip

In mid-May comes the trip I’ve been looking forward to: a helicopter flight from Wickenburg to Boeing Field in Seattle, Wa. There’s nothing I love more than long cross-country trips by helicopter. If I could figure out a way to earn a living doing it, I’d be doing it all the time.

The trip is to reposition the aircraft for my summer job. Yes, this year, after two years of false hopes, I’ve been signed up to do cherry drying for growers in central Washington state. But to do the work, I need to get the aircraft up there. That means a 10-12 hour ferry flight which I hope we can complete within two days. Once at BFI, I’ll leave the helicopter with a buddy’s mechanic for an annual inspection, which will be due by then.

Since I’ll be in central Washington for at least a month, I’ll need a place to stay. So right after I drop off the helicopter, I’ll hop on a plane for Wenatchee, WA, rent a car, and start scouting around. I plan to drive up with my new old truck pulling my travel trailer. Alex the Bird and I will camp out for the entire time. I’m interested in finding an affordable campground with full hookup and WiFi, but there’s a chance I might get a free (or almost free) partial hookup with (fingers crossed) WiFi at the same private airport where the helicopter will be based for the first part of the season. Since I have time, I figured I’d go check out my options. It’s a long drive from Wickenburg, AZ to Quincy, WA, and I want to make sure I know where I’m going to be parking my rig before I get there.

The plane from Seattle to Wenatchee may not be a jet, but it will be part of an airline. I fly from Seattle to Wenatchee and then back to Seattle before flying home to Phoenix. If you’re keeping count, that’s three more plane rides for a total of nine.

Other Work

Between all of that, I have other work to do.

I have two helicopter charters for Flying M Air — one of which is later today. After that, Flying M Air’s Phoenix-area operations are closed for the season. I have 21 hours left on the Hobbs meter before I need a 100-hour inspection (which is about the same as an annual, but must be done every 100 hours). If I fly 2-1/2 hours today and 3-1/2 hours on Monday, that leaves 15 hours for the ferry flight and helicopter training I need to do (in Portland, OR, which I hope to hit on the way to Seattle). While I’m allowed to go over the 100 hours if the flight is repositioning the aircraft to where the maintenance will be done, I’m not allowed to go over it for training flights. So I simply can’t take on any new charter flights until I get to Washington.

(And yes, I can continue to operate my tour and charter business in Washington State. My Part 135 certificate is “portable.” So when I’m not drying cherries, I hope to make a few extra bucks by transporting growers and other folks who need to get from place to place near my summer base(s).)

I also need to record a training video for macPro Video. I would have started this last week, or this week, but I’ve been having trouble getting satisfactory recording equipment together. (See my video blog entry about this.) I might try to do some of it in Florida. We’ll see. Otherwise, I’ll have to do it between the Florida and California trips.

I also need to go to Howard Mesa to pick up a few things I’ll need on my summer-long trip. Among them is Alex the Bird’s mid-size cage, which should fit nicely on a shelf in the camper, my low-wattage one-cup coffee maker, and some odds and ends that’ll come in handy for off-the-grid camping, if I need to do any of that. I’d also very much like to get away from here for a weekend because of a variety of other crazy things going on.

And I need to get ready to write a new book about QuickBooks Pro for Macintosh. I’ll work on that while I’m away this summer. I’ll be bringing two (possibly three) laptops with me so I can write. There’s another book I’ll be working on while away, but I’m under NDA about that and can’t say more.

In any case, I’m looking forward to a challenging summer away from Wickenburg.

I’m also looking forward to my three shorter trips over the next 40 days. I really do love to travel.

Back Again

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With a nasty cold.

Five days without a blog post! Regular visitors must be thinking that I’ve fallen off the face of the earth.

The truth of the matter is, my dad and his wife came for a visit and I’ve been caught up entertaining them. The highlight of their visit was a the Land of the Navajo multi-day excursion I took them on — mostly to test the itinerary and timing for the trip.

I was nursing a cold when we left Wickenburg on Tuesday, felt a bit better on Wednesday, and hit the bottom on Thursday. The biggest problem was that I couldn’t take any medication before flying. And although I do my flying sitting down, it really sucks energy out of me.

Anyway, I’m back and my dad and his wife are on their way back to Florida. I’ll be fighting this cold today and flying tomorrow. But I’ll try to find time to post some blog entries in between — including one I started last week and didn’t get a chance to finish.