Tag Archives: travel

Great Loop 2021: The Log Books

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I create a custom log book to track my time on the water.

One of my goals as I head into my “golden years” is to get charter boat captain certification. The endorsement I’m interested in is commonly known as a “six pack,” meaning that I can take up to six passengers for hire on a boat. While I don’t expect to make charter boating my fourth (or fifth?) career, I’d like the ability to be able to cover my boating costs by occasionally taking paying passengers on day or overnight trips.

(And yes, I know I don’t have an appropriate boat yet. I’m working on that, too.)

About the Six Pack

The official name for the captain’s certification I’m looking for is National Operator of Uninspected Passenger Vessel (OUPV) of Less Than 100 GRT. The common abbreviation is OUPV 6-pack. According to the US Coast Guard, which oversees these certifications:

This officer endorsement is most appropriate for uninspected passenger vessels which by law are limited to six or less passengers for hire. These are usually smaller vessels and normally engage in charter fishing, whale watching, SCUBA diving, and tour cruises.

OUPV Near Coastal endorsements may be limited to 100 miles offshore, Inland or Great Lakes in accordance with 46 CFR 11.467 and the service provided. No OUPV endorsement is valid for International voyages.

There are a number of requirements to get this certification. Here’s a simplified list; you can download a more detailed list here:

  • U.S. Citizienship
  • 18 Years or age or older
  • Medical certificate
  • Drug testing compliance
  • Mariner fees paid
  • Sea service accumulated – 360 days
  • Sea service recency – 90 days in past 3 years
  • First aid course
  • CPR course
  • Exam or course completion certificate

Sea Service

The sea service requirement will be the toughest to meet and since it must be documented on the application, I’m motivated to keep track of it.

I’ve spoken to numerous people who have told me a variety of things about what constitutes “sea service.” One person I spoke to said that because he’d grown up boating with his family, all of those day trips could be logged as sea service. He said that even though he didn’t have a record of all of those days, he could make a reasonable estimate.

I’m in the same boat — no pun intended. My family had a boat that we’d often take on day trips on the Hudson River near New York City. In fact, a common outing would be a ride around Manhattan Island or down to the Statue of Liberty or up as far north as West Point. Later, when my family moved to Long Island, my family boated out in Long Island Sound. I have no idea how many outings we did as I was growing up, but I don’t think that 50 is an unreasonable estimate.

I also have boating experience as an adult on a variety of inland bodies of water including Lake George, Lake Powell, Lake Mead, Lake Pleasant, the Colorado River, the Columbia River, Lake Chelan, and Lake Roosevelt (in WA). Some of these trips involved overnight stays on the boat. Added up, I’m sure that would account for another 50 days.

And then there’s the Learn to Navigate the Inside Passage cruise that I went on back in 2019. This was the real deal: I was one of four people on a 65-foot, 90-year-old wooden boat that cruised at the breakneck speed of 6 knots up the Inside Passage between Bellingham, WA and Ketchikan, AK. For 12 days, I was a “crew member” while we learned about navigation and piloting from Captains Jeffrey and Christine. The following year, I joined them again for another 4 days on the water in the San Juan Islands. According to Captain Jeffrey, all this time could be logged.

David B at Garrison Bay
The David B at anchor in Garrison Bay.

It’s that time that was most valuable given that of the 360 days I needed on the water, 90 days of service had to be on Ocean, Near Coastal, or Great Lakes waters, depending on the kind of charter services I wanted to offer. Because I wanted to offer Near Coastal charter services in the San Juan Islands and possibly on portions of the Great Loop, I needed that Near Coastal time.

And my upcoming trip would be a huge addition to my sea service time. After all, I expected to be on the boat for about two months. That’s a lot of days of near coastal and Great Lakes time.

Finding a Book to Log Time

Of course, the best way to keep track of the time I could include in my sea service submission to the Coast Guard was to log it — much like I already log the time I fly to maintain a record of currency for my pilot certificate. With that in mind, I started looking for a “captain’s log” or “crew log” book.

And I found a lot of books that I just couldn’t see working for me.

The trouble is, most books were designed for either commercial boat captains or pleasure boaters:

  • The commercial captains’ logs had lots of form fields for entering daily boat and engine check information, weather, departure, destination, and miscellaneous paperwork information. This is the information you’d expect to be part of a legal record of every single day or trip on a commercial vessel. I simply didn’t need all of those form fields.
  • The pleasure boaters captains’ logs had less detailed forms but not much space for including a narrative of the trip. They didn’t seem concerned with logging time as much as logging where the boat went and who was on board.

I wanted something that combined features from both flavors of books, something where I could log each day of the journey and take notes for blog posts or other written accounts. And rather than enter detailed vessel information on each page — after all, I expected to be on the same handful of boats as I built my time — I wanted vessel details listed separately. I also wanted pages that summarized the days logged by month and by vessel.

So I designed my own book.

My Captain/Crew Log Book

Creating my own book pages wasn’t a big deal once I knew what I wanted on each page. After all, from about 1995 to 2012, I did layout of about half the books I wrote using a variety (over the years) of desktop publishing software: QuarkExpress, PageMaker, FrameMaker, and InDesign.

I’ve had a love/hate relationship with desktop publishing software for a while now. In my later days of writing books, I used Adobe InDesign to do page layout and then to generate PDFs and ebook format files for publishing. But when InDesign went from a pay once software package to a subscription software package, I simply stopped using it. I couldn’t see paying monthly for a software package that I only used a few times a year.

Just before I began tackling this design project, however, I got my hands on Affinity Publisher, a desktop publishing package that was inexpensive and didn’t require a subscription to use. I decided to try my hand at using it while doing this project.

It went remarkably well. Affinity Publisher was similar enough to InDesign that the learning curve was relatively easy for me. When I got stumped, I used its online help feature to figure out how to do what I needed to do. Little by little, I built up the master page styles that would make up my book. Then it was just a matter of adding pages.

Some of the design choices I made include:

  • 8.5 x 5.5 page size. This is half a standard “letter size” sheet of paper. It makes the book relatively small.
  • Spiral binding. This makes it easy to lay the book open and, if necessary, to remove pages.
  • Double sided log pages. The recto (right side) page has the form to detail the entry and it’s followed by half a page of lines for notes. The back of each page has more room for notes. Again, I wanted to be able to include a lot of notes for each logged day. I chose this format instead of spreads — where the start of each entry would be on the verso (left) side and the rest on the recto side — because I wanted to be able to remove pages if necessary. I’m still not 100% sure about this decision; I think it would work either way.

    Log Book Pages
    A log page spread. The entry starts on the recto page and ends on the following verso page.

  • Simple summaries at the beginning of the book. I could add entries here as time went on.

  • Vessel Info
    There are three double-sided Vessel Info pages that I can use to enter details about up to 12 boats.

    Vessel details at the beginning of the book. Each vessel could be listed on a half-page form at the beginning of the book. This keeps those details off the log pages. I write the vessel name in the log page and then can cross reference it to details in the vessel list.

Log Book Cover
Here’s the book’s cover, with a nice photo of Nano on it.

I got a high-res photo of the boat I’ll be on this summer, Nano, to put on the cover.

I used a service called Printivity to print my books. I submitted a properly prepared PDF, made my payment, and waited. At my request, a representative got back to me to answer some questions and, with the information she provided, I fine-tuned some options.

Although the books were affordable to print, shipping was costly. To get the most bang for my buck, I ordered four copies. I figured I’d give the extras away to my fellow crew members, if they’re interested.

The books arrived two weeks after I submitted the PDF and paid for them. They looked pretty darn good for a first effort. I’m looking forward to making entries in mine during the trip.

Great Loop 2021: Plotting the Course

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I put the planned overnight stops into a navigation app to get a general idea of the route.

When Capt Paul was interviewing crew members for his trip from Maine to Chicago by way of the Hudson River, Erie Canal, and Great Lakes, he sent each of us a PDF of a spreadsheet that he had created that listed the days of the journey, the expected stopping point each night, the distance between points, and expected dates of arrival and departure. I had taken a look at the list and had even tried once or twice to plot the route, but it wasn’t until today that I sat down and entered each planned stop as a waypoint in a navigation app.

What changed? Well, I tried a different, more user-friendly marine navigation app, Aqua Map.

A Tale of Two Marine Navigation Apps

TZ iBoat
Here’s New York Harbor as it appears in TZ iBoat. This is a raster (“r” = “real” is my way to remember it) chart. TZ iBoat will automatically switch to the view magnification that’s appropriate for the scale I’ve zoomed to.

Years ago, when I did the Learn to Navigate the Inside Passage cruise with Northwest Navigation, I looked for (and found) an app that would run on my iPad and display our position on real nautical charts. That app was TZ iBoat. I chose it because it (1) enabled me to download charts so I didn’t need an active Internet connection and (2) it supported raster charts, which are basically scanned and location encoded versions of traditional printed NOAA (or, in the case of that trip, Canadian) charts. I wanted raster charts because I wanted something that looked like the paper I’d need to consult when actually cruising. Call me old fashioned, but I’m the same way with aeronatuical navigation apps like Foreflight — I always consult the sectional chart version because that’s what I’m used to.

TZ iBoat wasn’t terribly expensive. The app was free but I’d need an annual subscription to get the charts. That’s showing as $19.99 today on the App store but I’m pretty sure I paid more. I’m thinking $35. Still a lot cheaper and easier than buying printed charts.

When this Great Loop trip came up, I renewed my subscription for USA coverage. I already knew the software pretty well, so it would be easy enough to use it on this trip.

Aqua Map
Aqua Map’s view of New York Harbor at roughly the same magnification. Because this is a vector chart, the more I zoom in, the more details are displayed.

But then Capt Paul told me about Aqua Map. I downloaded it to give it a try. I immediately realized that it had some major benefits over TZ Boat: it could display data overlays from other sources, including Waterway Guide. So in addition to charts, it would give me data about marinas, anchorages, locks, and other facilities that either aren’t included on charts or have limited information on charts. The app was free; a subscription for the US and Canada, including charted lakes, rivers, and canals, was $14.99. I subscribed and linked it with my Waterway Guide subscription. (This, I’m pretty sure, makes it unnecessary for me to subscribe to the digital version of Waterway Guide in that app.)

The only drawback to Aqua Map: it uses vector charts instead of the raster charts I prefer.

But is that really a drawback? Maybe I just need to face it: vector charts, with their customizable display layers, are probably the future of navigation, whether it’s marine or aviation. Maybe it’s time for me to move into the 21st century after all.

Of course, I’ll have both with me on the trip. My new iPad has plenty of room for both of them and the downloaded charts I’ll need along the way.

Plotting the Route

There were two ways I could plot out the planned route:

  • Create waypoints for each stop along the way.
  • Create a route with connected waypoints for each stop along the way.

I decided to just create the waypoints. I wasn’t going to steer the boat and, even if I did need a route laid out between obstacles, I could always create it on the day of the trip. All this data could easily be stored in the app. For now, all I really wanted to know was the general planned route and I figured that would show up well enough once the waypoints had been entered.

I did that this morning while I had my coffee and breakfast. It took quite a while. There were 51 overnight stops on the plan — some planned for more than one night — and they had to be located and created individually. I quickly learned to use Aqua Map’s search feature to find one point after another and create the waypoint. I named them with the 4-digit planned date (which I already knew was no longer accurate because we planned a later departure from New York) and the stop name. So the first waypoint I created was 0805 Liberty Landing for August 5 Liberty Landing Marina.

I only had one problem and that was when putting in the waypoints for Liverpool and Onodaga (in New York on the Canal). It seemed to me that they were the same place; I’m still waiting for Capt Paul to get back to me on my query.

Once I zoomed out, the route became clear. While it looks like we’re boating across dry land as we cross New York, it also clearly shows which side of each of the Great Lakes we’ll be cruising along and the fact that points seem closer together on the Lakes than in the Canal.

IMG 0081
Here’s the big picture look at our original planned route.

Of course, Capt Paul and his crew will be doing more than this. He’s starting in Portland, ME and finishing up in Stuart, FL. What I did here represents a fraction of his cruise. But since I’m not going to be on board for anything beyond this, I didn’t bother plotting it.

Keep in mind that this is the general plan — a starting point for knowing where we’re going and how long it will take. I seriously doubt we’ll follow this to the letter. Capt Paul is already making changes to overnight stops along the way so we can enjoy a dinner at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park after leaving New York City. I’ll be making an updated version of the route as we travel.

I’m also starting to consider turning the breadcrumbs subscription back on for my ancient Spot Messenger — if I can find it — so friends and family members can track me in real time. It might be worth it if I can get a pay-as-you-go monthly subscription and buy those lithium batteries it sucks down in bulk.

My Thoughts on the American Great Loop Cruisers’ Association

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Some thoughts after about a month of membership.

I’m writing this blog post mostly because I said I would elsewhere. I’ll try to keep it brief.

Great Loop Logo
The AGLCA logo and a map of the route(s) on the home page of the organization’s website.

If you’ve been following my blog, you know I’m interested in completing the Great Loop. In an effort to learn all I can about it in preparation for the year-long journey, I began looking for resources online. The American Great Loop Cruisers’ Association was one of the resources I found.

At first, there were just two organizational resources that interested me: videos about the Loop and the Rendezvous.

The Videos

There are a lot of videos and most were tagged $25 each, which really put me off. I honestly couldn’t imagine them charging members a fee to watch existing content, many of which appeared to be narrated PowerPoint slide shows. I assumed that the videos were free to members and it was one of the reasons I joined up.

I was wrong. The $25 per video fee was on top of annual membership. Yes, there are a handful of videos that I could watch for free and my registration to the Rendezvous (see below) included credits I could apply to two (I think) more. So simply joining the organization wasn’t going to get me much closer to seeing educational video content unless I was willing to dish out more money.

Video for a Fee
Is it worth paying another $25 to watch this webinar? I don’t know.

Understand this: I don’t mind paying for content I can learn from. But the price has to be related to the actual quality of the content. $25 to watch a 45-minute narrated PowerPoint slide show seems excessive to me. I understand that videos cost money to produce and host, but I also believe that they’d get a lot more views and likely take in a lot more money if they made the price more reasonable — maybe $5 or $10 each. At this point, I’m not terribly interested in spending $25 on a video that might or might not provide information I can benefit from.

The Rendezvous

The Rendezvous is an event held twice (or maybe three times?) a year. Normally, it’s held live at a location along the loop. For example, they’re planning an autumn rendezvous in Alabama and a new (I think) winter rendezvous in Florida. It’s designed for folks getting ready to start the journey, but it also seems like a good way to just pack in a lot of information.

Because of COVID, this spring’s rendezvous was held as webinars. That was actually good for me because it meant that I could attend without having to travel.

The Rendezvous includes social and educational activities: “docktail” parties, seminars, a vendor expo, etc. It seems like a good opportunity to network with other cruisers, learn about new products, get route briefings, and build a base of information about the trip.

I signed up for the spring rendezvous. It was conducted over a three week period with sessions on Tuesdays and Thursdays. There was a midday (EDT) “Lunch and Learn” which was basically a vendor talking about his/her products. I learned about Waterway Guide, which I wound up subscribing to. In the evening (afternoon for me), there were route briefings, each segment focusing on a different part of the loop. The presenters were actual loopers who narrated their slide decks either in a recording or live. Some were excellent — the couple who talked about the Chesapeake Bay and the guy who covered the Erie Canal were very good. Others were good but could have been better. (These were not professional speakers.) At the end of each presentation, they answered questions we’d ask either live or via text.

There were also two “small group” sessions, which were handled like Zoom meetings. Those were nice because you got a chance to chat with a small handful of other loopers. In person social events would (of course) be better, but this was a good substitute.

There was an online Expo and Q&A sessions concentrating on specific topics. Unfortunately, they were held at the same time. I chose the Q&A session for the Erie Canal so I missed other sessions I might of benefited from, as well as the Expo.

I did learn a lot and the good presentations really fed my desire to do the trip. Unfortunately, I missed or arrived late for some presentations. I didn’t get the links I needed a few times and had to scramble to contact the office to get them. Other times, I simply couldn’t take time off to attend — after all, this was in the morning or afternoon for me because of the time difference. What’s good is that I can apparently watch (or rewatch) any of the presentations as videos without having to pay for them again.

Overall, I think it was worth the cost to attend: $165 (on top of the $89 AGLCA membership fee; you must be a member to attend).

Other Benefits

Of course, the annual membership fee includes other benefits that are listed on the website. The funny thing about membership benefits is that they’re really not worth much if you don’t need/want/use them.

But one of the benefits is discounts at certain sponsor locations. Waterway Guide is one of those sponsors and I used my AGLCA discount to buy my Waterway Guide membership, thus getting two very detailed guides about parts of the loop. I also used the discount to buy another book about the loop. If I use enough discounts, it should (theoretically) cover the cost of membership.

Another benefit is access to a member forum where members ask and answer questions. This is a typical forum like you’d find for any group, but these folks are mature adults who don’t troll and act like assholes. So if you have a question — no matter how basic — you can be assured that someone will give you a good answer for it without humiliating you. They also share information about problems along the route — for example, lock closures or fuel unavailability. They even share opinions about marina service and anchorages. There’s lots there and it can be found on the website or delivered to you via daily emails.

Full access to classified ads is also a benefit, and it’s one I took advantage of to get on the crew of a boat doing part of the loop starting later this summer.

There are Looper Lifestyle seminars held a few times a year at various locations along the loop. I suspect that these have been put on hold during COVID, but they do appear on the calendar for the future, so they might actually happen. Keeping in mind that a lot of folks live full-time on their boats, this is probably pretty informative for them.

Worth It?

I’m pretty leery of “associations.” I’ve been conned into joining more than a few that weren’t what I expected them to be.

Helicopter Association International (HAI) is a perfect example. This organization seems to cater to big helicopter operators while pretty much ignoring the needs of the little guy. I honestly believe that it was started by a bunch of guys who saw a way to make a living traveling around the country to host events while occasionally acting as spokespeople for the helicopter community. I got sucked into joining twice and let my membership lapse with a very bad taste in my mouth both times.

I’ve also had an unsatisfactory experience with Whirly Girls, an organization of female helicopter pilots. I blogged about my experience here, so I won’t cover it again.

So while I like being part of groups of people who share similar backgrounds or interests, I’m not the kind of person who will just pay up to be a member. I need the organization to satisfy my needs.

In this case, my need is for information. The AGLCA does satisfy my need, but there’s a lot of pay-as-you-go along the way. I’m starting out, my knowledge base was nearly blank. They’re helping me fill it in and I believe the forums will be very useful for getting questions answered.

The fee is $89/year with discounts for longer terms or a lifetime membership. Is it worth it? I think it might be, at least right now. If those videos were free to members, it would definitely be worth it.

Footnote:

Last night, I watched one of the webinars that normally costs $25 but was free for AGLCA members. To watch it, I had to follow a link to get a promo code, then log into Vimeo, click to Rent the video, and enter the promo code. It took about 10 minutes for the video to appear in the Vimeo app on my television, but when it did, was able to watch it on the big screen.

It was an Aqua Map app demonstration by the developers. Although the video quality started out pretty bad (on a 4K TV), either I got used to it or it improved because it didn’t seem so bothersome after the initial shock. The developers had recorded and edited a tutorial style video that showed finger tapping on a smaller screen and results on a bigger screen. That was pretty effective, despite the strong Italian accents of the presenters. They gave a good tour of the app, but spent (in my opinion) too much time on the “Master” features that I don’t think will appeal to average users. I still don’t know how they got river mileage to display; they showed the feature but not how to enable it. When the tutorial video was over, they answered questions that had been posted live during the webinar. This didn’t go as smoothly as it could have, but they were definitely trying hard.

On a scale of 1 to 5, I’d give the webinar a 3. That score reflects the length of time they spent on Master features and the difficulty they had answering questions quickly and effectively. It wasn’t a waste of my time, but I sure wish it hadn’t been 90 minutes long.

Was it worth $25? I say no. I hope the other ones I get a chance to view are better.

Traveling in COVID Times

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Almost surreal.

This past Monday, I headed out for a six day trip to California and back. The goal was to deliver my helicopter to a friend in the Los Angeles area. He’ll be leasing it for the next two months and I’ll get it back in mid May. I flew my helicopter down, accompanied part of the way by my friend, and took an airliner home. It was the first time I’ve been in an airliner in about two years.

I thought I’d blog briefly about the hotels, restaurants, and airports I stopped in along the way, mostly because the experiences were so unlike what I’ve had in the past.

The Hotels

The trip required a total of five nights in hotels. Across the board, all hotels required masks in the lobby and other public areas.

The first two nights were in McMinnville, Oregon, where I had stopped to get the helicopter an annual inspection prior to delivering it in Los Angeles. I stayed at a Comfort Inn for about $100/night. The room was comfortable, with everything I needed to get some work done while I waited.

On one full day of my stay in the area, I went to the Evergreen Aviation Museum, which I hope to blog about elsewhere. Afterwards, I went into town to grab a bite to eat — more on that later.

Evergreen
The Spruce Goose at Evergreen Aviation Museum was one of the highlights of my trip.

When I got back to my room, I was surprised to see that it had not been freshened by housekeeping. I later discovered that housekeeping services for stay-over guests is something I shouldn’t expect these days. I’m not sure why; maybe they are trying to reduce the exposure of housekeeping staff to potentially infected rooms? I wouldn’t have minded so much, but by not freshening the room, I came back to the same full garbage pail I’d left with the added aroma of that garbage and no coffee for the morning. While I like clean towels and a made bed, not getting those wasn’t a hardship at all.

The breakfast room was pared down beyond reason. They didn’t want you sitting in there, which I could understand, and they made it easy enough to take food to go (and add to your in-room garbage collection). But they lacked a lot of the easy (and safe) basics, like instant oatmeal, cereal packages, or a toaster for the bread, which was placed, unwrapped, in a self-serve lucite box. So yes, you could get a piece of bread or English muffin that everyone may have breathed on, but you couldn’t toast it.

The next night was spent at a Red Roof Inn in Susanville, CA, which was also about $100 for the night. That hotel didn’t even have a coffee maker in the room. And since the hotel consisted of multiple buildings, getting coffee in the lobby in my lounge clothes was not an option. Fortunately, there was a Starbucks across the street, which we hit on our way back to the airport. I’m a sucker for their double smoked bacon sandwiches and can tolerate their lattes.

The last two nights were spent at the Los Angeles Airport Hilton on Century Boulevard. At $125 per night for a 12th floor room that overlooked runways 25L and 25R, I really enjoyed just sitting in my room in the morning and evening, watching the planes go by. (I even live-streamed the action for about 90 minutes.) This is one of the old, soundproofed hotels between the runways on Century, built in 1983. As one Trip Advisor reviewer said, “This is a Hilton, built when Hilton’s were top of the line.” If you stayed in Hiltons back in those days — as I did for my business travel in the late 1980s — you know exactly what he’s talking about. The Hilton name used to mean quality and this hotel is from that era, although it was renovated in 2013. Solid rooms with nice furniture. Giant mirrors for checking your image before going out to that business meeting or a show. Hell, even a lighted makeup mirror in the bathroom. It did lack a few of the amenities you’d find in a modern business hotel, such as additional outlets and USB ports. And it didn’t have the microwaves and fridges I’d had in the other two hotels I stayed in. But my room was large and there were enough towels for both nights of my stay.

View from my Room
I paid $10/night extra for a room facing the runways. Does that make me an #AvGeek?

What was weird, however, was the cold emptiness of the lobby, with minimal furniture — basically a handful of high-top bar tables and chairs — and no lingering people. The second floor, which probably gave access to the pool and hot tubs I could see from my room, was closed. One of the restaurants was closed; another had opened for the first time in a year that very day. Room service was not available. Even that notebook full of hotel information, menus, and area details was missing. Stickers on the elevator floor instructed you to stand in a corner if you were riding with someone else.

Yet the airport shuttle service was completely packed in the morning with so many people waiting that I actually walked a block away to the Marriott to get on their shuttle, which quickly filled up. I guess social distancing only applies when it’s convenient.

Eating Out

I fully expected to do all my dining outdoors or in my room. I had no desire to eat in an enclosed space — and yes, that includes tents erected in parking lots — with a bunch of maskless strangers. (Eating in contributed greatly to my in-room garbage collection.)

I went for a wine tasting in downtown McMinnville. It was outdoor seating and very pleasant. Afterwards, I found a restaurant with outdoor dining in little pods (for lack of a better name). They were small, individual tents, open on one end, with just a single table and four or six chairs in each. I felt pretty safe in there with my mask off, especially since I ate early in the day and may have been the first person in there since lunchtime.

I ate a ton of fast food before getting to Los Angeles. McDonald’s breakfast, Starbucks coffee with breakfast, KFC dinner. Okay, so maybe that’s not “a ton.” But it’s a lot more than I usually eat in a week.

The only time we ate indoors was at the airport restaurant at South Lake Tahoe. We were two of only six customers when we arrived. The server wore a mask the whole time. We didn’t linger.

For dinner at the Hilton, I had to go to the restaurant in the lobby, order my meal to go from the limited menu I was permitted to look at, wait at one of those high top tables in the empty lobby, and take the food upstairs with me. I discovered that my food wasn’t as described on the menu, but it tasted okay. I wish it had been hotter and I was glad I had wine with me. I could have eaten in the restaurant — there were hardly any people in there — but why take a chance?

I had breakfast and lunch at the Los Angeles Farmer’s Market the next day. The last time I’d been there was in the late 1980s and I could not believe how much it had changed. Yes, the charming, closed in area of vendors still existed. What surprised me about the area is how they’d built an entire shopping center around the old Farmer’s Market. I had coffee and a french pastry for breakfast and later had empanadas and an Italian pastry for lunch. In all cases, I found a table off to itself, unmasked, ate, and masked back up. Everyone in Los Angeles was wearing masks inside and out. They apparently get it. (I admit that it took me a little while to get into the habit of wearing a mask outside.)

LA Farmer's Market
At the LA Farmer’s Market. This part is what I remembered from 30 years ago, but I remember it being a lot busier.

I had a snack later at the Santa Monica pier. Again, I ate outside. It was pleasant.

Santa Monica Pier
I killed some time at the Santa Monica pier on a gorgeous day.

By the way, I used Uber to get around Los Angeles. I had to agree to wear a mask before confirming my ride. All the drivers were masked and most windows were open. I didn’t share a ride with anyone.

(And seriously: how do Angelinos deal with all that freaking traffic?)

The Airports

I was at two kinds of airports during my trip: small general aviation and large commercial.

Mask use was hit or miss at the small airports, most of which were in rural areas where folks tend not to worry too much about the virus. But everyone I saw in Tahoe and Los Angeles was wearing a masks, inside and out.

At LAX, announcements warned that if you didn’t wear a mask in the terminal, they’d kick you out. I had to wait 15 minutes (at 6:30 AM) to get into the Alaska Air lounge — I think they were trying to discourage visitors by making us sign up and wait. When I got in, I was asked to stay masked unless I was eating or drinking and then to mask up afterwards. There was plenty of space between groups of guests. At one point, about half the people in there weren’t masked; they made an announcement and then followed it up with a person going table to table to remind people. This was my first visit to an Alaska Air lounge and I enjoyed it.

On the plane, it was the same thing: wear a mask or get kicked out. Of course, they couldn’t kick you out during the flight, but I can only assume that a troublesome passenger would be met by police on landing. I was flying in first class, which included a meal. (I could swear I ordered a sausage and egg wrap, but what I was given was an egg salad wrap. At 8:30 AM. At least it tasted good.) We were told to mask up as soon as we were finished eating or drinking.

I did notice that some of the first class services I’d come to expect were missing. There were no drinks before takeoff while the plane loaded. The flight attendant didn’t offer to hang up my jacket (although I wound up wearing it during the fight anyway.) There were no hot towels before the meal. There was no alcohol other than beer or wine — this seriously bummed me out because I really look forward to bloody marys with breakfast in first class. Besides, who drinks beer or wine in the morning?

Everyone wore masks at SeaTac and, again, there were regular announcements telling you to do so. It’s a federal law. (Thank you, President Biden.)

I had high expectations for the Alaska Lounge at SeaTac, which is, after all, Alaska Air’s hub. I was disappointed. I had the worst bloody mary I’d had in my life — seriously, bud, you only need a drop of Worcestershire — and the only food choices were apples, oranges, a salad, or tomato soup. Service was definitely lacking — I got the distinct impression that the staff simply didn’t care. (The LAX staff was worlds better.) Access to the lounge had come with my First Class (not upgraded) ticket, but I can only imagine how bummed out I’d be if I’d paid the $25 day fee for the privilege of getting that horrible bloody mary.

My flight from SeaTac to Wenatchee was the same as usual, but with masks. They used to offer a beverage service but had stopped long ago. Hell, it’s only a 20-minute flight. Is it really worth handing out cups of bottled water on a flight that short? I don’t. The only drawback is that Alaska had cut the flights to Wenatchee to just two a day and the other one arrives near midnight. This early afternoon flight was packed. I sure wish they’d add back a few flights.

Vacationing During COVID

I should remind readers that this was not a vacation for me. I made the trip for business. I would not have gone if I didn’t have to.

But it wasn’t like that for a lot of the folks on the airport shuttle from hotel to LAX. More than half of them were going on vacation with their kids in tow. At least one family was going to Hawaii.

The only thing I can say to that is WTF? After spending nearly a week sweating behind a mask every time I was in public — which was nearly all the time — I can’t imagine going on a vacation for more of the same. Why not wait until the pandemic is over or more people are vaccinated?

Are people absolutely nuts?

Anyway, I’m glad to be home with my pups and the projects that keep me busy here. I’ll venture down into town once or twice a week as necessary. I have no plans to travel again until May — when it’s time to bring my helicopter home.

Going First Class

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Sometimes spending a little more on your comfort is really worth it.

I was brought up in a lower middle class family that, in my later teen years, was upgraded to middle class after my mom’s divorce and remarriage. I struggled financially to live on my own for a while after college, and then struggled a little less when I began living with my future wasband. It wasn’t until I was in my late-thirties that I began earning what I’d consider a very good living.

Living when money is tight — but not tight enough to actually cause you to miss meals, get evicted, or turn to payroll lending storefronts to meet financial obligations — teaches you frugality and comparison shopping skills. You quickly learn that if you need to buy something, you need to shop around a bit to get the best deal. You need your money to go further. This becomes a mindset, something you do naturally. Something you can’t imagine not doing.

Travel on the Cheap

Even when my personal financial situation started looking very rosy, I was stuck in that mindset. That was especially so when I traveled for business in my early years as a writer. I was a regular speaker at Macworld Expo in San Francisco, Boston, and later, New York. I even spoke twice at the event in Toronto.

Macworld did not cover my cost to travel to these events. Its only compensation was free unlimited entrance to the show, snacks and swag in the Speaker room, and a Speaker ribbon that often led to more swag at booths. (The Press ribbon, which I earned by writing for some tech magazines back then, actually worked better.) The cost of airfare and hotels was on me. This was a pretty big financial burden, especially when I traveled to expensive San Francisco from the New York Metro area.

So I shopped for airfare. And yes, I’d even stoop to taking a non-direct flight or redeye if it could save some money. And then I shopped for hotels, winding up with satisfactory lodging within walking distance from the venue.

The crazy thing about all this was that my travel related to the event was a business expense — no doubt about it — and I could write it all off on my taxes, which I did. (Contrary to what some people think, writing things off on your taxes doesn’t mean the government pays for it. It means that it reduces your taxable income. So if you spend $1000 on a trip and your tax rate is 28%, it’s like getting a 28% discount on that expense.) But I was still in that watch-every-penny mindset and even though I could afford better flights or lodging, I just couldn’t see spending more when I could spend less.

That all came to a head one year on a San Francisco trip.

Seeing the Light

Macworld Expo in San Francisco was held in January. While the weather in San Francisco in January isn’t nearly as frigid as it is where I lived in New Jersey, it could be cold. I’d booked a room at the Victorian Hotel — now the Mosser Hotel — on 4th Street, less than three blocks from Moscone. (I think the hotel was just beginning its name change process back in those days — maybe 1998? — because I remember the new name.) I’d stayed there at least once before, so I knew what to expect. (Or thought I did.) The hotel was popular with speakers because it was relatively inexpensive. But it was inexpensive for a reason: it was old and in sore need of renovation. (I hope it’s been fixed up since then.) It did have a good restaurant on the ground floor, though: Annabelle’s was the name. (Funny the things we remember.)

On that particular year, San Francisco was cold and so was my room. The heat — a radiator! — simply did not work. I called down to the desk to see if they could do anything and they sent up a bellman with five blankets. I slept under a pile of seven blankets for the next few nights and dreaded showering.

I remember thinking to myself: What the fuck is wrong with you? You can afford a better room that this! Isn’t your comfort worth it?

The answer, of course, was yes. The next few years, I stayed at the W across the street from Moscone, where I was introduced to modern rooms, feather beds, and other very nice treats.

Airline Travel

The airfare lesson took a bit longer to kick in.

I admit that I stopped doing flights with connections unless there was no other option early on. (My wasband, however, did not. I remember one year when he paid for his family to come to Arizona from New York for Christmas. He bought them tickets on an airline called ATA, which was really cheap, probably because it only had like four planes. The flights had a stopover in Chicago, but not at O’Hare like a normal airline. They stopped at Midway. As anyone could expect in December in Chicago, weather moved in and the plane got suck at Midway. Then there was a mechanical issue. The delay was long and when his mom and sister finally arrived in Phoenix, they were extremely travel worn and cranky — can you blame them? The punchline: he only saved $50 per ticket over a direct flight with another airline. And yes, he could afford the $50 per person.) I’d had enough experience with the problems that arise when you have connecting flights and unnecessary stopovers. Why make a trip more difficult than it needs to be?

Of course, I usually fly out of Wenatchee these days and Horizon only operates a turboprop to Seattle, so all of my flights to anywhere other than Seattle have at least two legs. That can actually work out to benefit me, as you’ll learn in a moment.

(The only trip I occasionally do that I can’t avoid three flights is to visit my sister in St. Augustine, FL. The closest airports are Jacksonville and Daytona and the last time I went there no direct flights from Seattle. That meant flying from Wenatchee to Seattle to Atlanta to Jacksonville and then doing all that in reverse on the way home. No matter how you slice it, you’re traveling for a whole day.)

A few years back, when I was still doing frost control work in California from January and into March, I had a contract where I could stay home until called out. The call would come at 3:30 PM, which is when the hyperlocal weather forecast the grower subscribed to would be released for the evening. As I talked to him, I packed. When I hung up, I booked a flight from Wenatchee to Sacramento. As I was driving to the airport, I booked boarding for my dog, Penny, and dropped her off. As I waited at Wenatchee airport for my flight out, I booked my hotel and rental car. I’d arrive in Sacramento before 9 PM, get my car, and go to my hotel. In the morning, when I was released from standby, I’d book my return flight, check out of the hotel, and go home, picking Penny up along the way.

Every time I did this trip, I earned four legs on Alaska Air’s frequent flyer program. I did it six times in one season. That put me into MVP status. Suddenly, when I started flying Alaska Air, I’d get automatic upgrades to First Class at least 75% of the time. I enjoyed that for a year and a half — and I was doing a lot of airline travel back then. It spoiled me.

First Class is the Way to Travel

You have to understand that First Class isn’t just sitting in a bigger seat at the front of the plane — although, admittedly, that’s a real bonus. It’s free luggage check in. It’s often (depending got how you got to First Class) entry into the Alaska Lounge at SeaTac and a handful of other airports. It’s boarding first. It’s having a flight attendant take your jacket and put it on a hangar (and return it to you later while taxiing to the gate). It’s not having to shuffle down the aisle, hoping there’s space in the overhead bin for your bag. It’s having a drink — whatever you want — as everyone else boards. It’s having a warm towel to clean your hands, more drinks, a hot meal, and often a warm-from-the-oven cookie. It’s not having to worry about someone’s brat kicking the seat behind you or the jackass in front of you reclining his seat so you can count his hair follicles. It’s civilized and comfortable. It makes airline travel bearable.

Honestly, if you spend enough time on long flights — which I consider any flight over two hours — in First Class, you’ll wonder how the hell you managed to fly coach all those years.

Well, that’s how it was for me.

Good things don’t last forever and eventually my status as an Alaska Air MVP lapsed. I was back in the world of regular travel and I can’t say I was happy about it.

But what I discovered is that if I buy my ticket far enough in advance and I’m flexible about travel dates and times, I can often buy a first class ticket for just $100 to $300 more than coach. Here’s a random example for Alaska Air; in this case, if I were going to visit my brother in New Jersey, I’d be buying that First Class ticket leaving Wenatchee at 6:25 AM (keeping in mind that I’m a very early riser):

Fare Example
Would you rather spend five hours and 20 minutes in First Class or stuck in coach, rubbing elbows with some guy with body odor while a kid kicks the back of your seat? Oh, and don’t forget the ability to wait in the Alaska Lounge in Seattle for the two hours between my flight from Wenatchee to my flight out to Newark. Yes, it’s worth an extra $272 to me.

While I realize that not everyone has a few extra hundred bucks sitting around to piss away on air travel, I usually do. I don’t travel by air that much anymore and I want my experience to be as comfortable as possible. I travel alone now, so I don’t have to buy a ticket for traveling companions or worry about what they might be able to afford. I’ve come to realize that my comfort is worth the extra money.

Travel in Comfort

As I get older, I’ve come to realize that my personal comfort is important to me. If I can afford going First Class, I will.

That’s why I’m flying First Class from Los Angeles to Seattle next week. (There is no First Class on Seattle to Wenatchee legs.)

If you’re in a similar situation — older, traveling alone, money in the bank — and you’re not treating yourself to First Class travel when it’s available, why the hell not?