Ray's Travels

We recently returned from a motor trip the the Muskoga region of Ontario to visit friends and then on to Michigan to visit family. Things went very well. The weather was nice and the driving was good. We had a good time with all.
While in Michigan we had dinner at a restaurant with family, relatives and friends. I always find these enjoyable. It’s casual, friendly and there is no drama. Everyone is there to have a good time.
We visited my cousin and her husband who have a residence in a very rural area. He is into restoring cars. It was great to see what he is doing. He has a Model T. I got to drive it. The Model T was produced before the current configuration of pedals and throttles. It was a fun learning experience. We all had a good time. They are nice people.
So tell me that cars haven’t changed much in the last 80 years.

Marie in the 1922 Model “T”. The silver car in the background is ours.

The 1928 Model “A”.

The silver car. A 2008 Jaguar XKR. I’m letting my cousin’s husband take it for a spin.

We decide to take a luxury vacation to the Almalfi Coast in Italy for our anniversary. We book a $500/night (off season) room in a hotel in Positano. The travel arrangements are made so that we go out of JFK to Paris. From there we are to take a connecting flight to Naples. I’ve arranged a rental car and a hotel for a night in Naples. From there we will drive to Positano.

Problem is, the flight leaves late from JFK. We arrive in Paris too late to make our connecting flight. The airline finds a way to get us into Naples by having us connect through Rome. OK. I had this whole thing arranged so that we would be driving in the daytime. We get into Naples and it is dark. Worse, our luggage doesn’t arrive because it didn’t follow our actual flights. Not a big surprise. We go to the car rental counter to get the car. It’s dark out. I ask the agent behind the counter for directions to the hotel. She says, “Go out of the airport onto the main highway and go to exit 6. From there, I don’t know.” Now I know I’m in trouble.

If you look at a map of Naples it is like looking at a bowl of well-cooked spaghetti. But then, you have to understand that these roads are mostly on hillsides. We asked direction no less than six times but somehow made it to the hotel. I don’t know how. The hand of God?

The next day I try to track down the luggage. It will arrive in the evening. I tell them to hold it at the airport and I will pick it up. If I wait at the hotel who knows how long that will take? We spend the day being tourists in Naples.

In the afternoon we take the car to go to the airport to get the luggage. We are doing our best to figure out the map to get us out of the city. Problem is, some roads are closed and we are being funneled down side streets so we have no idea where we are. I’ve got a rental car and no experience driving in Europe, much less Italy. If you’ve ever driven in Naples, there are a minimal number of traffic lights and nobody pays attention to them anyway. Again, through some miracle we make it to the airport. With an appropriate wait I retrieve the luggage. Back in the car to the drive to Positano. Now it’s dark and it is raining. The road along the Almalfi Coast is one long, severely winding, narrow (hardly enough for two vehicles) road that has too few guardrails and shear drop-offs. It’s touristy so there are buses screaming down the road so it’s every person for themselves. Then, of course, there are the drivers that think they are Emerson Fittipaldi and have to demonstrate their driving skills by driving like assholes. It’s one of my worst nightmares. Again, somehow we make it to the hotel.

We had a great stay, drove back to Naples in the daytime but when I got back to the Naples airport I was never so glad to turn in a rental car (and I’ve rented a lot of them). There was a hubcap missing that they didn’t catch and charge me for. Although I tried to fill the tank before I turned the car in they said it wasn’t full and nicked my credit card for $40. I didn’t even care to contest it. At least the car wasn’t wrecked and we were alive.

I was thinking that I was having too good of a run of good luck with my air travel. After the Cuba fiascos things had been quite smooth. In two long trips to Argentina, a trip to Haiti and our trip out to Denver there had been no problems or serious delays. All that changed yesterday. As far as I know, yesterday I came the closest I have ever been to being in a plane crash.

On Friday we went to Denver for a Board of Directors meeting for Mercy & Sharing (http://www.haitichildren.com/), the organization we support in Haiti. We returned yesterday on United flight 814. Every seat in the plane was full. Everything was going fine. In fact, we were due to arrive about a half hour early at LaGuardia airport.

As the plane approached LaGuardia at the point where the landing gear is lowered we heard a horrible noise underneath and at the front of the plane. It wasn’t really an explosion but it was a loud sudden noise, a “bang” and then another long noise that almost sounded like grinding of large machinery, gears that weren’t meshing. I had never heard that before and of course I’m thinking that this can’t be good. Then I noticed the plane seemed to climb gradually rather than continue it’s descent. A few minutes later the pilot came on PA and says there is a “systems” problem and that they will have to take a few minutes to work it out and that they will have to assess whether they can land at LaGuardia.

For what seemed like the longest time, the people in the plane were almost silent and we knew nothing. Eventually, the pilot came on the PA and announced that we would be landing at JFK. Again, this can’t be good. I figure it had to be something with the landing gear and they needed the longer runway at JFK. The runways at LaGuardia are notoriously short and if something goes amiss a plane can end up in the water. We, the passengers, don’t know what to expect. Will we have to make a belly landing? Is the landing gear in danger of collapsing? Will we go into a skid? Everything runs through your mind. I was looking to make sure I knew where the emergency exits were.

With no special instructions to the passengers the pilot brings the plane in. The landing actually seemed very normal except for the many emergency vehicles with lights flashing at the end of the runway. Finally, the pilot gets on the PA and explains that the plane blew out a hydraulic line. They lost control of the steering and some of the systems on the left side of the plane. When the plane came to a stop it was about a mile and a half from the gate. We sat there, again for what seemed like forever, lights flashing on the emergency vehicles, while they assessed the plane and got a tow vehicle out to get us to a gate. It was a slow crawl. Finally, we got towed to the gate and unloaded.

This kind of thing must be more common than we think. I didn’t see a thing about it in the news. The woman sitting in our row works for NBC News and she said there were about 10 people on the plane that worked for NBC news.

I checked on a website called Flight Tracker (http://flightaware.com/). There was nothing there that indicated that the plane landed at JFK. However, there was another flight with a duration of 3 minutes at 12:44 am. Apparently, they made a quick fix at JFK and got the plane back to LaGuardia so it could be put back in service.

Kudos to the pilot. I am also very thankful that nobody on the plane got hysterical. I heard that there was one woman who was afraid of flying who was crying the whole time but she didn’t use her trauma to traumatize everyone else. It was actually a very cool crowd. I can only imagine what it would have been like if it hadn’t been.

I’m not traveling now so I thought that may I would occasionally post some anecdotes from earlier trips. I hope you find them entertaining.

Venice, Italy

One of our early bicycle trips was in Italy. We went from Trento to Venice. It was one of my favorite trips. We ended up in Venice and had an off day to sightsee before flying out. Our hotel was not in Venice so we had to take the water taxi there for the sightseeing. There was a single woman on the trip who asked to join us on our off day. She was a surgeon from Washington, DC. We said that would be fine. In the morning we took the water taxi, first to Murano to visit a glass factory and then to Venice. It was one of those things where they will take you to Murano free of charge and the to Venice because they want you to buy something at the factory after viewing their demonstration. We did buy a very unique piece that I love. The surgeon was looking for a gift for her boyfriend and kept asking my opinion. We went on to Venice to see the city. At one point we agreed to split up and meet later.

So later that evening we meet up in Venice. We decide to go to Harry’s Bar which is a place that is in the guidebooks. It is one of those places where authors and important people hung out in the days when very few people had the opportunity to travel. The three of us show up at Harry’s and the surgeon is in the lead. She opens the door and almost falls back on us. The first person she sees is a middle age to elderly man standing at the bar in a hot pink silk jump suit. OK. We walk in and at a table to the side is an elderly transvestite. This could be an interesting evening.

We find a table. The headwaiter takes a liking to us. We are just ordering drinks. It’s late, they are not going to serve much more food so he starts bringing us samples from the kitchen at no cost.

Behind us is an American middle aged woman and her daughter who is probably about 20 years old. A conversation begins. The story the woman tells us is that she came to Italy because her husband is divorcing her and she has scheduled a meeting at the Vatican to contest the annulment that her husband was seeking. She brought her daughter along. When in Rome she saw a poster of a young girl that had been kidnapped, probably by gypsies. This woman claimed to have seen the child in Rome and went to the police. The police held her there most of the day questioning her. At this point we are starting to question her veracity.

More to the story. This woman rents a motor scooter in Rome to go to the Vatican. (Rome is full of noisy scooters.) Of course, she proceeds to wreck the thing and injure her leg. She has serious contusions. At this point our surgeon friend says, “Let me see it.” The woman says, “Are you a nurse?” Our friend says, “No, I’m a surgeon.” Everyone goes silent. The daughter is mortified. The look of embarrassment on her face was priceless. She wants out of there. This trip has not been a good time for her. She knows her mother is a nutcase. We have begun to realize that the mother really is a nutcase. She’s a drama queen and delusional. She didn’t actually see some kidnapped child because her story didn’t check out. It was all about her.

Anyway, the place is ready to close. The headwaiter is still taking a liking to us and is giving the Marie and the surgeon souvenir glasses. We find the water taxi and get back to the hotel.

I can’t make up a story like that. I may lack drama but it is anecdotal. We enjoyed it. Hope you do also.

More to come.

Normally, February can be a good month weatherwise in New York. It may be cold but the the skies will be clear and it is tolerable. March tends to be much more challenging. It should be warming up but it can oftentimes be cold, chilling and there can be snow mixed with sleet. That is the worst type of weather. Cold, dry snow is better than wet sleet.

So it is about mid-March and we are at our country house. The temperature is over 60F and we are riding our bicycles. This can’t be real!

We rode about 18 miles yesterday and rode about 35 miles today. It was as if it was the middle of May except the terrain wasn’t as green.

We enjoy the fact that we are back on the bicycles but it shouldn’t be like this in the middle of March. Will there be a snowstorm on the 4th of July?