05.16.2017<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I frequently describe myself as a \u201cnervous traveler\u201d or just \u201cnot a great traveler\u201d but I\u2019ve started to rethink those ideas. It\u2019s true that I feel somewhat incompetent when I travel by plane, mainly because for most of my life I would fly once every few years, maybe twice in a really big year. In my younger days, I was always too broke for anything but long car trips or the \u2018hound. That\u2019s what the cool broke people call the Greyhound bus, btw. Well that\u2019s what I call it, anyway. And I hope to avoid it for the rest of my life. Speaking of buses, I once went on the Mexican version of the \u2018hound and some of my fellow passengers were actual birds. That was an adventure. Would a bad traveler do that? Maybe I\u2019ve had the potential to be a good traveler, but not the resources? Hmmm\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My second marriage was to a great traveler, so I had high hopes that we\u2019d go a lot of places together and I\u2019d become an expert at it. But we had lots of kids (three, but all boys and in less than four years, so it\u2019s really like having fifteen) immediately, so my travel dreams were put on hold while I was tethered to the earth. We did take a LOT of road trips, which is really the way to go when you have young children. At least if your asshole kid is screaming in your personal minivan you don\u2019t have to apologize to anyone when you put in ear plugs and ignore him for 7 hours. And nobody has to know that you are carrying around a large bottle for the children to pee in, that you actually refer to as \u201cthe pee bottle\u201d because you\u2019re just handing them any damn juice box they want so their little mouths will be quiet for a while, but you don\u2019t want to have to stop at sketchy gas station bathrooms every 40 miles when you could just pull over for a pit stop and then empty child pee all over these great United States. I bet this ensured that search dogs could have easily located my family on any of our trips, had we needed to be rescued, so really it was a win-win. Plus, I always researched any weird and interesting places that might be along our route, so we\u2019d get to see some crazy shit, like a giant King Kong statue, boat and train-shaped restaurants, the Precious Moments chapel, a big blue whale you could wander inside of, multiple Elvises (Elvi?) and South of the Border, where Pedro sez you need to stop, so you just do. I will always go out of my way to see something unusual. It\u2019s one of my life\u2019s guiding principles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So maybe I could be a good traveler, but I just haven\u2019t flown often enough to totally get the hang of it. My air travel skills are still like those of a very old, very young, or slightly drunk person. I am unclear about what is happening, but I\u2019m really excited! I can\u2019t figure out how to check in my bag, and I ALWAYS have a bag to check, because I have not mastered the skill of paring things down when I might NEED a variety of shoes and multiple books. There are always new and unpleasant protocols to follow, just to get near the plane, like shoe removal and weird body scans and threats of pat downs and anal probing. It is all really confusing and makes me rumpled and disoriented and protective of my body parts. I\u2019m getting better with it, though. This has been a big travel year for me, possibly the biggest ever. I\u2019ve flown 4 times since July! I know, right? It\u2019s huge! I stayed in hotels by myself twice and it was glorious. I have plans for even more travel in the upcoming months. Soon there may be a time when I can call myself a great traveler. And I will! The main thing I\u2019ve realized is that in order to navigate travel one needs to READ THE SIGNS. There are many of them posted. They are telling you things that you need to know. This is good practice for life in general, not just for traveling. Read the signs!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I love being at the airport so much more than the actual flying part. It\u2019s really fun to watch all of the people. So many interesting outfit choices. People are either super-fancy or they\u2019re like, \u201cScrew it! Why shower or wear anything clean when I\u2019m going on a damn plane? I\u2019ll just wear these pajama pants with the blown-out elastic waist. Yup, that\u2019s my butt crack. No need to hold up the security line when you can see for yourself that I\u2019m not hiding anything in there. You\u2019re welcome everyone.\u201d Hmmm\u2026maybe those people are on to something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I usually spend money that I would not ordinarily spend in airport stores, and not just at the Starbucks. Magazines are a given, because Us Weekly is never more compelling than when you read it on a plane. But I\u2019ll even be tempted by souvenirs FROM MY OWN CITY. On my most recent trip, I had to convince myself that I didn\u2019t need to bring a packet of \u201cchili-fixin\u2019s\u201d from the Austin airport with me to New York. If I hadn\u2019t been distracted, I would have totally picked up those fixin\u2019s (oh my God, it is killing me to make something plural with an apostrophe, but I think that\u2019s the way you are required to do it with something called \u201cfixin\u2019s\u201d) on the way home. And I\u2019ll just admit here that if I\u2019ve ever given you a gift after I\u2019ve taken a trip where I traveled by plane, there is an 85% chance I got it at the airport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am not at all a fan of the actual flying on the plane part. It\u2019s always too cold and claustrophobic for me to really be comfortable. And despite my lack of frequent flying, I\u2019ve had some weird and unfortunate flight experiences. Have you ever been screamed at by a hysterical flight attendant to put on your oxygen mask while you made an emergency landing because of an issue with cabin pressure? I have. The bags do not inflate, but the oxygen still flows, just like they said it would. How about being on a flight that is rerouted to a different place, because after four insanely turbulent attempts at landing in a dust storm in El Paso, the plane is running out of fuel and the pilot is will finally admit defeat, as your fellow passengers get teary, throw up and pray. I had that harrowing experience with Shakira and her husband last summer. Thank God I was with them, because they are never opposed to getting drunk and that was exactly what I needed to do, once we were on firm ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Usually if I\u2019m flying alone, I take Dramamine, put on a fuzzy neck pillow and try to fall asleep and miss as much of the flight as possible. Do good travelers do this? Do they bring better distractions? Do have access to better drugs? Are these some of those adult secrets I never seem to know until it\u2019s really late, like that people who have kids, but also have clean houses most likely *pay other people* to clean them. Or that more people than you\u2019d suspect, who don\u2019t have those \u201celeven\u201d lines between their eyebrows, that you get from thinking \u201cWTF?\u201d too often get a little botox there? I didn\u2019t know these things before and just thought I was failing at things like cleanliness and graceful aging. Perhaps it is the same with travel? Are there just a few more things I should learn and then I will be an amazing traveler? Let me know!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
05.16.2017 I frequently describe myself as a \u201cnervous traveler\u201d or just \u201cnot a great traveler\u201d but I\u2019ve started to rethink those ideas. It\u2019s true that I feel somewhat incompetent when I travel by plane, mainly because for most of my life I would fly once every few years, maybe twice in a really big year. … <\/p>\n