Traveling By Air... not this time

I don't mind driving, I actually enjoy it. Every family vacation I'm the designated driver and we usually take my Expedition so that the whole family (Me, my wife, our daughter, and my mother and father) has room to relax and we have plenty of space for luggage and a cooler. It really makes the trip pleasant.... for awhile.

The problem is when we start talking about 12+ hours in the car. My 2 year old daughter does well as long as she is entertained, but 12 hours is a lot for a little one. So, when we decided we'd be making a trip to Cape Corel, Florida this year I jumped online to find airline tickets. We were flexible on dates so I was able to find round trip air fares anywhere from $380 a person, to as low as $160 a person. This excited me, until I did the math... $160 times 5 people (we need a separate seat for my daughter now...)... is still $800. Which isn't bad except when we land: we need a car. A 10 day rental on a decent sized vehicle (which we need to hold all of our luggage), is another $500 or more. That brings the total for the trip to $1,300. That's also assuming we can get each person to only pack 1 suitcase... which is doubtful. Assuming we need 2 or 3 extra pieces of luggage on the plane, that's an extra $100 or so. We're now at $1,400 at least.

So next, I looked into driving. From Middletown, Ohio to Cape Coral, Florida is around 1,100 miles. Assuming gas is at $2.50 a gallon and my truck drinks it at a rate of a gallon every 14 miles... it will cost $392 in gas, round trip. That's $1,000 less than flying. Even considering any incidentals like more stops for meals, etc, we'd still save a fortune.

So... in this rough economy... how can I really justify spending $1,000 more on a trip than I have to? I can't. And that is why this year we will be driving to Florida and using our savings to enjoy activities that we otherwise might not have done.

Need a Projector Rental? Rent a projector from Rentourprojectors.com!

Vegas Vacation

Two weeks ago on Nov. 14th two friends of mine, my fiancé, and I decided to take a trip to Las Vegas, Nevada, also known as Sin City. We flew out from the Indianapolis Airport via AirTran and took a direct flight, which was great to avoid layover times and the hassle of changing planes. A week prior to the trip I had an occurrence at work where a customer of mine was interesting in renting a projector which would connect to their Microsoft Surface. When I initially received this request I was a bit confused as to what exactly a “Microsoft Surface” was until I did a bit of research. It turns out that several hotels in Vegas use the Microsoft Surface and I decided then that I would have two missions while on my trip. One being to win tons of money, and the second was to find an actual Microsoft Surface. On one of my outings I found a little boy playing with a projected image on the ground and once I got a bit closer I realized he was trying to catch a fish. Once he touched the “fish” they would scatter and the “water” would splash all around him. He was playing with a virtual fish tank and he was interacting with it by using a Microsoft Surface. This was seriously one of the coolest things I had seen on my trip and would highly recommend this product to anyone going to a tradeshow or convention that would like to catch people’s eyes.

Need a Projector Rental? Rent a projector from Rentourprojectors.com!

Traveling at Night

For some time now traveling on the highway at the wrong time of day has been bothering me. In particular the older I get the more I am annoyed by heavy traffic while traveling. The answer of course, which because of slowing reflexes and worsening eyesight is also harder enjoy with age, is simply driving at night when the roads are less congested.

This morning for example I had a great trip to the Columbus Airport. For us the drive was about 100 miles one way. If you have not been to the Columbus Airport you should know this pretty much requires a drive right though the middle of the city. Columbus at the wrong time of day can be a nightmare on the interstates. However we arrived on the outskirts of town around 4:30 a.m. and the traffic was delightfully almost nonexistent. Our flight departed at 6:00 so we had plenty of time to get to the Airport and get checked in.

Longer trips can also benefit from traveling late at night. My Father-In-Law for example departs his cabin in Tennessee, a 4 hour drive, at 2:00 a.m. every time he comes home. This gets him though Lexington and Cincinnati long before the morning rush hour commuters have even gotten out of bed. He admittedly dislikes traffic even more than I do. He is of course much older so I would not be surprised if I find myself at that level someday.

The only time I have trouble with this scheme is when the check-in time for the hotel and the travel time don’t work together nicely and I am forced to chose between traveling at night and arriving early or traveling during the day so as to arrive within an hour or so of an expected check-in time. One such problem is our trip to Destin Florida. A 12 hour drive with a typical check-in of 4:00 p.m. On the last trip we left at 4:00 a.m. and arrived at a good time for check-in but I had little time with the highway to myself. Perhaps next time we will shoot for a 9:00 p.m. departure and, if weather permits, simply hit the beach and nap till check-in time -- sounds good in theory anyway.

Need a Projector Rental? Rent a projector from Rentourprojectors.com!

Destin Florida 2008

If you have read even a few of my other blogs you would know that Destin Florida is my favorite vacation spot. This year we traveled with my 6 year old son Nathan and my 12 year old step daughter Leanna.

Leaving from Middletown Ohio at 3:00 a.m. in the morning we made good time on the trip and with light traffic and great kids we had an enjoyable ride. Of course our favorite stop on the way down was the welcome center on I65 South right across the Tennessee border. If you have not traveled this way before you are missing one cool place to get out and "stretch". As of course Alabama is deeply involved in our space program it is fitting that their rest stop has an actual Saturn B-1 rocket.

Completing the trip in just over 13 hours, not sure what happened as we were expecting 12 hours, we were pleasantly surprised with our newly refurbished room at the Islander Condominium in Destin. On room on the seventh floor, was roomy, updated, and offered a great view of the gulf.

The water this year was again perfect. The light emerald green of the water is of course the the reason the area is called the Emeral Coast. One thing we noticed right away was the large school of minnows hugging the shore line. The schools were so large and dense that you would not from any distance believe that the large dark spots could actually be a bunch of fish. This of course gave the kids a constant source of entertainment as their efforts to catch them never ceased, nor did the efforts of some larger fish that often darted in and out of the school.

After four nights however it was time to head back, and I think we did pretty well with the condominiums recommendation to leave all technology behind and enjoy the view. My wife i think managed to get thought about 500 pages of her book, while I managed 5 pages but got a lot more wave time in. But of course we had high speed internet in the room and a nice 50 inch plasma that we seldom had time to turn on.

Speaking of hardware and technology on the way back we stayed in a very nice Hyatt in Nashville Tennessee. The room was amazing and the large screen plasma there had a custom built in connection panel in the side of the bookcase on which it was sitting. The connection panel allowed for the hookup of just about any device you could imagine and not just video devices.

There was however on problem with the trip that involved Orbitz and the Hyatt. As we had booked our Hyatt stay on Orbitz prior to leaving Destin we never thought twice about their "Price Assurance" and we thought our Orbitz rate of $159 for such a nice hotel so close to the Nashville airport was a good rate. Well we thought that until the Hyatt kiosk we used to checkout with gave us a receipt for $109. After several calls, e-mailing and a faxing of our Hyatt receipt to Obitz we have not heard back from anyone and we have had to dispute the charge through our credit card provider.

So if you take anything away from this post it should be that Destin Florida is still a great place for a trip if you live within 12 hours or so and that if you need a room, go ahead and call the property first to check rates before you just trust that some giant travel site will actually follow through with their low rate promises.

Need a Projector Rental? Rent a projector from Rentourprojectors.com!