Category Archives: Travel

On deciding whether or not to scratch an itch…

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I’m inching closer to the idea of packing a bag and taking a few days away. I haven’t been on a proper vacation in years and there’s part of me that feels like I could be well served by having a stretch of time where I don’t have to be the head cook and bottle washer of all household operations. A few days with a guide and a driver and needing to make very few decisions feels kind of ideal. 

I’ve gone so far as narrowing down dates and destinations, pricing out travel options, and looking at a host of optional day trips and activities. The thing I haven’t done – and the one bit that could readily derail any kind of quality planning – is sorted out what I’ll do with a dog, two cats, and a tortoise while I’m traipsing around interesting new locales. I struggle a bit leaving them for what amounts to a glorified long weekend around the Christmas season… and even then, Jorah is along for the ride with me. 

The fact is, Jorah will be six years old in October and I haven’t spent a night away from him. Given his somewhat neurotic tendencies, I don’t have a real warm fuzzy about how well he’d react to being turned over to a kennel for a week. There’s always the option of hiring a live in sitter for the duration of the trip… an option that triggers a lot of feelings of grave distrust of having unknown people in my personal space unaccompanied. Add in my never resolved guilt that one of the last times I went away I came home just in time to find Hershel sick and dying and race him hopelessly to the emergency vet. It’s not a recipe for making animal care decisions especially easy.

I know there are a lot of my own issues rolled up there. Animals are supposedly very adaptable – likely more so than I am myself. I should probably just make the reservations and force the issue, but I can’t quite bring myself to pull that particular trigger.

Georgia on my mind…

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I’m not sure if I’ve written about it here before. If I have, I can only beg your indulgence. You try writing up 4,000+ posts across more than a decade while trying not to cover the same ground too often and see how well it works for you. In any case, it’s a thought that has crept up on me repeatedly in the past few weeks, so I’m giving it voice.

I assume this particular memory keeps cropping up because of the relationship I have with my employer and planning. A few of the same themes keep coming up time and time again. To understand why it has stuck with me, though, maybe I need to take you back to the beginning.

We had all, about 30 of us, just arrived at what was then called Fort Lee on the outskirts of historic Petersburg, Virginia. By just arrived, I mean I still had boxes stacked everywhere in my apartment and the ink wasn’t yet dry on my in-processing paperwork. I’d been an employee for less than a week and the powers that be announced on Wednesday or maybe Thursday of that first week that on Saturday morning, we’d all be loading up on a tour bus and using our three-day weekend to take a group road trip.

Destination: Savannah, Georgia.

It was a well intentioned notion – taking this group of fresh new logisticians in training to observe first hand the load out of the famed 3rd Infantry Division as they prepared their equipment to leave by rail and sea in route to the then new “second Gulf War.” Folk wisdom will tell you that timing is everything. Maybe “everything” is an exaggeration, but it’s important. How I know it’s important is that while we were driving down from Virginia, the transports loaded with a division’s worth of equipment had cleared port and were out to sea. The marshalling yard was empty. The railhead was empty. The port was empty. The mighty ROROs the bosses so badly wanted us to see had sailed at first light.

With nothing else to do, we were granted a DONSA – a day of no specified activities – in beautiful Savannah. Leadership extracted a promise that we would all solemnly swear to get ourselves back to the motel before departure time the next morning. So, we did what a bunch of early 20-somethings do when cut loose in a strange town and headed for the downtown entertainment district. I have no idea how many bars we hopped in and out of. I do remember there was a carriage ride and later in the evening a booze laden ghost tour in a hearse.

I have no idea how we got back to the motel. There’s a very vague memory of an over capacity taxi, but it’s… fuzzy. The motel, well, is probably worthy of a story all its own. Seedy doesn’t even begin to describe some of the business being transacted there in the dead of night.

In retrospect, it was great fun and games – or what passes for great fun and games when you’re 24. Back then, it was a guy who had just eaten the cost to move himself to Petersburg, hadn’t been paid in six weeks, and was desperately afraid every swipe of his credit card was going to be one swipe too much. That early winter of 2003 was the closest I’ve ever come to slipping sideways into default. It was horrifying and just a little exhilarating. File that under things you do when you’re too young to know better.

Anyway, I just assume it’s that early experience that’s left me deeply distrustful of whatever best laid plans this great green machine comes up with.

I’ll never be accused of wanderlust…

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A million years ago, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, I would burn off vacation time to go places and do things. It could be as simple as taking an extra-long weekend at the beach or as involved as heading to the Caribbean or spending the better part of two weeks knocking around Europe. It’s been a decade at least since I used my vacation time to really “go away.”

There are lots of factors intervening. Buying the house put a real stretch on finances there for a couple years. The idea of finding someone I trusted to take care of the various dogs, cats, and tortoise in residence for more than a day or two away was always daunting – and often nearly as expensive as the trip itself if I opted to hire it professionally versus relying on the less budget busting kindness of local friends. Added to that, the recent experience of returning home to find Hershel unexpectedly hovering just short of death’s door despite all reasonable precautions and care has left me more than a little angsty every time I need to leave the house to get groceries, let alone think about being away for days or weeks at a time.

The other insurmountable problem with going places is that when you arrive where you’re going, they’re inevitably filled with people. I can muster up the patience for dealing with the masses in small doses – perhaps the length of a concert – or a bit longer if really pressed. Contending day after day with long tourist lines, jostling for every meal, and a sea of people milling around oblivious to everyone and everything around them simply doesn’t sound restful or relaxing. Maybe I’ll be motivated to do that kind of travel again someday, but 2023 doesn’t feel like the year.

I’ll be using my upcoming time off to launch some strategic day trips to a few of the Mid-Atlantic region’s great used and antiquarian bookshops, get some vetting done for Anya, and otherwise just knocking around the house a bit. It’s not a plan smacking of wanderlust, but it feels like precisely the level of peace and tranquility I need at the moment.

I’m making a list and checking it twice…

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I probably put more effort than is strictly necessary into traveling. Even a million years ago when I was traveling for work on a regular basis, I was the guy who showed up at the airport with a giant suitcase that pushed the 50 pound weight limit for a four day trip. It got exponentially worse when I lived in the center part of the country and most of the trips suddenly because reachable if I were willing to put in a long day’s drive. Then I’d fill the bed of the truck with all manner of stuff that I might possibly need, or more often just things that would make the hotel room feel more like home. If I couldn’t actually be at home, that was the next best alternative.

Seriously, I’d show up at five star hotels, slide into their valet line, and proceed with an unpacking experience that looked like a cross between the arrival of a gypsy caravan and the journeys of Lawrence of Arabia. What can I tell you, I’m believe in my own comfort… and for me, that generally means having the right things on hand whenever I might want or need them.

Here we are many years since those trips of old… but the impulse to take the whole house with me is as strong as ever. That’s why I’ve been working on my Christmas List for the better part of a week now. It’s not a list of presents, of course, but rather my planned packing list.

The list these days is a little different. It consists mostly of dog beds, dog food, dog toys, dog medication, crates, bowels, leashes, harnesses, and then the usual allotment of books, electronics, charging cables, and a few changes of clothes. In other words, mostly things that I could personally live without, but would really prefer not to if it’s avoidable.

This year I’ve gone so far as to have some of the requirements shipped ahead. Yes, thanks to Amazon I have pre-positioned certain dog related items at our holiday destination so we can just fall in on it when we arrive. Then all I’ll have to decide is whether to abandon it in place or repackage it for backhaul. It turns out you can take the boy out of logistics, but you can’t really shake the logistics out of the boy.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to start thinking about the Tetris-style load planning I’ll need to sort out to make sure everything is safely stowed in the truck cab or at least protected from the weather under the bed cover.

Obviously I have no idea how normal people travel.

How to get a tip…

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It’s a weekday. The regularly scheduled shuttle between the hotel where I’m staying and the concert venue I’ll be at tonight stops running at 9:00. No good for my plan. A quick trip to the concierge, a few mumbled words, a bit of special paper changing hands and within two minutes, it’s “No problem, Mr. Tharp. Call my cell when you’re ready to leave and I’ll send down one of the hotel drivers.” Motel 6 would have been cheaper, but it’s hard to beat the overall value I’m feeling just now. 

Roll on Columbia…

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One of my first jobs after signing on with Uncle’s big green machine took me to a 200 foot tall, 8,835 foot long hydroelectric dam in the Pacific Northwest. If you’re wondering what in the hell, the Army has to do with hydropower, rest assured I was every bit as confused as you are when I showed up. Suffice for now to say it has less to do The Dalles - Overview.JPGwith power generation than it does with navigable waterways, infrastructure development, and having a ready pool of trained engineers available when we went on a national building spree during the Great Depression.

Some dams, I’m thinking about you Grand Coulee and Hoover, are things of beauty in their own right. “My” dam wasn’t what anyone would call pretty. The hulking, squared off mass of concrete, squatted astride the river like the world’s largest cinderblock. It’s real beauty is in the machine itself – it’s 14 General Electric turbines spinning out almost 2 megawatts when they crank the penstocks wide open, the lock that lifts 650 feet worth of barges almost 90 vertical feet , the way the building hums that rises from your feet straight through the top of your head, and the subtle but definite sound of steadily running water when you climb down into the depths of the foundation.

So what’s the point of all this recollection from the Columbia River? Well, as it turns out enough time has passed now that I’m starting to feel just a little bit nostalgic about my time spent on the edge of the high desert. For this son of the east, the Cascades, the Gorge, Portland, it was all a time of being a stranger in a strange land. It was good times, though I was in too much of a hurry to get back east and start my life as a big city DC bureaucrat to realize it then.

I know that still frontier feeling stretch of river is too far from the banks of the Chesapeake for me to ever call it home, but I sure wouldn’t mind passing that way again sometime.

That would be great…

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Christmas vacation is about to get truly under way and as much as I’d like to say I’m going to spend the evening warming my toes by a roaring fire, the reality is something more like packing out an expedition from Everest base camp. Between now and the time my head hits the pillow this evening there are hundreds of pounds of equipment and material to be toted, lifted, and strategically placed in the truck to ensure proper load placement and balancing. All of these preparations must be carried out in such a way as to avoid raising the suspicions of either of my canine traveling partners – as that would lead to passing a very uncomfortable night with a dog firmly attached to each hip from fear of being left behind.

This part of the annual rites of winter is not particularly restful or relaxing. By Friday, though, the initial mayhem and chaos should have worn itself down into something a little more manageable. If not, I’m fairly sure there’s a flask or two in one of these bags that will help smooth the way.

As much as I always look forward to the trips back into the beating heart of the little piece of geography that made me, getting there from here (regardless of where in the world “here” technically is at any given moment) always boarders on exhausting. Fortunately a good night or two’s sleep will shake that off.

For all the others out there preparing to do battle with the interstate highway system, good luck and godspeed to your destination of choice… And if slower traffic could go ahead and merge to the right that would be great. Mmmmmkay? Thaaaaaanks.

Under (imaginary) fire…

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So I had a bit of a surreal experience during my travels across the Eastern Shore last week. Thundering down some two-lane country road on the Delaware side of the Delmarva, I caught a quick look at a biplane in the distance. I only noted it because it was pulling vertical, as if maneuvering for the first half of a loop. It was cool seeing it, even from a distance. Nothing 25114969kindles the idea of the magic of flight like a biplane. After that, I didn’t think much of it, assuming that it was a wanna-be air show pilot dusting some crops (Is that something people still do?).

Fast forward a few minutes and a few miles and what appeared to be the same plane came screaming out from behind a no-longer-very distant overpass. He made a sweeping left turn, and lined up dead in the middle of the little road. From my perspective of trying to keep one eye on the plane and one on the road, it looked like nothing quite so much as him lining up for a strafing run. It was exactly like the kind of thing you’d see in the movies, if you happen to be a fan of films like North by Northwest.

Irrational as it was, I found myself holding my breath waiting for the telltale flames to jump from behind the propeller and seriously pondering the likelihood of survival if I jerked the wheel hard right to evade the rounds I expected to see plastering the asphalt in front of me. Like I said, it was a totally irrational moment and over before I really had time to give it more than a passing thought.

Still, I flicked my headlights in acknowledgement of the “kill.” I hope that’s how the pilot took it, anyway. In my mind he did. The deep thrumming radial engine passed maybe 100 feet over my head and I lost him in the treetops when he banked right and out over one of the approximately 18 billion cornfields along that stretch of road. There’s nothing like finding yourself under the imagined guns of a century old warplane to get the blood pumping… or maybe it’s just me.

When a selfie just won’t do…

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scopesThe modern world is full of cameras. I’m willing to bet that every person who reads this post has at least one of them within arms reach at all times of the day and night. With that being said, I have not earthly idea how there is still a small army of college students employed by a company to spend their days trolling up and down the beach taking pictures and then selling them inside $.10 plastic key chains for $15. I would have thought that was a business model that should have died off with the rise of the cell phone. Apparently, though, it’s still very much a thing and steps in to fill in the gap when even the most artful selfie won’t do.

That was my one piece of learning for the week, so if you were stopping by hoping to find something deep and insightful on a Sunday night, boy did you come to the wrong place.

I should have hired a Sherpa…

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I’m good at a lot of things, but as I’ve mentioned previously, packing judiciously is not one of them. In fact, you’d be hard pressed to see much difference in how I prepare for a 4-day trip to a location less than 100 miles from home as compared to let’s say a 2-month expedition to the source of the Amazon. I’ve spent a very large percentage of my years acquiring items that bring me comfort, make life easier, or that I otherwise just enjoy having around. In setting up shop in a home away from home, I’m basically of the opinion that as many of those items as possible should make the trip with me. My packing calculus recognizes no actual difference between being gone overnight or wandering off for a year.

The good news is that whenever I get where I’m going, I almost always have what I need – sometimes (often) to the point of being duplicative. The down side, of course, is that since I don’t have a Sherpa, I’m the one who ends up toting and hauling this mess from Point A to Point B and back again to Point A with whatever additional provisions I’ve laid on during my stay. It’s particularly bad when I’m driving from place to place with basically unlimited capacity to tote more “essentials” with me. The $50 a bag fee on most flights helps keep my over packing in check when I fly, but certainly doesn’t eliminate it.

I’d like to say I’ll try to change – that I’ll try to mold myself into that kind of traveler who can set off at a moment’s notice with just a carryon bag and a passport, but I know that’s not me. That’s never going to be the way I travel. Traveling with me is always going to be more akin to supplying the Normandy landings than it is to backpacking across the Continent with a Eurail pass. Sherpa or not, I’m totally alright with that.