It’s been quite a while since I’ve had a good travel rant, and after a long (and delightful) absence from the friendly skies, Monday morning marked my return to that ethereal entity know as “the road.” I’ve picked up a new client that promises some interesting international travel, but the experience kicked off with a trip to the decidedly non-international area known as “north Houston,” a stone’s throw from the airport.

I was relieved to find a Sheraton near the client site, but rebuffed by Starwood’s website as the red lettering informed me, in no uncertain terms, that the hotel was fully booked due to the flood of construction workers helping rebuild damaged buildings left in Hurricane Ike’s wake. Orbitz informed me, much to my dismay, that my only option was the Clarion Inn. I generally have a no-Inn travel policy, but in this case, it was the Clarion or a park bench.

The motel itself was OK, and the cheerful check-in agent informed me there was a “Shopping Center” next door with myriad dining options (he didn’t actually use the word myriad, but the small ghetto blaster behind the desk playing “All up in the Club” inspired me to class up his act). After depositing my suitcase, I sauntered over to the “Shopping Center” with visions of grandeur. The shopping center was a strip mall, the anchor store, JFK Liquors, presumably playing a humble tribute to the fallen president. It was flanked by an anonymous Chinese Food place, and a pizza joint featuring an all-you-can-eat $5.99 buffet. Hoping for healthier options further afield, I continued my walk to find a Taco Bell and Jack in the Box. I hung my head as I traded haute cuisine on the Champs d’Elysses for Mr. in the Box, opting for a chicken strip salad.

My next trip remains a mystery, but hopefully will not involve any more Jack in the Box!

I got back from the Bahamas yesterday afternoon around 5. It was a great trip, and the resort was really nice. I stayed at Atlantis, and it’s almost a self-contained city. They have 5 hotels on the property, four of which are almost Vegas-size. Two of the larger towers have what looks like a huge crosswalk connecting them, and it’s actually a 2500 sq ft. room that Opera and Michael Jackson reportedly frequent. It can be had for a mere $25K/night.

The property has around 30 restaurants, and many of them are Vegas and NY favorites. I ate a Nobu which was excellent, and another restaurant on the property where scenes from the latest Bond movie were filmed. There’s a Vegas-style casino, complete with Chaholie (sp?) glasswork reminiscent of the Bellagio and a complete water park with pools and slides everywhere.

I am sitting in the lobby of the Embassy Suites "Outdoor World" hotel, located near the Dallas airport, and in the middle of nowhere, save for a gigantic Bass Pro shop next door. We are here for a convention of Meghan’s school network, and why a bunch of young fun-loving teachers decided to hold their convention next to a hunting and fishing supply store I am not entirely sure. For once, I get to play the role of "tag along spouse," and set to planning my weekend in earnest.

Excited to have a day to myself in Dallas, I arranged a couple of meetings and visits to favorite restaurants. Living up to the old saying about the best laid plans, ours began to unravel once we heard it was snowing in Dallas. Our departing flight from Charlotte was several hours late, pushing our slated 7PM arrival in Dallas to an actual 9PM; not too bad for a snowed in airport that was not used to dealing with the white stuff.

After a few false starts, we located the hotel where we were promptly told there was no room at the inn, and we were being sent to the "Great Wolf Lodge." I have a policy about never staying at a chain with "Inn" in the name, but Lodges were uncharted territory. We rolled into the drive and were greeted with a strange combination of the Mohegan Sun casino, and a gigantic greenhouse-looking structure. With a bit more investigation, I discovered the greenhouse was actually an indoor water park!

We walked to our room in a state of general confusion, especially once Meghan presented me with my room key. Rather than the traditional key card, the room key was a yellow wristband, much like one you would get at a nightclub. The plot thickened when we saw "Kids Club" bodily noted on the door to our room. The "Kids Club" featured ended up consisting of a large log cabin-like structure in the middle of the room, with three bunk beds and appropriately cheesy wolf and bear decor. Our window overlooked the outdoor portion of the water park, now accented with snow.

At this point, we needed a drink. We located the only open bar and restaurant, and were told by the hostess "There’s a wait." The hostess and I stared each other down, me waiting for the rest of the sentence, the "Would you like me to add you to the list?" and her doing a fine impression of the carved wooden bear next to her. Noting the slew of open barstools, and figuring close proximity to the booze was a benefit at this point, we bellied up to the bar.

The waitress asked Meghan for ID, which as usual she had left in the room. On returning, she expressed confusion over Meghan’s South Carolina ID, explaining that they usually don’t accept out of state ID but she would make an exception. As if the water park and bunk beds were not enough, this was a "hotel" within spitting distance of an international airport that assumed no one from another state would ever arrive.

Beers finally came, as well as surprisingly good food, well appreciated after the long day. Adjourning to our log cabin, we hoped for a better, or at least less confusing day!

I spent the first week of December in Paris for work, and decided I would rent a car to get around. For some odd reason, I rather enjoy driving in foreign cities. First, there is the difference in vehicles, with most countries have vastly smaller cars than the US, from the go-cart like machine we rented in the Caribbean, to the standard European car, which is sized like our compact cars. Secondly, there’s a sense of adventure. Signs are different, rules of the road are different, and there is mystery around each corner.

This was especially the case in Paris. I’ve spent years driving in Boston and New York, generally considered quite bad by US standards, so driving in a major city is not particularly intimidating. It was quite fun to drive in Paris… there are essentially no rules that I can ascertain, except that every possible space must be filled. In the roundabouts, space that in the US or UK would hold 5 cars driving next to each other is completely devoid of any lane markings, and has about 9 cars in all manner of configurations. Some are sideways, some are going from the innermost lane to the outermost, and there are motorcycles and scooters going every which way in the midst of all the madness. Any unfilled space will soon have a car or motorcycle in it, and while it seems very aggressive, people let you merge or move where you need to be without much fuss, remaining calm in what would result in violent road rage in NY or Boston.

The last point was the most interesting. The driving seemed amazingly aggressive, yet everyone was as calm as could be, almost as if it was all a well choreographed show put on for a foreigner, and everyone was trying to maintain a steady face just before bursting into laughter.

A flick of the turn signal would result in a space magically appearing as someone waited for you to merge, and there was never a polite wave of acknowledgement, nor was there a “one finger salute” should you violently cut someone off. Somehow in all the madness was a sense of respect and amusement, rather than rage and frustration.

Perhaps the best part of Parisian driving was that getting lost would result in suddenly happening upon some marvel of architecture. Missing the entrance to my hotel for the fourth time (it was in a 9 lane roundabout, again with no lane markers), I randomly turned onto the Champs d’Elysse, with l’Arc de Triomphe staring me square in the face. On the commute home from my client site, rounding a curve in the highway brought me a beautiful vision of the Eiffel Tower.

Running on Mountain Dew and sheer stubbornness, I pulled my trusty rental truck into our driveway around 5:30AM and hunkered down for the night. I was tired and, how you say, not so fresh, and was asleep before hitting the pillow.

The next day brought a call from the Charlotte airport. They had my bag and would arrange delivery for that afternoon. Rested and cleaned, with the truck unloaded, all that remained to complete the equation was my bag.

A few hours later, the doorbell rang, and I leaped to the door expecting to find my trusty companion of the last ten years. Rather than a black, ballistic nylon rollaboard Andiamo suitcase (about how I had described it when completing the missing bag claim in Erie), there was a red backpack. Like a mysterious sprite, the delivery guy was bounding back to his truck and was greatly displeased when my yelling and arm waving prevented him from making a fast getaway.

“This is not my bag; it’s not anything like it” I said. He shrugged, mentioned that he’s “just the delivery guy” and of course “there’s nothing I can do,” and I would have to call my friends back at the call center, and scampered off. Stepping inside, I made the first of about fifty conversations that would go like this:

(after navigating several voicemail prompts) “US Air, can I have your baggage claim number?”

ME: “Yes, it’s OU812ICUP”

Call Center Drone: “Please wait while I look it up… that was YC973ICEU, right?”

<repeat claim number at least four times>

CCD: “Ahh, here it is, let me read through the notes.”

Me: “It says that it was found but actually..”

CCD: “Yes sir, I see here that you bag was located and is currently being delivered!”

Me: “Yes, that was three weeks ago, they delivered the wrong bag.”

CCD: “I understand sir, but it says that your bag is out for delivery.”

Me: “Right, what’s the date on that note?”

CCD: “I don’t have that information sir, your bag is being delivered, thank you for calling US Air!”

Me: “WAIT!!!”

(and so the dance would continue for 10-30 minutes, until they finally acknowledged there was no bag, and I should just wait “a bit more.”)

After about four weeks, I resigned myself to never seeing the bag again and purchased a shiny new replacement and filed a claim with US Air. I guess it was time for a new suitcase anyway, and baggage technology has actually improved in the last ten years.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago, two months after the bag originally went missing when I get a call from a strange North Carolina warehouse asking for Mr. Gray. I responded in the affirmative and he proceeded to tell me that he was holding a bag with not one, but two of my business cards attached, each with phone numbers, address and email. He was in the Charlotte warehouse, the last stop for luggage before it was put out to pasture in the midwest, to roam free with the wild mustangs and lost umbrellas.

Unbelievably, after over two months, my bag was returned. The contents were all intact, down to the small pile of change I put in an outer pocket so as not to incur the wrath of the TSA metal detectors. Things were a bit crumpled and one shirt had an odd stain, and I wondered what strange adventures my bag had endured as it bounced around the country, somewhere between Dallas, Erie and Charlotte.

Like a Greenwich hedge fund manager who trades his trusty wife in for a new model, I have left my old suitcase dejected in a corner, replaced with the fancy new model with shiny wheels and fancy ratcheting handle, rather than the scars and tatters of age. Meghan tried to pull a fast one, suggesting she get the new suitcase since “you loved that old one so much,” but I’ve relegated the old battleaxe to Meghan’s service. I figure he needs a good break after all the strange happenings he must have seen during his two months with US Air.

The sunset of Part 1 left our weary traveller at the Philadelphia Marriott, approximately 500 miles from his final destination, without a suitcase, hoping for a better day. The next morning started well, despite a return to work clothing that I had been wearing in a hot airplane for most of the previous day. I endured TSA scrutiny unscathed, and wandered over to the gate denoted on my boarding pass.

What they neglect to mention about gate 16 is that it is a portal to another dimension: the loser gate. My first clue was the large woman alternatively shouting over a walkie talkie and at the massed line of people, her barked orders providing neither guidance nor order. Rather than a conventional gate, gate 16 led hundreds of people down an escalator to the bowels of the airport, huddled them together in an unordered mess, and then left them to wait for a bus that came every ten minutes. Like the “just off airport” Quality Inn US Air had tried to send me too, the loser gate was “just off” the regular terminal, and required a bus ride that was consistent with US Air’s usual scheduling MO: it arrived and departed when it damn well pleased.

Once the beat up bus arrived, glass doors would whoosh open as harried travels pushed past each other for space on the infrequent bus, while US Air staff looked on as one might observe the running of the bulls.

Once at the loser gate, things begin to look up. My plane was there, I had an exit seat, and we pushed back from the gate a few moments early so US Air could record an on-time departure. Once pushed back however, we spent 90 minutes on the tarmac due to some unknown reason.

I eventually arrived in Erie, PA glad to be on the ground and looking forward to fresh clothes. Standing like a lost child at the luggage belt, I watched as my fellow fliers retrieved their bags, until I was alone in the small baggage claim area and the conveyor eventually grated to a stop. As expected and feared, by friend and fellow traveller who had already survived two lost luggage incidents was back on the MIA list.

I filed a claim with the US Air agent on duty, who told me I should have demanded my luggage back in Philly, and that PHL was a “black hole” for lost baggage. Thanks for the comforting thoughts, pal. He said it would likely be on the next flight, which arrived at 6PM, two hours after I was supposed to be on the road blazing a trail towards Charlotte in a rented moving truck.

I met my aunt, picked up the truck, and noticed that fine aged cheese and I now had more than our humor in common: I was beginning to smell a bit ripe. Borrowing my aunt’s car, I made a beeline towards my favorite store for cheap clothes: Kohl’s. I got a funny look from the counter girl, standing in my cuff link-adorned Thomas Pink shirt, custom tailored pants and shoes, smelling bad, looking frustrated and depositing an odd collection of replacement clothes on the counter. Since I had to load the truck that afternoon, and fulfilling a long-suppressed desire for the “militant college-football hiker” look, I had selected some cammo shorts, hiking shoes, and a Texas Longhorn’s T-shirt. I’m not much of a college football fan, but apparently Texas paraphernalia is not a big mover in Erie, PA, since the shirt was less than ten bucks.

I returned to my aunt’s house, changed and headed to my grandfather’s to load up the truck, the original intent of the trip. All missions accomplished, and now funkier than James Brown in his prime, I bid Erie adieu and pointed my truck south.

About two hours outside Erie I got a cal from the Erie airport. They had found my bag! Not wanting to add an additional four hours to my trip, they said they would send it to Charlotte and I would have it the next day. Tearing down the highway (if doing 55 in a rented moving truck that shook violently about 57mph can be described as tearing) it seemed my ordeal was nearing it’s end.

To be continued…

The horror that is the summer travel season of 2007 has finally claimed it’s first victim from PatandMeg.com. As many of you know, I travel on a nearly weekly basis, and have indulged in most of the major airlines. I’ve had some nasty experiences before, but sit right back and you’ll hear a tale of what should have been a three-hour tour, and takes the cake as, what Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons would call “worst. trip. ever.”

It all started on a sunny Dallas Thursday. I was booked to fly US Air, my current airline of “choice” since they have a near-monopoly on flights to and from Charlotte. I was a little disoriented since I was flying up to Erie, PA. rather than flying home to Charlotte, since I had to move some stuff out of my Grandfather’s house. Rushing to catch my flight I had accidentally left my toiletries in my bag. I usually leave them at my client office, since according to the Hitler Youth TSA only a terrorist would travel with more than 3.0oz. of liquids, so to avoid TSA harassment I decided to check my bag. As an aside, plastic toiletries do not show up on the TSA’s X-Ray machines, so I generally ignore the 3oz rule and just leave them in my bag as my own private act of civil disobedience. I also recommend putting your boarding pass through the X-Ray machine as that really agitates them.

Unfortunately I had a Costco-size metal can of shaving cream in my bag so I thought checking the bag would be the easiest bet. Mistake #1.

We pushed back from the gate on time, and I closed my eyes, thinking all was well. A few slots from takeoff and the pilot came on in his best Captain America voice to announce that there was rain at the end of the runway. He provided no other information, and I remained confused during our one hour runway sit until I saw what was clearly an omen of things to come. It was literally beautiful and sunny on one side of the runway, and grey and storming on the other. Very strange. Mistake #2 was not pulling the emergency exit door, running for my life and joining a Buddhist sect that believes air travel is a tool of the devil as soon as I witnessed that strange weather pattern.

Once airborne I checked my watch, smug in my realization that I had booked a “US Air f-up proof” 2:30 hour connection. With the delay in Dallas, I still had well over an hour to grab a bite in Philly and make it to the looser terminal (more about that later). No one likes vanity, and I was about to be sorely punished for my sins.

If you fly too much, you get a sixth sense about various flight patterns, plane noises and altitude changes. My spidey sense was tingling was we neared Philly. Something was amiss. Captain America left his next announcement for the first mate; I believe his name may have been Gilligan. He announced that there was a minor backup in Philly, and that the plane was “dangerously low on fuel” and was being rerouted to Baltimore to refuel. The bastards had run out of gas.

Some more bobbing and weaving and we landed at Baltimore and parked on the tarmac to await the fuel truck, which came after about 20 minutes. I marveled while contemplating the darkening sky that after five minutes of apparently doing nothing, the fuel truck was speeding away. As my brain searched for answers, the intercom clicked on once again with more good news. The fuel truck that arrived did not have enough gas to fill up the plane, so they needed to fill up the truck and send it back.

When the truck returned after another 20 minutes I made mistake #3. Rather than squaring my shoulder and doing a Terry Tate to shove the stewardess out of my way, duck through the open door, douse myself in Jet-A and self-immolating, I merely sat there and looked at my watch. There’s still a chance.

The stewardess spared us the lecture on how to fasten your seat belt, as the natives were getting restless at this point. Passengers were commiserating over missed connections to Europe and other exotic locations while I still held out hope for Erie. We finally landed at 9:55PM, with my connection departing at… 9:55PM.

I nearly strangled the attendant who was supposed to help us with missed connections. He called the gate at the loser terminal but to no avail. The one time I needed a late flight, US Air left right on time. Beaten but not yet ready to submit, I accepted a rebooking for the first flight in the morning and asked about a hotel voucher. The guy looked at me as if I had asked if I could take his wife out for a night on the town, then tickled his computer and said his information indicated we had been delayed due to that infamous airline excuse for when they screw up and don’t want to pay for it: “weather.”

This elicited a roar from the crowd that was forming behind me, and after some furious typing he generated a voucher and scrawled in the number for the Quality Inn. Finally beaten into submission, I backed away to let my comrades in arms fight out their connections.

I have a travel policy that has severed me well during my years of business travel, that may seem snooty to my readers but has been gleaned from hard-won experience. While I’m more liberal when travelling on vacation, when traveling on business I refuse to stay anywhere with “INN” in the name of the establishment. That rules out the likes of Holiday Inn (I am not on holiday, and if I were, I would avoid an Inn if possible), and I know from experience that there is little that is Quality about the Quality Inn. Nonetheless, I was willing to bend the rules to end the day with any kind of bed.

I went to baggage claim to attempt to retrieve my bag. The people said that was entirely impossible. Rather than attempting to beat the employees into submission with a rather large car seat they were carelessly kicking around, I accepted a tiny bag filled with single serving China-made toothpaste and other toiletries in exchange for entrusting them with my bag, and I dialed the number for the “Quality” Inn.

The gentleman that answered explained that they were “off airport,” but did in fact have a shuttle service. It was on its way to the hotel, but would be back for another airport pickup in “about 45 minutes.” I was a bit frazzled at this point and thought I might have misunderstood, and perhaps he had said 4-5 minutes. Querying for clarification, I discovered “off airport” met “right across the bridge” in New Jersey. The QI was “off airport” like Michael Jackson was “just a little” odd.

Making some small restitution for my previous litany of mistakes, I marched over to the decidedly on airport (as in walking distance) Marriott, and negotiated the $269 rate down to a more palatable $149. The gent took pity on my and provided a “stranded traveller” shirt that had some cute remark about an unplanned visit to Philly on the back. I am writing the hotel to have it changed to “Yes, my limp is due to US Air bending me over and…” you get the picture.

Broken and beaten, I adjourned to the bar for a lacklustre cheeseburger, half-decent Manhattan and a few beers. Properly nourished with Vitamins M and B, I called it a night. My final mistake of the day was thinking that tomorrow would be a much better day…

Part II follows our hero as the schleps through the loser terminal, gets his Texas on, sweats to the oldies and makes some new friends in Guatemala. Stay tuned…