Category: Travels

Clueless

Marketing / Advertising, Morons & Idiots, Travels

Also in my Inbox, this time from American Airlines:

Bearing in mind that I live in north Texas and have pretty much all the heat I can handle (and more), which garden spots can AA be pimping?

#1:

It’s also known for its crime and tourist ripoffs.  Also, isn’t hurricane season just around the corner?  Pass.  Next:

#2:


Ah yes… NYfC in the summer heat.  Always a pleasure, in a place whose crime and ripoffs make T&C look like a bunch of complete amateurs — and that was before all the recent silliness.  As they say there, fuggeddabahdit.  Next:

#3:

In Texas terms, going to Florida in summer is described as “out of the frying pan and onto the gas ring.”  Thanks, but if I want heat and humidity, I can just step out onto my patio.  And finally:

#4:

Yeah, thanks.  If I want Mex street food, we’ve got a couple taco trucks that can be found the apartment parking lot every Friday and Saturday.  And… Aztec ruins, in Mexico City?  I thought the conquistadores  kinda leveled them.  But I could be wrong, as I may be wrong about Mex City’s crime rate.

Great promotion, American.  You utter dicks.

RFI: Ireland

Advice, Friends and Family, Travels

From Adopted Daughter:

“Hi Papa.  Could you ask your Readers for advice on visiting Ireland?  I’ll be staying at Lough Rynn Castle near Carrick-on-Shannon in August, but other than the castle itself, I don’t know anything about the area (County Leitrim).”

Here’s Lough Rynn, which appears to be a shabby little place:

I don’t know nothin’ about birthin’ babies  traveling in Ireland, never having been there myself, so all advice, experiences and warnings will be welcome.

Snap Of The Fingers

Travels

Watching the Brit TV show “24 Hours In The A&E” the other night, one of the characters asked an intriguing question of another:

“If you could snap your fingers and be anywhere in the world, where would you choose?”

New Wife and I talked about it for ages.  Where to go?

  1. A place that you’ve been to before, and loved?
  2. A place you’ve never been to before?
  3. By yourself, or with a partner / wife / buddy etc.?
  4. For how long?  A day, weekend, week, or a month?

Here are mine:

  1. Never been to Lake Como, always wanted to, also a week.
  2. By myself: on a driven bird shoot, somewhere in southern England, for a day or two.
  3. With New Wife: somewhere scenic in the U.S., either where I’ve been before and she not, or where neither of us has been.  Whatever the choice, for two weeks.
  4. With my buddy Trevor: somewhere in Europe where neither of us has been to before, for a week.

(New Wife, by the way, chose only one locale:  any Indian Ocean island — Mauritius, Seychelles, Maldives — for two to three weeks.)

And now it’s your turn.  Feel free to work the conditions, any way you please.

Snap your fingers…

RFI: Eastern Wyoming

Travels

“Well I’ve been all over this crowded planet… etc. etc.” (with apologies to Paul Williams).

One part of the world that isn’t crowded is eastern Wyoming — you know, the part that isn’t full of Hollywood trendies of the Jackson Hole variety.  Or at least, as far as I know.

My knowledge of that corner of the U.S. is limited to a brief sojourn — and I suspect I’m not alone in this — to Rapid City SD en route to Mt. Rushmore (where I got into a fight with the Parks Dept. asshole who was manager of the gift store, another story).

I have to say that I thought the area was very pretty, if on the rugged side, but I have always wondered what it’s like to live there, be it the climate, people, whatever.

I know that South Dakota is famous for its windiness, but surely the Black Hills act as some kind of a windbreak?  Is Sundance WY as windy or unpleasant as Spearfish SD, for instance?

As I said, I know little to nothing about the area, and when I was at Mt. Rushmore in early April it was wonderful:  cool breezes, morning mist and so on.  As I recall, I stayed in a motel in Keystone and while the town is something of a dump — or was when I was there — the surrounding country looked magical.

Here’s the general area:

…and the scenery which I found so appealing:

The reason that I ask all this is because I want to take New Wife on a little trip to parts of the U.S. she hasn’t seen before, but I’d also like to go where I haven’t been, either — or at least, only driven through, like this part of the world.

All personal anecdotes, experiences and recommendations are welcome.