Trip Planning with a Crazy Man

Spring break 2012- here we come.

I had grandiose plans, as I always do, to really pull out the stopper and do a spring-break-a-palooza with the middle kid. We don’t spend as much time together as the older kid and I did, when he was the same age. The older kid enjoys fishing. All kinds of fishing, especially fly fishing and bass fishing and we’ve spent a tremendous amount of time together chasing fish. We also enjoy, at least as far as I know, going to tropical fish stores to check out.. well, just stuff. Always hoping to see something new.

Same motivation that keeps me going back to the SI Swimsuit edition, seeing if there’s something new, and you know, there always is. *sigh*

The middle kid and don’t have the fishing connection. We do like sports however, especially basketball and well he likes soccer and I do to, but not as much as he does, so to speak.

Knowing that he loves the Beautiful Game and that I love me a trip to England I started thinking about a trip across to see some football, English style. I figured some tickets to a couple footie matches, little touring. ‘Twas going to be fun.

One afternoon a month or so ago someone pointed out to me that to get to the UK you have to fly. I hadn’t really thought of that, getting all caught up in the excitement of the visit if you would. I went to the internets, went to that map thing where they give you directions, you know the site. I like to take a picture of the directions with my phone and then pretend I have a GPS.. ‘nuther story.

Anyway I put in Godless Suburb Minnesota, Burnsville came up. Close enough. Then I put in Ansfield, where Liverpool plays. That’s where we were going BTW. 5 hour drive. No problem. Just outside Madison Wisconsin.

What’s that? Not that Ansfield?

OK, Ansfield is spelled Anfield?

Well she- it. Being raised by parents who failed their ESL courses has left me unable to sound out even the simplest of words.

Anfield, Liverpool, United Kingdom… well according to the Google, it’s true, you can’t get there from here. At least not my stupid Scion. Mrs. S suggested we fly, and when I checked there were certainly some great deals out there. Now fly’n ain’t cheap, however I think it actually might be cheaper to fly than to pay $5.00 a gallon for gas, even in the Spec. The problem with flying to Europe, I found, the price listed on Bing and Priceline and all the others are artificially low so the fares come up on the search list near the top. I found tickets to Manchester from Minnesota for $11.75. Wowwie. (Actually they were $350.00 but you get my excitement.) Return trips were not shown. That’s because some reason it costs 3X as much to fly home from Europe than it does to get there.

Ok I’m cheap, no surprises there. But I figured it would be about $2000 to get to Europe.

Before I pressed enter however couple things came to mind. Airport Security. Ooo How did I forget about that. I hate that process so much I’ve vowed on every trip at every airport the last 5 years that I’m “never flying again”. Big talker me, I huff’n'puff and then Mrs. S’s family has some event and I find myself in a cattle line, belt, shoes, hairpiece and thong in hand, walking through a detector answering questions from a blue shirted night school attendee about where I might be hiding that last piece of metal.

And now I’m volunteering to go.. I started having misgivings.

CPAP.. how the hell did I forget about that, as much as I hated travelling before, with the CPAP it’s almost a non-starter. I started thinking about other plans.

iPhone, the coup d’gras. My iPhone won’t work in Europe. Something about the magic airwaves in Europe are different than the magic airwaves in the US and technical specs say it ain’t happening. When I travel, I like to have my phone with me. I feel compelled to be connected to email, especially work email. I was the guy answering work questions on my phone, in the ride lines at Disneyland last summer. I do this because it helps me be less anxious about what’s going on back at the ranch while I’m not there. When I realized that I would not be able to be in contact with the office for an entire freaking week.. I freaked. I’d be a bloody basket case and that.. would suck.

It also means I don’t have to come back from vacation to 1200 unread emails. That, sucks too.

Trip is off. How to tell the kid..

Mrs. S suspected something was up, “You haven’t made any plans yet, and this tells me you’re having second thoughts.” I am sort of well known for making plans and then cancelling them.

Rather than fess up I tailored the message to one which would resonate with her. “Too expensive”. OK, we’re not going.

As I said, we both really enjoy NBA basketball and we like eating. We also enjoy road trips.. So here’s the deal a no fly, CPAP friendly Thelma and Louise style trip. In one fabulous week we’ll be visiting Chicago, Milwaukee, Indianapolis and Cleveland. In that order. Itinerary so far;

Monday    Nuggets at Bulls
Tuesday    Hawks at Bucks
Wednesday     Free
Thursday    Wizards at Pacers
Friday        Bucks at Cavaliers

Saturday     Drive 12 hours from Cleveland OH to Apple Valley.

Just to make sure that I don’t talk myself out of I’ve purchased all the game tickets. In a related matter did you know that you can get Pacers tickets for $2.50? And that’s half off the face value? And in an even more surprising to me deal, Cavaliers tickets are actually hard to get? Harder than the Bulls?

If nothing else a good road trip will give something to talk about in this space, so that’ll be fun.

BTW kids, this trip means that I have available Boston Celtics at Minnesota Timberwolves tickets. Let’s talk.