Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Trip south reveals the country’s mood
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
If the kids have grown up and left, if you feel life is passing you by, get two kittens. As babies, they will be lovable and playful, after a year or so they will turn into perpetual teenagers. We love ours, although they make vacations difficult.
This winter, looking for warm weather in the Keys, we decided to drive again, down I-95. The economics dictated: the cats’ air fare would equal ours, gas was cheap, the car can be loaded full, insurance was in place, a minilease of an Impala cost about $1000 a month, all the more reason to take to the road. Besides, we would feel the pulse of America, cross-continent north to south.
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The first trick, though, was finding pet-tolerant motels. We gave up driving because only unclean doggy-smelling rooms were offered, but now times have changed. The Red Roof chain allows pets in all rooms, but it took research to space the trip around them. I want to drive less than 400 miles a day, before dark. The internet research was tricky, because the motel 800 operators don’t know what hostelries are on I-95, so you have to ask for specific towns. But it worked.
Our first stop was Richmond, VA 350 miles south on I-95, after an easy and nearly empty road trip through New Jersey and south. The thought occurred that people were saving money on turnpike tolls. The worrisome part was getting through Washington, DC. In past years Mapquest offered a through route via New York Ave., very confusing, but now it suggests I-495, the Beltway. You have to be sure to stay on it, as described in Mapquest’s cryptic ways, bearing left, and it will work. The room was simple and non-smelly, and I gladly cleaned my cats’ litterbox spills. For politics gossip, I failed, the motel ladies were too discreet, and at Chili’s, the breakfast place (we had sandwiches for the road, and were too tired for dinner) Obama was king. Gas station chat was different, my NJ $1.39 per gallon had turned to $1.65, and post election price rise was the cynics’ response.
Moving along on more crowded road, we came to Florence, SC, arriving in a middle of a windstorm that overturned a maid’s wagon and spilled clean laundry all over the property. Had a fine dinner at a Red Lobster; again, Obama was the savior, until the morning, at the gas station, my remark about the $1.89 price brought on a tirade of N-words , offering expectations of a calamity in a Democrat world. But at the Shoney’s Big Boy, one of the South’s pleasures in all-you can eat breakfast buffets, with 60-odd choices, including grits, we overcame the feeling of disgust. The French toast and fruit helped, and the hospitable people.
Tired of Red Roof, 350 miles south we found a Quality Inn at St. Augustine accepting pets. The trick is to find state hotel guides at 7-11s and gas stations and to use the cell phone on the road. This was larger venue, with better amenities. A neighboring Shoney’s buffet breakfast at seniors’ rates was $3.79 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and we observed a mixed race two-couple table across from us. Southern politesse prevailed: when one of the ladies returned from her visit to the buffet, both men got up and remained standing until the second lady came back. People would hold doors open and ask others to go ahead as a matter of routine.
Traffic was heavy after St. Augustine, when we switched to the shore-side US1, hoping to view the seaside communities on A1A, along the shoreline sliver island. We did it at Ormond Beach, before Daytona Beach, an actually drove on the sand for some 5 miles at 10 mph, admiring the white breakers and the wide dunes, populated by seagulls and some sweatshirt-robed freezing but persistent sunbathers and walkers. At Wilbur-on-the-Sea we left the dunes to back up and cross to mainland, heading towards astronaut land, Cocoa, and the legendary fish restaurant with low prices, Corky Bell’s.
Staying at a friends’ house in Port St. Lucie, we failed an early start because the cats decided to hide. Two hours were lost, but we got on the road, arriving in the Keys just after dark, having watched our first Florida sunset on the 20-mile land bridge.
If you want to know about popular morale, the working people down South complain a lot less than we northerners, although, when questioned, everybody knows of a job lost, or several. Hospitality workers seem somber, try to be super-polite, no snippiness. Food services and hostelries worry about continuance, but nobody chats, unless asked. Obama is an article of faith. Questions about Caroline Kennedy brought on shrugs, except from a Turkish tourist lady with a German passport, who seemed to know all about her. She liked Carolyn Maloney.
Job offer: A friend sends a message for anyone who is looking for temporary full time employment, with the US Census Bureau, now in full gear: http://www.2010censusjobs.gov or call 1-866-861-2010
If the kids have grown up and left, if you feel life is passing you by, get two kittens. As babies, they will be lovable and playful, after a year or so they will turn into perpetual teenagers. We love ours, although they make vacations difficult.
This winter, looking for warm weather in the Keys, we decided to drive again, down I-95. The economics dictated: the cats’ air fare would equal ours, gas was cheap, the car can be loaded full, insurance was in place, a minilease of an Impala cost about $1000 a month, all the more reason to take to the road. Besides, we would feel the pulse of America, cross-continent north to south.
\
The first trick, though, was finding pet-tolerant motels. We gave up driving because only unclean doggy-smelling rooms were offered, but now times have changed. The Red Roof chain allows pets in all rooms, but it took research to space the trip around them. I want to drive less than 400 miles a day, before dark. The internet research was tricky, because the motel 800 operators don’t know what hostelries are on I-95, so you have to ask for specific towns. But it worked.
Our first stop was Richmond, VA 350 miles south on I-95, after an easy and nearly empty road trip through New Jersey and south. The thought occurred that people were saving money on turnpike tolls. The worrisome part was getting through Washington, DC. In past years Mapquest offered a through route via New York Ave., very confusing, but now it suggests I-495, the Beltway. You have to be sure to stay on it, as described in Mapquest’s cryptic ways, bearing left, and it will work. The room was simple and non-smelly, and I gladly cleaned my cats’ litterbox spills. For politics gossip, I failed, the motel ladies were too discreet, and at Chili’s, the breakfast place (we had sandwiches for the road, and were too tired for dinner) Obama was king. Gas station chat was different, my NJ $1.39 per gallon had turned to $1.65, and post election price rise was the cynics’ response.
Moving along on more crowded road, we came to Florence, SC, arriving in a middle of a windstorm that overturned a maid’s wagon and spilled clean laundry all over the property. Had a fine dinner at a Red Lobster; again, Obama was the savior, until the morning, at the gas station, my remark about the $1.89 price brought on a tirade of N-words , offering expectations of a calamity in a Democrat world. But at the Shoney’s Big Boy, one of the South’s pleasures in all-you can eat breakfast buffets, with 60-odd choices, including grits, we overcame the feeling of disgust. The French toast and fruit helped, and the hospitable people.
Tired of Red Roof, 350 miles south we found a Quality Inn at St. Augustine accepting pets. The trick is to find state hotel guides at 7-11s and gas stations and to use the cell phone on the road. This was larger venue, with better amenities. A neighboring Shoney’s buffet breakfast at seniors’ rates was $3.79 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and we observed a mixed race two-couple table across from us. Southern politesse prevailed: when one of the ladies returned from her visit to the buffet, both men got up and remained standing until the second lady came back. People would hold doors open and ask others to go ahead as a matter of routine.
Traffic was heavy after St. Augustine, when we switched to the shore-side US1, hoping to view the seaside communities on A1A, along the shoreline sliver island. We did it at Ormond Beach, before Daytona Beach, an actually drove on the sand for some 5 miles at 10 mph, admiring the white breakers and the wide dunes, populated by seagulls and some sweatshirt-robed freezing but persistent sunbathers and walkers. At Wilbur-on-the-Sea we left the dunes to back up and cross to mainland, heading towards astronaut land, Cocoa, and the legendary fish restaurant with low prices, Corky Bell’s.
Staying at a friends’ house in Port St. Lucie, we failed an early start because the cats decided to hide. Two hours were lost, but we got on the road, arriving in the Keys just after dark, having watched our first Florida sunset on the 20-mile land bridge.
If you want to know about popular morale, the working people down South complain a lot less than we northerners, although, when questioned, everybody knows of a job lost, or several. Hospitality workers seem somber, try to be super-polite, no snippiness. Food services and hostelries worry about continuance, but nobody chats, unless asked. Obama is an article of faith. Questions about Caroline Kennedy brought on shrugs, except from a Turkish tourist lady with a German passport, who seemed to know all about her. She liked Carolyn Maloney.
Job offer: A friend sends a message for anyone who is looking for temporary full time employment, with the US Census Bureau, now in full gear: http://www.2010censusjobs.gov or call 1-866-861-2010
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 4:28 PM 
