Sorely disappointed in a quick change from home office, I canceled tickets to Sarasota and found myself scrambling for a flight to yet, another spot in the frozen tundra. This time, Naperville, IL, near Chicago for the next two weeks. Oh joy. I arrived last night in a wet snow storm rendering the drive to the hotel in Naperville, a tad chancy. Weather reports on the internet say that will be the case over the next few days. I mentioned "Weather reports on the internet" because there were no TV weather reports due to the satellite dish on the roof of the hotel is full of snow and the little old lady at the front desk refused to climb up and sweep it off.
As for the swimming pool, I probably wouldn't have wanted to swim anyway.
With no particular place to go and a long President's Day weekend to burn off, Saturday, I took in a huge RV/Camper show in Novi, MI at an indoor arena. I have begun to have cabin fever and needing to get out. In places like Michigan and Minnesota, families will sometimes check into hotels on a weekend just to let the kids play in an indoor heated swimming pool. So, last night the hotel and it's pool had kids screaming and running up and down the halls. The ones next door and above yelled, jumped on the floor and pounded the walls until 11:00.
There's not much to say about an RV show rather than they were big, they were expensive and they were too far from home to drive or pull. At least I got to see if there were any new developments in the RV world. The only thing new (to me) was the slide out kitchens on the side of many of them. Since I would probably not buy a new one, it gave me a standard to watch out for if and when I buy a used one.
Sunday afternoon, I found myself in old downtown Utica, MI, a small township across the freeway from my hotel. They have an annual Ice Festival that includes some really great ice sculptures. Not as huge as some I've seen in Minneapolis/St Paul, these were a little more commercial and appeared to be sponsored by the local businesses from the themes on them.
It didn't take me long to observe most of them and after walking a few blocks in 31° weather with an 11 mph wind, I found my way back to car for a quick drive back to the hotel.
Modern Valentine's Day symbols include the heart-shaped outline, doves, and the figure of the winged Cupid. Since the 19th century, handwritten valentines have largely given way to mass-produced greeting cards. (source: Wikipedia) As for me, I sense a conspiracy between greeting card companies, florists and candy companies.
Professional sports has never drawn a lot of attention from me and going to a stadium for a game is not high on my bucket list. Growing up in north central Louisiana, the road system made it much easier to travel east and west, so New Orleans was a long way from home. Dallas, Texas was what I considered a big city and as it was, my trips into Dallas outnumbered trips to New Orleans 10 to 1 and so The Cowboys was my team of choice. That being said, as a resident of Louisiana and since the Cowboys were not in the mix, let's take our hats off to the New Orleans Saints as the 2010 Superbowl champs.
The New Orleans Saints (source: Wikipedia) were founded in 1967 as an expansion team and played their home games at Tulane Stadium through the 1974 season. They went more than a decade before they managed to finish a season with a .500 record, two decades before having a winning season, and over four decades before reaching the Super Bowl. The team's first successful years were from 1987–1992, when the team made the playoffs four times and had winning records in the non-playoff seasons. In the 2000 season, the Saints defeated the then-defending Super Bowl champion St. Louis Rams for the team's first playoff win.
"Good morning, my name is Grace and I will be your flight attendant today!", she said as the door slammed on the Delta flight to Memphis. The curious thing about this was Grace had to be 75 years of if she was a day and reminded me of the sweet little old lady that was the owner of the cartoon character, Tweety Bird that was in constant peril of Sylvester the Cat. In my eight years as a flying road warrior, I've seen some older ones but she was the oldest. In my opinion, it's quite fitting that we would have Grace as our attendant in as much as how the equipment seemed to show a lot of age and wear.
Watching and mulling over the significance of the elderly lady as a flight attendant, I noticed something lying in the seat next to me. It was a part of the overhead reading lamp fixture that had fallen off the console above my head. I decided to reinstall it myself rather than reporting it to Grace. Given their record of maintenance problems, I didn't want to risk delaying the flight.
In advance of serving refreshments, Grace announced with much detail that we would be limited on beverages because of some malfunction involving the ice machine and that somehow this had caused an hour delay the evening before because the mechanics were trying to fix it but failed and they were having to order parts and on and on and on.....Whew! She not only apologized for that but nearly fell on the sword explaining that there was a shortage of beverages as well. "I have a few Cokes, four Diet Cokes and three Sprites." What was next? Would she take the blame for the Haitian earthquake too?
Now, I'm beginning to think that if Delta is flying granny around the USA on planes that have parts falling off, refrigerators that don't work and potties that are not available, just how bad is the general condition of this plane? In the past five weeks, Delta has either delayed or completely canceled flights for me on at least five occasions for equipment maintenance problems. How old and how worn are thousands of planes flying the friendly skies? Honestly, this alarms me very much.
All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost. ~ J R R Tolkien
Thanks
Hi, I'm C R and thanks for the visit. I travel quite a bit and hopefully, this way, I can give you some photos and tales of my travels without you having to download them all.
Living on the road over 300 days a year absolutely destroys many a road warrior's dietary discipline.
Here's a few things I believe are detrimental to you and avoiding them are helpful in the prevention of packing on the pounds.
1. If your restaurant features some kind of stylized figure or cartoon character as it's logo or spokes person, don't go there, you can gain two pounds just by watching the commercial.
2. If your restaurant has a lighted sign on a pole and colored with yellow, red and blue, don't go there. You're a victim of subliminal advertising. Those colors crank your appetite into high gear.
3. Watch the other patrons. If more than half of them can be can be classified as overweight, fat, obese or morbidly obese, don't go there. You are who you associate with and misery loves company.
4. If your waitress delivers you two plates for you to serve yourself, don't go there. Buffet lines tend to make you want to "get your money's worth".
5. If your restaurant always has a cashier that can't operate the register and has to punch the pictures on the keyboard, don't go there. He or she wouldn't be able to spell cholesterol anyway.
6. If your restaurant asks you not to place the plastic trays in the garbage, don't go there. At least a tip isn't involved.
7. If you can't understand your waiter because the cars behind you drown out the speaker on the sign, don't go there.
8. If you find yourself humming the jingle of your restaurant, don't go there.
9. If you saw the restaurant's logo on the side of a truck and trailer on the interstate, don't go there.
10. If you know the menu by number and "super-size" is part of it, don't go there.
11. Finally, don't order diet beverages. Only fat people drink them.
Good advice, I think. Do I live by these words of caution, oh heck no! I fight the pounds like everybody else but I do believe that obesity is associated with these foods.
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