Rolling Along 2020

 Ok, so this pandemic has put a spoke in many of our travelling wheels. My cross country road adventure went smoother than expected. Those inter-active online maps gave the impression of road-blocks along the way. Ignore them.  The Tribes did have reservations closed and damn right too. 

But, otherwise, nobody stopped me from travelling and the only slow downs were endless miles of road construction that slammed the  brakes from 90 to 25mph.  That and being squeezed between truck convoys playing "5 miles faster"between three lanes.  Nerve racking. They hate each other and they All hate cars. 

 Florida, as a state is, interesting. People in the hundreds move there all the time. Seems tax breaks balance out living in 24/7 aircon. Being perverse, I wonder how much 24/7 aircon costs, And, what happens when the hurricanes knock out the power. As noted, am perverse. 

Anyhoo,  everywhere you go are these rubber stamped communities with "lakes" and standard water geysers. Lakes nobody can swim in. Read, possible alligators in the sub-text here. So lots of picture pretty things that nobody uses or touches.  I Like to touch shit. And swim.  In Australia, which has great white sharks, crocodiles, water vipers and who knows what else, we went swimming. All the time. Just saying. In the scheme of HOT places, you want to swim! What's a few teeth trying to chomp on you..

From Africa, and Asia to the Middle East, hot as hell, but you can swim! Not in  Florida lakes. You sit there looking at them and sweat. You have to drive to the beach. Which, thanks to the pandemic, may or, may not, be "open" or, it might be "private". Surreal.

Politically speaking, Florida is pretty much flooded with red paint on all the maps. Big Blue and our Oregon plates got us some attention, but, fortunately, being confused by the audacity of our presence they just kept walking. 

As noted, I love my Big Blue. Ford did her right. No idea why they morphed her into a Taurus at a later model. Not the same baby. I digress.  

Suffice to say, the next stage of my pandemic travel involved leaving Big Blue behind. In Florida. For now. Temporary foster care. 

A fast cruise out to Sarasota ( I got this Florida 20 miles Over the speed limit thing down)  to see the Ringling museum and get a preview to the next stage of my plan. The grounds and house of this place looks like they raided and re-created Italy. Impressive, but, I personally like originals vs copies. Naples is another one of those great American reproductions. Just doesn't feel like the real thing. Weird, I know.

Flying in the pandemic. Yep, she is going to Europe. I know, how the hell is that going to happen. I have a few aces up my sleeve, but, yes this was a new challenge. First, tickets. With airplanes going into mothball storage, like my winter sweaters, routes are being cut by the day. Then of course, there is our friend Covid busy doing his thing. The US ( not to mention Florida) is NOT high on the popularity list of the world. Can't imagine why....

They say the "internet is your friend".  I totally Disagree. The Internet is Out to Get me when it comes to booking travel online. It's like a nasty game of Whack-a-mole as prices keep hopping around and just as you hit the key, they vanish. Bastards. To hell with that.  I call the airlines direct.  Beep, beep, beep....."American Airlines" "HELLO, can I, uh...?" " We are sorry, due to the pandemic the expected wait time is 2 hours".. Bugger that. Back to my laptop and Whack-a-mole.

Am finding that, like the hotels, prices are not going down (entice us to travel?) instead, they seem to bouncing up by the hour even as the pandemic closes borders by the day. That does, it WHACK. Ladies and gentlemen, we hit the mole and are booked out on Turkish Airlines. Hurrah!

But wait, what is the red flashing ALERT suddenly appearing after my payment receipt. Covid-19 pre-testing on some flights may be required. Say What? Back to our Not-Friend, the internet.  Several hours, platforms and smoke signals later only reveals one thing. Everyone is clueless and there are  No Federal standardized guidelines for flying in the pandemic.  

Why am I not surprised..  FB is filled with laments and horror stories of booked passengers turned away at boarding. Because; 1) you can't get tested at an airport 2) you can't get the test results back in time to fly 3) you can't Find a test site  and finally, 4) test sites are charging all different prices... Go figure. Death is a growing business. The joys of rampant capitalism.

I am an "old style" journalist. Pre internet and pre covid. Our antiquated lot has never doubted how inherently messed up bureaucracy is. Wherever it is. First world to third world. All the same. Scrambled red tape.We grew up with music on cassette tapes. This gave us practical skills on unwinding twisted tape and saving the song.  So, we tend to approach these things with a gin and tonic attitude. If you look hard enough, you can find a lemon, even in the desert.

My lemon, in this case, turned out to be my airline. Turkish Airways.

They even answered their phone. All the way in Istanbul. They were happy to take my money, no questions/tests asked.  A very helpful guy over there informed me, that they, as an airline, would fly anywhere I wanted. Test-less, but exiting the airport was my own problem. Works for me, I think and start to pack my bags. Again.

Turkey, next stop.