Travellin'. 04/11/25

Once upon a time we called it “vacation,” which is much less haughty than “travel.” Travel is like milk. There used to be milk, but now there’s one percent, two percent, skim, as well as oat, almond and soy. I will never order a cappuccino with soy at Starbucks. It sounds like pouring salt into my coffee. Same with travel. There used to be travel. Now there’s adventure travel, resort travel, eco travel (which is really just adventure travel with a fancier name) and let’s not forget the subcategory of trips, as in golf trips, spa trips, ski trips and bicycle trips…on second thought, let’s forget about bike trips. I’ve forgotten about them since my last Vermont Bicycle Tours trip in the ‘80’s that I took to impress my then girlfriend and now wife. I’ve still got saddle sores. So that’s that about traveling. Traveling with friends is a category unto itself. Are the other couples as aerobically fit as you? Are you as aerobically fit as they are? Is one person a dyed-in-the-wool vegan? And are you a proud carnivore?

What if one of your friends is a rock-climbing, kayaking, kosher vegan with type 2 diabetes? I suggest defriending them. And then, even if you can agree on what type of trip you’re taking, can you agree on when to take it? Oh, I’ve got a (choose one) wedding, funeral, bar or bat mitzvah, confirmation, upcoming birth of a grandchild that week. I remember years ago becoming closer with another couple. It turned out we both had daughters who went to the same college and were both getting married within weeks of one another. We had the semi-awkward conversation about the weddings and telling each other that the other couple was not invited. Which is kind of like saying, “you guys are really great but you don’t crack the list of our 135 closest friends.” Well we loved that honesty and in fact are going on vacation with them at the end of this month. Walking, not hiking. Drinking wine, not electrolytes. Taking a jeep to the top of a volcano and then back down again, not rock climbing our way up and then belaying all the way down. Hell, I don’t even know what belaying means.

With all these thoughts going ‘round and ‘round, John shared that he and his friends were planning a river cruise of their own. And thus was born our four part River Cruise series.

Have a great weekend and if you’re going on a trip to climb Mt. Everest, please don’t invite us. I have nothing to wear.

Andy and John

Ever Try Changing Clothes in a car? Don't. 09/23/22

Earlier this summer, our son was invited to a friend’s wedding and was one of the groomsmen. My wife and I were invited as well. We had rented a beach house and drove, in our flip flops, shorts and tees, from Long Island to pick up our son at LaGuardia airport, to then proceed to the Catskill mountains, on a Friday afternoon, at rush hour. The total distance was approximately 2-3 light years. One of my favorite sayings is: Man Plans, God laughs. Our plan was to drive to the hotel where the kids were staying, drop our son off, giving him time to change into nice clothes for the rehearsal dinner. Then we’d go to our hotel, where all the old folks were staying, and change into the outfits we’d picked out for the dinner. It would make a hectic day seem a bit more relaxed. Brilliant right? What happened next gave us enough fodder to make this a 3-part saga, so we can't tell you the ending until next week’s blog. But think about this. If it’s true that when an ordinary man (or woman) makes plans, it causes God to laugh, then just think about how God reacts when AL attempts to make a plan. Trust us, God has plenty of new material.

What happened was there was a little bit of traffic. Okay, a lot of traffic. And cell phone service, once you get to the mountains, ohh, how can I say this politely, sucks the big one. Which means no Waze. Which means in addition to being late, we were lost. We dropped our son off and as we got to his hotel, the entire wedding party was leaving. So we waited for our son to change, and then we drove him to the rehearsal dinner so he wouldn't miss the whole thing. Now it was so late, if we turned back to our hotel, we’d have no chance to make it back to the rehearsal dinner in time. So we went to the upper parking lot, lined in gravel the size of rocks. Looked around and saw it was empty, and proceeded to pull our suitcases from the trunk and change, standing up, in the lot. The full Monty. I know it’s a pain to change while sitting in the car, but this was somehow worse. Imagine, if you will, standing on one foot on this big-rock gravel while attempting to put your opposite foot into your pants leg. The good news is we made it and had a great time. The bad news is I am still picking gravel out of my socks. But when I told this story to John, he immediately saw it taking place in a car, which, I must admit, is a hell of a lot funnier visually. And you wind up avoiding rocks in your socks.

That is it for this week, we will see you next week with the last comic in this series plus we’re starting a brand new three-parter about computer help lines. Trust us, they aren’t the least bit helpful.

Andy and John