Plane Avoidance

The colossal suckiness of air travel is well-documented. Not having boarded an airplane since October, and faced with the task of boarding four to six of them in the coming month, I would like to extol my experience in the past six months of NOT flying. A more accurate statement than "I hate flying" would be, "I truly appreciate and enjoy not flying."

It's not that I have not been traveling. I have been, and I love it. I revel in the prospect of boarding trains, cars, bikes, vespas, ferries. I like exploring new places with my own two feet. I'm sure I could even grow to love scooters.

There have not been horrible business trips to avoid, either. My last flight was to Rome, my recent trips were to places I really like, and my anticipated trips are to exciting places. I will even get to stay in these places for more than 12 hours - and while one trip is a business trip, it is a place I've never been before that I hear is pretty sweet. No, I am not here to praise a hiatus in crappy destinations.

My glee in avoiding planes is pretty simple. I really enjoy not having to worry about getting to a bus station three hours early. I delight in not being more than a few feet off the ground for more than a few minutes at a time on a train. I also love that my car smells exactly like I want it to, and that I get fresh air with the windows down in the taxi, and that when I walk, I can spin around, spread my arms out, do a dance routine with my umbrella and use all the space I need.

If there were a way to take anything but an airplane anywhere, at anytime, I would take it. For places more than 5 hours by train, my recommendation is that we give stimulus money to one of Bruce Wayne's start-ups to study the composition of Queen Frostine's magic wand, from Candyland. That wand was fantastic.

From this point forward, though, I shall suck it up like the rest of air-traveling America. They still have free meals on planes ... I think ...

How are we coming along on that wand?