I’m not afraid of flying, that’s not the source of stress. Rather, I hate dealing with long lines at the airport and the people ahead of me who are seemingly rebooking travel for 50 of their relatives. Because of this, I like to get to the airport early.

My first flight today leaves out of Heathrow Terminal 3 and goes to Chicago. When I can, I try to stay near Heathrow the night before flying so I don’t have to worry about travel problems on the roads or trains due to accidents or strikes. So last evening I checked into a new-to-me hotel, the Heathrow Hilton, near Terminal 4. This is a very nice, very modern hotel, though I was shocked that they still allow smoking in some of the rooms. My room was designated as non-smoking, but that familiar acrid and nasty smell wafted down the hallway as I got to the door.

The Chinese restaurant in the lobby was quite good and I turned in relatively early after doing some email and reading (Mercury Falls by Robert Kroese). My flight leaves at 1:15 pm so I left the hotel a few minutes after 9. In the past, I’ve taken the Hotel Hopper from my hotel to the terminal, but there was a walkway from the Hilton directly to Terminal 4. So I walked, and I walked, and I walked. The walkway is an enclosed elevated tunnel with occasional windows that give you a peek at all the traffic below you.

I arrived at Terminal 4, got on the elevator to take me down to the train that would take me to Terminal 3 (or on into London had I not been paying attention). I got off, realized I was on the wrong floor, smelled yet more cigarettes, and finally made it to Floor -1.

I then started moving swiftly toward the trains since the next one was to leave in 4 minutes. Perhaps I was too swift, because I got caught up somehow in the luggage barriers about 40 feet from the train. I went splat on all fours, banging my knees on the ground. After thinking “ouch” my next thought was how I was going to maintain some level of dignity as I got myself up, dusted off, and onto the train. Some very helpful security guards asked if I was ok, which I was, if a bit sore, and I got myself to Terminal 3.

In the old days I was Executive Platinum on American Airlines which gave me all sorts of perqs including being able to check in at the Business and First Class counter. Alas, I am only a lowly Gold member now having not travelled enough in the last year. So it was with great pleasure that I saw that I could check in at a kiosk and skip the long line with the 50 relatives who needed rebooking. That took two minutes.

Then it was on to security which used up 10 more minutes. So all in all, it took me less that 45 minutes to get from my hotel to where I am now, having breakfast in a restaurant (Eggs Benedict, Diet Coke) inside the terminal. Perhaps my anxiety was misplaced, though my back does feel a bit sore from my spill.

However, I’ve travelled enough to know that each positive experience only partially offsets the negative ones. So my fingers are crossed that the remainder of the trip goes reasonably well and I get home safely around 1 am.

© Robert S. Sutor for Bob Sutor, 2011. All rights reserved.
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© Robert S. Sutor for Bob Sutor, 2011. All rights reserved.
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Some trip data:

• We stayed at the Le Vatout Bed and Breakfast in Waldoboro. Highly recommended, especially if your politics are left of center.
• The boat we sailed on was the schooner Surprise. It is an all-wooden sailboat that is small enough to get a real feel for the ride, but not so big that you feel you are far from the water.
• For great lobster rolls, visit ‘Keag’s in South Thomaston.

© Robert S. Sutor for Bob Sutor, 2011. All rights reserved.
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On Thursday of our week in Tennessee, William and I had the luxury of not having to drive anywhere. Indeed, the car sat in the hotel parking lot in Nashville from the time we arrived on Wednesday to when we departed on Friday morning. The hotel was located on N 4th Street just a few blocks from Broadway. This meant that we could walk to our first destination for the day, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.

This is a large building that houses standing exhibits, limited duration special exhibits, the Hall of Fame itself, and, of course, a gift shop. Additionally, there is a restaurant and bar in the lobby. I emphasize the bar because it was very prominent and may be a key attraction for some.

Though neither Will nor I are big country music fans, we enjoyed the visit. To give you an idea of my tastes, we went through the special exhibit on Hank Williams and his son Hank Jr. I very much like Hank Sr.’s music but couldn’t give a pig’s ear about Hank Jr.. I don’t understand or appreciate his appeal but that’s ok because we just skipped most of his section. (I was curious, though, about the part where he fell off the mountain.)

The museum is clearly aiming to get a younger crowd and there were several large photos and exhibits about Taylor Swift. She’s a bit young to be Hall of Fame material, but she’s a great singer and songwriter.

I largely focused on seeing the material on musicians up through the 70s and it was fun to see more detail about things I saw and heard peripherally in my youth. We didn’t buy much at the gift shop, though I thought the black cowboy hat looked pretty good on me. I finally decided that it wouldn’t translate well to upstate New York.

As part of the Museum admission we opted for the side trip to “historic RCA Studio B.” This was probably the highlight of our trip to Nashville. From the website:

Historic RCA Studio B is one of the world’s most important and successful recording studios. More than 35,000 songs were brought to life by the Studio B magic, including more than 1,000 American hits, 40 million-selling singles, and over 200 Elvis Presley recordings (by far more than any other studio). Step into the house of the hitmakers and discover the legend of this Music Row landmark.

Here’s one reason why it was so much fun for us: Will playing the Steinway that was used on many of those hits and played by Elvis Presley. Unlike many museums and exhibits where the good stuff is cordoned off, we were encouraged to look around and touch things. Very hands on and very cool.

After the museum we had a late lunch at the Big River Grille & Brewing Works. It was fine but nothing too special. Afterwards we headed back to hotel for a swim in the pool and then some down time. We skipped dinner, planning to get it after the show we were to attend at the Ryman Auditorium.

While the Ryman is not the current home of the Grand Ole Opry, it was for many years, and was used recently when flooding in Nashville in 2010 made their current building unusable for many months. The show we saw that night was called “Grand Ole Opry Country Classics.”

Here’s one thing I didn’t realize before we saw the show: it was being broadcast live on the radio. That meant there was an announcer who was the lead radio voice and who did the commercials for companies like Cracker Barrel and Humana, and a master of ceremonies. Larry Gatlin, of the Gatlin Brothers, was the emcee.

The show mixed some of the old time schtick of the Grand Ole Opry (e.g., someone doing the Minnie Pearl jokes and “HoooooowDeeeeeeeeee”), music, and chatting between Gatlin and the performers. It was an older crowd, shall I say, but they nevertheless behaved themselves.

Highlights for me were Dailey & Vincent and Mandy Barnett performing some songs from her “Always … Patsy Cline” show.

After the show we had a forgettable dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe (at least it was open) and called it a day.

On Friday we set off from Nashville for the long drive home to upstate New York. Bad weather was brewing up toward Louisville, the same nasty stuff that led to the St. Louis tornadoes, so I slanted up to the northeast through Lexington, Kentucky. Traffic picked up significantly as we approached Cincinnati and didn’t abate until well past Columbus. Soon after we stopped for the night.

We finally arrived home after lunch on Saturday, road-weary but happy that we had such great experiences. It was 1750+ miles and we had avoided torrential rain and tornadoes, though the South would not be so lucky in the days and weeks that followed.

Next year we fly.

The Entire 2011 Road Trip Series

• From home to Pigeon Forge, TN
• Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, TN
• Great Smoky Mountains National Park
• Oak Ridge to Nashville, TN
• Nashville, TN, Day 1
• Nashville, TN, Day 2, and home

© Robert S. Sutor for Bob Sutor, 2011. All rights reserved.
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Twitter: bob_sutor

Will and I arrived in Nashville around 2 in the afternoon on an overcast and occasionally rainy Wednesday afternoon. The plan was to stay in Nashville until Friday morning and then start the long drive home to upstate western New York. Due to the Eastern to Central time zone difference and a skipped sidetrip, we were in Nashville earlier than expected, but we figured there was more than enough to do in the city.

After checking into the Doubletree on 4th, we headed out the door with the intention of getting to lower Broadway, the heart of the Nashville live music scene. Along the way we walked past Red’s Classic Barber Shop and since Will needed a haircut, we made an appointment for later in the day. It was rather an odd thing to do on vacation, but it was convenient and intriguing.

Beyond Red’s we continued down 4th and passed the Ryman Auditorium, home for many years of the Grand Ole Opry. Aside from my getting yelled at by a guard when I tried to go in and grab some pamphlets after closing hours, we didn’t spend much time there. We had tickets for the Opry at Ryman for Thursday night.

When we finally got to Broadway it was clear that this was where the action was. There were restaurants up and down the street, bars with live music, record shops. Will and I walked up and down the street, stopping in any bar that didn’t have a “21 or over” age restriction during the day.  We didn’t drink, obviously, but we stayed for a few minutes at each and listened to the music.

At one bar in particular, there was a particularly good band with a young man playing a tele, a female vocalist, and two older men on bass and rhythm guitar. We didn’t stay long because Will felt uncomfortable hanging out with “old people getting drunk in the middle of the day.” I didn’t blame him and didn’t push it.

We had lunch at Jack’s Bar-be-que and it was excellent. I regret that we didn’t go more than once and we didn’t buy some bar-be-que sauce while we were there. Next time.

We pretty much spent the rest of the afternoon checking out the shops. Around 4:30 we went back to Red’s and each got haircuts, and quite good ones if I do say so. The people there were very friendly and talked about their business plan of setting up shops in “small but livable” cities like Nashville and Indianapolis.

It had been a long day by then so we went back to the hotel to relax for a while. Around 6 pm we headed out again, this time to the Wildhorse Saloon for some dinner, some line dance watching, and some live music. We stayed for about 90 minutes and called it a night.

I’ll conclude the road trip story in the next entry and talk about, among other things, how Will got to play a piano also played by some guy named Elvis.

The Entire 2011 Road Trip Series

• From home to Pigeon Forge, TN
• Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, TN
• Great Smoky Mountains National Park
• Oak Ridge to Nashville, TN
• Nashville, TN, Day 1
• Nashville, TN, Day 2, and home

© Robert S. Sutor for Bob Sutor, 2011. All rights reserved.
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Tagged with: Nashville.
Twitter: bob_sutor

Having driven hundreds of miles from upstate New York to Tennessee, visited Dollywood, and seen the Great Smoky Mountains, my son and I had one more place to visit before we moved farther west to Nashville. I had purposely chosen our hotel the night before so we could visit Oak Ridge.

During World War II, the US government selected Oak Ridge, TN, as the location for a “secret city” that would be a critical part of the Manhattan Project. The population of the area expanded from 3,000 to 75,000 in a 3 year period starting in 1942.

Construction included the necessary infrastructure for all those people, including living quarters, roads, and stores. The scientific/warfare purpose of the facility was the separation of uranium 235 from natural uranium. This was eventually used in the two atomic bombs used against Japan at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

A good deal of the original site is now the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Access is limited for the laboratory, though eventually more of the buildings will be rehabilitated and made available to the public for industrial research and offices.

So Will and I did not go to the Oak Ridge government site per se, but we did visit the American Museum of Science and Energy in the city of Oak Ridge.

The museum is evidently a popular destination for elementary and middle school field trips and it is, in fact, and excellent resource. I’ll confess, though, that Will and I changed our visit strategy several times so we could see the exhibits at our own pace and in relative quiet.

For me the highlights were the story of Oak Ridge, an entire room of photos, exhibits, and the chronology of the wartime work; the story of the U-2 project including the downing of pilot Francis Gary Powers; and an original “flat top” mass-produced house that is behind the museum.

The gift shop was simple, though they had an ample supply of freeze dried “space ice cream.” I suspect being able to purchase this was one of the highlights of the entire week for Will.

We finished at the museum right before noon and decided to start driving west to Nashville, our next and last major stop for the trip. I was surprised that the GPS said we would be there at 1:45 pm since we had 165+ miles to drive. I then remembered that while Oak Ridge was in the Eastern time zone, Nashville was in the Central time zone. That explained the apparent time gap, though it meant that we would be getting to the hotel much earlier than I expected.

In the interest of brevity: we drove to Nashville, there we many large and fast trucks on I-40, it rained, and the hotel had our room ready. Due to the rain, I opted not to go to Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage estate, something I would later regret.

The GPS wasn’t very useful in Nashville but given the grid and some landmarks I was able to navigate to the hotel without too much time lost. We had several hours to start our sightseeing and do something that I’m sure many visitors do in that city: get haircuts.

It did get more exciting. Next time I’ll dive into what Will and I did in Nashville.

The Entire 2011 Road Trip Series

• From home to Pigeon Forge, TN
• Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, TN
• Great Smoky Mountains National Park
• Oak Ridge to Nashville, TN
• Nashville, TN, Day 1
• Nashville, TN, Day 2, and home

© Robert S. Sutor for Bob Sutor, 2011. All rights reserved.
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Categorized under: Travel.
Tagged with: Nashville, Tennessee.
Twitter: bob_sutor

On the fourth day of my son Will’s and my road trip to Tennessee, we left the long miles on the road, the crass commercialism of Pigeon Forge, TN, and the good fun of Dollywood behind to travel a bit farther south to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

The website describes the climate in the mountains as follows:

Great Smoky Mountains National Park has a moderate climate, typified by mild winters and hot, humid summers. When planning a trip to the Smokies, keep in mind that elevations in the park range from just over 875 feet to 6,643 feet and that the topography can drastically affect local weather. Temperatures can vary 10-20 degrees Fahrenheit from mountain base to top, and clear skies at lower elevations do not guarantee equally pleasant weather on the higher peaks.

I highlight this because our trip took us to that highest elevation and though it was in the upper 80s F (30 C) and sunny when we entered the park, the temperature near the top was in the lower 60s F (17 C) and it was quite windy.

Roughly speaking, the park is highest on the eastern side and the Appalachian Trail runs through there, straddling the border between Tennessee and North Carolina. That’s the side we started with as I wanted to end the day somewhere farther west toward Nashville.

Will and I left Pigeon Forge and drove south on Route 441. Once we were past the motels and attractions, the road split widely into south- and northbound lanes. We soon entered the park and the terrain got much hillier and more forested. We opted to avoid going through the town of Gatlinburg. The bypass was very roundabout and involved several switchbacks. These and the beautiful views presaged what we would be seeing for the rest of the day.

After stopping at the Sugarlands Visitor Center to get some maps and confirm that my visit plan for the park could be done in one day, we continued southward on Route 441 toward Newfound Gap. This was an 11 mile (18 km) trip pretty much straight up and around, following a river for most of the trip. Construction near the top delayed us only a few minutes though it looked like a risky job given the steepness of the drop-off. My favorite part of this ride was a corkscrew turn where we went through a short tunnel, continued turning counterclockwise through 360 degrees and then drove on the road on top of the tunnel.

At Newfound Gap the road opens up and there is a large parking area. It’s here that you can look farther south into the mountains and North Carolina but also hop on the Appalachian Trail. We opted to hike north for a little more than a mile.

The walk was all uphill, falling off to the right for the first third, both sides in the middle, and then to the left for the final section we traversed. Though Will maintains it was uphill on the way back as well, it was a very pleasant return back to our car. Just counting the one direction, we can now proudly claim that we have hiked .05% of the AT. Clearly we have work to do to finish the entire length.

If you want to learn more about the AT and serious attempts to through-hike it, I suggest you read A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail by Bill Bryson or AWOL on the Appalachian Trail by David Miller.

From Newfound Gap we hopped back in the car and drove to the Clingman’s Dome area. From the parking area to the top is a rather steep but paved walkway leading to a concrete observation tower. This is the highest point in the mountain range and well worth the effort. I must say that I needed to stop several times on the way up prompting me to hit the treadmill after we eventually got home.

There are three things that I saw on this walk to the top and back that I really have to question:

1. People forcing very small children to walk the steep 1/2 mile trail.
2. People who were significantly underdressed for the lower temperature and wind. They didn’t look tough or brave, they looked uninformed, to be polite.
3. People who allowed their children to run down the steep, asphalt path. What exactly did they would think would happen if anyone stumbled? Hint: it starts with sliding face-first on the pavement.

There were also people pushing strollers up the hill. More power to them, but they were clearly expending a lot of effort.

The panoramic view from the top is terrific. Don’t get excited by what looks like a cellular tower near the peak. The mobile reception there and in the rest of the park is quite bad too nonexistent. That’s ok, it’s good to get off the grid. I hope Apple didn’t miss me.

From Clingman’s Dome we retraced our steps back down to the Sugarlands Visitor’s Center and then headed west to Cades Cove. Had I brought my fly fishing equipment and had a Tennessee license, there would have been several hundred perfect places to stop and do some angling. Instead, for 30 minutes I focused on the curving road and watched the river out of the corner of my eye.

Once at Cades Cove, Will and I debated driving the 11 mile one-way loop. The woman at the visitors center said to assume that the drive would take three hours. The cove is a largely flat area surrounded by mountains were many of the first settlers lived. There are old churches and cabins to visit and lovely views. I decided to do the drive since we had come so far to get there and there didn’t seem to be many cars.

Three hours to go 11 miles? Traffic can be very heavy on this road and despite the many, many signs encouraging slow drivers to turn off, people didn’t. In fact, sometimes they stopped in the road and got out of their cars if there was any hint that a bear might be nearby. A wild turkey also seemed to get drivers to slow to a crawl.

One time we did see a bear, people got much too close, and it finally crossed the road and moved on. I remember mentioning something about Darwin to some of the folks with their cameras walking back to their cars.

It was very pretty but the traffic situation was extraordinarily frustrating. Will said it was the longest 11 miles of his life, and it only took us 90 minutes to do the loop.

After escaping Cades Cove, we headed out of the park toward Tremont with the intention of getting to Maryville and finding a place to stay for the night. By chance we came across the Little River Bar-B-Que in Tremont.

Will and I both got the rib/brisket combo. While he didn’t like the brisket very much, I did. We probably should have split a combo and then had dessert, but I thought the food and eating out on the screened porch by the river was a great experience.

We ended up staying at a hotel near I-40 which positioned us well for our visit the next day to Oak Ridge and our drive to Nashville.

The Entire 2011 Road Trip Series

• From home to Pigeon Forge, TN
• Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, TN
• Great Smoky Mountains National Park
• Oak Ridge to Nashville, TN
• Nashville, TN, Day 1
• Nashville, TN, Day 2, and home

© Robert S. Sutor for Bob Sutor, 2011. All rights reserved.
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Having spent more than a day getting from our home south of Rochester, NY, to Pigeon Forge, TN, my son Will and I were ready to begin our vacation in earnest. The forecast for Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, home of Dolly Parton’s Dollywood theme park, was for the weather to be sunny and in the high 70s F (~ 26 C), exactly what we were looking for to push the long northern winter further behind us.

What were we expecting with Dollywood? An overall Appalachian theme with crafts, good rides, good food, and good music. Our family had visited several theme parks before including Disney World, Disney Land, Universal Studios Florida, LegoLand, Hersheypark, and Seaworld, so we were looking forward to something new. I’m not one to go on many of the more turbulent rides but Will is usually more than game to try them. As he pointed out to me on that warm Monday morning, I was not getting these rides out of his system but rather getting him used to them.

The daily schedule for Dollywood varies throughout the season but last week the park opened at 10 AM, closed at 7 PM, and was closed on Tuesday. Therefore, it was good that we had done all that driving on Sunday in order to have a full day available to us at the park on Monday. We were working from east to west in Tennessee and it would have very much affected our schedule if we needed to wait until Wednesday to visit Dollywood. No matter, we were there and the weather was perfect.

There are many online forum entries about how to prepare for Dollywood and what to do once you get there. I’ll summarize a bit based on our experience.

• There are only a few water rides, but they can get you quite wet. Therefore plan to wear something that will dry quickly. That includes footwear. The park does have “family drying stations” that blow warm air at you and your loved ones for a small price. I would avoid blue jeans. Will and I did Daredevil Falls and I got more wet from the water sloshing around on the seat than from water thrown at me during the ride. Plan to use the lockers near the rides to keep your phones and cameras safe and dry.
• Plan to arrive right when the park opens. There will be people who will get there before you do.
• The park is relatively small and you can probably do all the rides in one day, though there are quite a few smaller, carnival-like attractions. Since Will is 14 and 6 foot 1 inches tall, we skipped the rides for younger kids. While there were many people there on Monday, it was clear from the size of the parking lots that many more go during the high season in mid-summer.
• For Adventure Mountain you will need real shoes and not sandals. They will loan you some Crocs-like footwear but they might run out. Ideally you would wear some lightweight running shoes with good drainage that dried quickly if they got wet. Also note that there are several paths through Adventure Mountain and you don’t have to exit after doing just one.
• Look at the website and decide which rides you really want to go on and which are likely to be most popular. Go on them first. These include the Barnstormer, Mystery Mine, Tennessee Tornado, and Thunderhead. I went on none of them, Will went on all of them. My 50+ year old back feels better for it.
• If you go on the railroad, sit in the back so fewer coal cinders land on you and the steam engine smoke has a better chance to dissipate.
• Any vendor that sells drinks will give you a cup of ice water for free, so there is no need to bring water bottles.
• Don’t expect very fast service at anything, especially food. I kept reminding myself that they were being deliberate rather than slow, but bring your patience to the park.

In addition to going on rides multiple times, one of the reasons people go to Dollywood multiple times is the music. They are still having the Festival of Nations musical acts until the beginning of May, so there was much less bluegrass and other music than I was personally hoping to see.

We had lunch and dinner at the park. For lunch we had bar-be-que fare and for dinner we went with the buffet at Aunt Granny’s. I was somewhat surprised that we managed to stay all day, leaving to go back to the hotel around 30 minutes before the park closed.

The crowd was very well behaved and everyone who worked at Dollywood was quite pleasant. The setting in the Great Smoky Mountain foothills was quite pretty and the designers used the varying terrain quite well. While there are many ways to spend a lot of money at Dollywood, there is not a lot of pressure to do so.

If I was in the area, I would certainly go back. The park is much nicer than the surrounding rather crass Pigeon Forge strip would lead you to believe.

In the next entry I’ll talk about how Will and I headed into the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

The Entire 2011 Road Trip Series

• From home to Pigeon Forge, TN
• Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, TN
• Great Smoky Mountains National Park
• Oak Ridge to Nashville, TN
• Nashville, TN, Day 1
• Nashville, TN, Day 2, and home

© Robert S. Sutor for Bob Sutor, 2011. All rights reserved.
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Categorized under: Travel.
Tagged with: Dollywood, Tennessee, vacation.
Twitter: bob_sutor

April in upstate New York can be very warm, or very cool, and very dry, or very wet, sometimes on alternate days. It’s the real transition month from winter to spring. It’s not quite either, though, so in order to try to guarantee some warmer weather, my 14 year old son Will and I decided to get away by driving down to Tennessee. I had never been to that state except for a brief stopover in an airport almost 30 years ago, and Will had not been there at all, so it seemed like a good destination.

To sum up what we were looking for: warmth, bar-be-que, and new experiences.

Our plan was to leave last Saturday and spend a week on the road. Unlike highly scripted trips where all flight arrangements and hotel reservations are made in advance, my idea of a road trip is to make one or two essential reservations, plan a rough route, do enough research so you can get to the good things along the way if the mood strikes you, and then take off.

Having your own car and the flexibility to bring along anything you want is a big plus. Having a smartphone and an iPad makes it easier to be spontaneous as well.

Several years ago my daughter Katie and I took a road trip to Hibbing, Minnesota, to see where Bob Dylan grew up. We both agree that it was one of the best vacations we ever took.

Here was the rough plan for the trip:

• Leave on Saturday and get to Pigeon Forge, TN, by Sunday evening.
• See Dollywood on Monday.
• Visit the Great Smoky Mountains National Park on Tuesday.
• Get ourselves farther west to Nashville by Wednesday night and spend two days there.
• Start driving home on Friday, getting back on Saturday.

I don’t like to drive more than 500 miles in a day, and since the distance to Pigeon Forge from our house is 758 miles (1220 km), I knew it would be a two day trip. Though I planned to leave around lunch on Saturday, the weather didn’t cooperate and I was nervous about driving into the heavy rains and high winds that were left over from the destructive storm that launched tornadoes in Oklahoma and North Carolina.

I set a decision time of 4 pm to figure out if we would leave on Saturday or wait until Sunday morning. By that time things had cleared up considerably and we left a bit after 5 pm on Saturday evening. A Sunday departure would have compressed the trip quite a bit.

How far did we plan to go? As far as we could. Because of this, I did not make any hotel reservations for the night before we left. I’ve found that I can usually find a Hampton Inn or other suitable hotel along the way. The downside is that depending on the day of the week and what might be happening in a particular area, we might not get a hotel when we are ready to stop. If that happens, we have to keep going until we can find a vacancy. I won’t accept anything but a non-smoking room, so that lowers the odds a bit.

The usual route is to head west toward Buffalo, head southwest toward Erie, PA, on I-90, and then pick up I-79 to drop straight south. I modified this a bit by first going south to I-86/Route 17 and then picking up I-90 north of Erie. This is a bit longer but cuts down on the truck traffic. Just as we got on I-86 it was clear that there had been a  recent blow down of trees so we  were right to have left later than we had planned.

We got to Erie around 7:30 and I pulled into a restaurant parking lot to take stock of where we were. I felt that I could do more driving even though there were plenty of hotels along Peach Street, I-90 Exit 24, in Erie. The problem was, and is, that I don’t really like that area. It’s extremely busy with a lot of traffic and feels very artificial to me. Here’s an example: there’s a business right off the highway that advertises “fireworks, pepper spray, stun guns, and sugar-free fudge.” That’s no place in which I want to spend a lot of time.

I used my iPhone Hampton Inn app and discovered that there was a hotel with a non-smoking two bed room another half hour down the road. The receptionist said there were plenty of restaurants in the area and, anxious to get out of Erie, we got back on I-90 and merged onto I-79 south in a few minutes. We stayed in Meadville, PA, and had a very nice dinner at Montana’s.

We got up early on Sunday morning and drive the 572 miles (921 km) to Pigeon Forge in about 12 hours. It was a long day on the road.

Here are some notes on that portion of the trip:

• We just skimmed the Pittsburgh area to the west, so I still can’t say I’ve been to that city.
• Driving through West Virginia is: turn to the left, turn to the right, go up a hill, go down a hill, repeat 5000 times.
• West Virginia would have been more pleasant if a truck hadn’t lost its cargo and forced all traffic to a single lane. We lost 45 minutes because there was no way to go around it. I was very patient, if I say so myself, but with such a long day I didn’t need the delay.
• We got off the highway to go to a little bar-be-que place near Clendenin, WV, only to discover it was only open Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturday’s. The Bob Evan’s Restaurant where we ate lunch wasn’t much consolation.
• When we exited West Virginia via a very long tunnel on I-77, one that I found rather unnerving to drive through, we ended up in Virginia. Somehow that surprised me, but there’s an awful lot of Virginia that is just as far west as West Virginia. This was a failure of mine to read the map more carefully than just noting which interstate highways led to others.

It was dark by the time we left I-40 in Tennessee and drove the 30 minutes south on Route 66 to Pigeon Forge. The man at the check-in desk at the hotel said we were lucky that we had not come the previous day because traffic congestion from a car show made the trip on the local road take 3 hours instead of 1/2.

The main attraction in Pigeon Forge is Dollywood, the theme park that Dolly Parton bought into in the 1980s. However, from the highway south through the town it is hotel after motel after restaurant after go cart place after attraction after … . Imagine mini Orlando meets mini Las Vegas. Also imagine a lot of road construction.

Whatever: we had gotten to our destination with a week’s worth of vacation in Tennessee yet to come. But that’s a tale for tomorrow.

The Entire 2011 Road Trip Series

• From home to Pigeon Forge, TN
• Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, TN
• Great Smoky Mountains National Park
• Oak Ridge to Nashville, TN
• Nashville, TN, Day 1
• Nashville, TN, Day 2, and home

© Robert S. Sutor for Bob Sutor, 2011. All rights reserved.
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A wonderful place to stay in the area is the West Mountain Inn. We’ve been there several times and shared a great trip there with friends several years ago to celebrate my 40th birthday. (Ok, perhaps more than several.)

Years ago I did a lot of fly fishing but it’s fallen off as I’ve picked up other activities in my spare time. This year I’ve pledged to do more again, though not from my sailboat as my wife suggested I should do to combine hobbies efficiently.

The Battenkill is a lovely stream, though in the height of summer your fishing might be interrupted by teenagers tubing down the river. Also, for those of you more accustomed to fishing in southern and western streams, you need to be able keep your backcast low to avoid snagging your fly in a tree. As a guide once told me when I asked him how many flies I needed: “One for you, one for the fish, and one for the tree behind you.”

Trout season opens in Vermont this year on April 9 and you can buy your license here. The Battenkill flows into New York and you can get a jump on Vermont because the season opens in my home state on April 1. You can get a New York fishing license here.

© Robert S. Sutor for Bob Sutor, 2011. All rights reserved.
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This last week I was in New York City to speak on a panel at the SIIA Information Industry Summit. I flew down from Rochester, NY, on Tuesday and although there was a two hour delay on my flight, I got to my hotel in Times Square with no major problems.

New York City and many of the towns and cities along the US northeastern seaboard have been hard hit with snow storms this winter. These have caused quite a bit of travel disruption and loss of school for children in the Mid-Atlantic and New England States.

In contrast, where I live in northwest New York state, my son has not had any snow days off this winter, though some schools did take a day off when the temperature was below -10 F last week. This surprises some people, I believe, because they think Rochester, Syracuse, and Buffalo are just slightly below the Arctic Circle. (I jest.)

My panel was late in the morning on Wednesday. When I awoke in the hotel it was clear that it was already snowing. Due to some confusion on my part, I had several long blocks to walk to the conference site, as my hotel was on West 42nd Street and the conference was at Cipriani on East 42nd Street, across from Grand Central Station.

It wasn’t worth trying to find a taxi during the morning rush hour and I figured it would be quicker to walk than getting stuck in the slow traffic. I still thought this was true even though I had a rollerboard suitcase and my backpack.

I got down to the street and immediately noticed that it was indeed snowing quite heavily. But, wait, look at all those silly people with umbrellas! Where I live, in the northern snow belt, real men and women don’t use umbrellas in the winter. So I walked half a block and got pretty much coated with wet sticky snow. I stopped under a store awning and pulled out and raised my umbrella.

It was a slippery walk for 15 minutes, made worse by my wearing dress shoes. I got to Cipriani without falling, gratefully checked by bag and coat, and settled in to the conference. The meeting was focused on the publishing industry and my panel dealt with some of the issues in moving to digital publishing for mobile devices. John Patrick put up a good summary over in his blog.

The panel ended around lunch and I called my assistant for the second or third time that morning to see what the travel situation was. I was due to fly out of La Guardia airport around 5:30 that afternoon. One of my options was to stay another night in New York and fly out the next morning when, presumably, travel would be less affected by the snow. There were already several canceled flights on Wednesday morning.

We decided that it would make sense for me to head out to La Guardia airport, so I grabbed a taxi out front of Cipriani, once again managing not to fall on my butt in the slippery snow. It was a slushy but easy ride out to the airport in Queens, helped a bit by our going through the Midtown Tunnel and so avoiding some of the snow on the road.

La Guardia was oddly unbusy since many people had checked on their flights, realized they were were canceled, and stayed away. Security was a breeze and I was through it in about 15 minutes.

It was then around 1:00 and there was a delayed flight to Rochester leaving at 1:20. My flight at 5:30 still showed up as on time, but that really only meant that it was too far in the future to show an accurate schedule. At least it had not been canceled, yet.

To me it is oddly excited to get to an airport and find out that you might be able to take an earlier flight, especially if you are homeward bound. I went to the gate for the 1:20 and learned that the plane was going to be coming from Portland, Maine, but it had not yet left. There were, however, plenty of empty seats and the gate attendant put me on that flight in addition to the one at 5:30.

Time went by and the gate attendant to whom I had spoken left when her shift ended around 3:00. I decided to doublecheck on my dual seat reservations and so went back up to the desk. It turned out that I had not been put on the correct earlier flight at all.

The gate person offered to move me to that flight but warned that I might be bumped if they had weight restrictions. This happens in bad weather when the planes have to put on extra fuel to allow for takeoff or landing delays, or if their flight paths are changed.

If I did shift to the earlier flight, maybe I could get back on the 5:30 if I was bumped. I asked how it was that I had gone from having two seats to possibly having none, but she just shrugged. So my choice was to wait and see if I could grab a seat on the late 1:20 or, failing that, just take the 5:30 home. Meanwhile, it was still snowing.

A third option then presented itself. A flight to Buffalo started boarding from that same gate. I asked if I could have a seat on that, and I snagged one. I ran back, got all my bags and coat, and got on the plane. My seat was 13A, that coveted last row window seat opposite the bathroom, but it was a seat!

We went through normal de-icing, took off after a little delay, and landed in Buffalo 5o minutes later. By 5:00 I was driving out of the airport in a rental car. At 6:15 I was returning the rental car and getting my car from the parking lot. By 7:00 I was home, earlier than I would have been if I had taken that 5:30 plane.

Well, much earlier, it turns out. The 5:30 was canceled as the weather got worse. The delayed 1:20 did eventually fly but I have no idea if I would have had a seat on it. At that point, I didn’t care. I was home.

The snow picked up in New York City and along the northeastern seaboard overnight and many places had 10 to 20 inches of snow by Thursday morning. Almost all flights out of La Guardia were canceled until Thursday afternoon. Had I waited, I would have been in far worse shape than if I were aggressive to find some way to get close to home on Wednesday evening. It worked out this time, but that wasn’t completely an accident.

© Robert S. Sutor for Bob Sutor, 2011. All rights reserved.
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This last Saturday I was scheduled to travel to Europe for a business meeting. It was the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend, so I wasn’t surprised when I got to the airport to find the parking garage nearly empty. Most everyone was probably where they were supposed to be, though I knew the next day, Sunday, would be travel hell as people tried to return home or go back to school after the four day break.

Things were looking good as I got through security and headed to my gate. I grabbed lunch and still had two hours to spare before my flight.

It was a sunny cold day though rather windy, but flights seemed to be coming and going as scheduled. There was this one AirTran flight that was delayed and they reminded us every five minutes of that situation via the public address system. Then one of the announcements was a little different, it was for the 3:21 flight to Newark, and that was where I was going to connect.

I went up to the counter and learned that there was a little mechanical problem with the plane while it was still in Newark. Evidently they had knocked off or damaged some rubber pieces on the plane while the were deicing it. We were to sit tight and wait 25 minutes.

In less time than that, the gate attendant made an announcement that anyone with a connection time before 6:30 should come up. Mine was 6:50, but I figured that since international flights board earlier, I should check out the situation.

When I got to the desk, there was a teenage girl crying and the attendant was trying to find out what was wrong.

“Are you upset because you won’t get to Cincinnati today?”

“No.”

“Then why are you crying?”

“Because I don’t want to leave.”

“So you want to stay here in Rochester?”

“Yes.”

So they agreed that she could leave the airport and grab a flight the next day.

I got to up to the gate, promised the man that I wasn’t going to cry no matter what he told me, and found out that I would definitely miss my connection. Moreover, even though there was a later flight to Frankfurt, I might miss that as well. Rescheduling for the next day was hopeless. So I decided, reluctantly, to cancel my flight and went home. I called the travel agent and got my hotel reservation canceled, and sent email apologies to my colleagues in Europe.

This is the third time this has happened to me in the last 10 years, missing a flight to Europe because of mechanical or weather problems. I always feel very bad and guilty about it, though I know the situation is out of my control. I even tried to allow an extra day in this case.

I had other work to do on a work project and spent most of Sunday and a good deal of Monday handling it because of a tight deadline.

On Monday afternoon I got a call from a friend and coworker in Europe:

“Do you know that person you were supposed to meet?”

“Yes?”

“She never made it here, she got stuck in snow at the airport in Frankfurt.”

So it’s good I didn’t go. I missed two cross-Atlantic flights and had more time to work on my project. I suspect we’ll try again in January, but ultimately things worked out for the best in terms of my not travelling. It would have been good to have that meeting, but we’ll get around to that.

© Robert S. Sutor for Bob Sutor, 2010. All rights reserved.
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Pumpkins in front of the Wegmans supermarket in Pittsford, NY. Click the image to see a larger version.

© Robert S. Sutor for Bob Sutor, 2010. All rights reserved.
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This morning I was driving by the same spot at Lock 32 and I stopped for a few minutes to take some photos of what it looks like with a week to go before summer turns into autumn. Had I arrived 15 minutes earlier, I could have seen a boat being raised in the lock. The first photo is that boat motoring off to the east, almost out of sight.

Within two months they will mostly drain the canal and things will revert to what they looked like last March. I’m still fascinated by the idea of taking a multi-day trip on the canal, though the sailboat I bought recently is not the right kind of vessel for such a trip.

Click on an image to see a larger view.

© Robert S. Sutor for Bob Sutor, 2010. All rights reserved.
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© Robert S. Sutor for Bob Sutor, 2010. All rights reserved.
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Restorers were doing work on the exterior of the main house and a classical concert was being held when we visited, but here are a few photos from around the grounds.

© Robert S. Sutor for Bob Sutor, 2010. All rights reserved.
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Many years ago, probably about 25, I rented a UHaul trailer to get from somewhere to somewhere else. Therefore, having set a precedent, I reserved a UHaul trailer via the very handy online website. It’s good they have such a good website because, as I learned later, it’s almost impossible to get to central UHaul “traffic” control by phone.

The day before I was to pick up the trailer, I got a call from a UHaul franchise, but not the one I expected. While there is a UHaul place about 7 miles south and another 10 miles north, they decided I needed to pick up the trailer 25 miles west. After I expressed surprise about this, I casually asked if they had trailer hitches.

In my previous towing experience in the distant past, they had given me some sort of temporary hitch that went on the bumper. The woman at the end of the phone sounded confused and I quickly realized why: bumpers today are not designed for such hitches. I had reserved a trailer with no way to tow it. Mea culpa.

Now many UHaul franchises are just small efforts associated with self-storage or auto-repair businesses. I needed something more serious, and I needed it fast. The 800 number was never answered when I called. I live near Rochester, NY, and I quickly discovered by making a few local phone calls that the place to go was the UHaul Center on Jefferson Road in Henrietta. This probably means nothing to most of you, but the point is that I needed a place that did nothing but UHauls and did a lot of them. I called them and the amazingly helpful woman switched me from a trailer to a 10 foot truck.

This was better, but it did make the trip more difficult. Instead of the four of us driving out in the SUV pulling the trailer, my son William and I would take the truck and my wife and daughter would drive our car. Other combinations were possible, but no one voted for them. We would drop the truck off at a UHaul in Chicago and then the family (minus my daughter) would drive the car home.

Just because we had switched the trailer to a truck did not mean I was all set. I needed to wait for my official call from some UHaul franchise telling where to pick up the truck. I was hoping it was Henrietta, but I had no guarantee. While I waited, I kept an eye on the website and my 10 foot truck somehow morphed to a 14 foot truck. I wasn’t concerned because I knew that I would only have to pay for the size truck I reserved.

When I finally got my call I was indeed pleased that it was from the Henrietta store. They also told me that I could get my 17 foot truck first thing in the morning.

Now I’ve driven trucks before, including my brother-in-law Jay’s dump truck with a really bad clutch when I was a teenager, so I wasn’t too worried about it getting bigger by the minute. Nevertheless, I made them assure me that the truck would be in excellent condition and it wouldn’t stretch yet again into something 35 feet long, or multiple trailers, or anything like that.

The next day I picked up the truck and all was fine. I paid for the maximum amount of insurance since, well, it seemed smart for such a long journey (almost 600 miles) in an unfamiliar vehicle. I also needed to buy a lock for the back of the truck. The truck was a 2009 model and had 13,000 miles on it. It was in good shape. I had no problem getting it home, though I did take back roads to get familiar with it.

It did not accelerate quickly, but it would mostly stay at a speed, plus or minus a couple of mph, once I got it going. The controls were minimal, such as wind up windows and no cruise control. The radio was basic as well. It was a truck. It drove like one, but it met expectations.

We set off Friday morning in our mini caravan to the Midwest. Initially my wife took the lead but eventually I did since it was easier for her to match my varying speed while trailing me. My son was a great companion and it was really a just-guys experience. We talked, he read, and he stayed awake for the entire trip.

There were no issues as we headed west toward Buffalo, passed down through Erie, PA, and then set across Ohio. I know there are bigger states, but it seems to take forever to drive across Ohio on Route 80. As we approached the Indiana border, the sky got very dark. I was debating about whether to soldier on for another hour, but then all hell broke loose weather-wise with lightning and heavy winds and rain. We quickly bailed off the highway near Fremont, Indiana.

The next morning the sun was shining and though things seemed a bit wet, nothing seemed too out of the ordinary. We made our way to Chicago in about 3 hours. One odd thing was that right as we got to Chicago we saw that some of the traffic lights were out. Not all of them, and not even consecutive ones, but some were dark. In case you don’t know, you treat an intersection with a dead traffic light as a four-way stop. I observed that this was not common knowledge.

I was anticipating problems unloading the truck, but I double parked it on the street in front of the apartment, put on the blinkers and we unloaded everything in 30 minutes. (Let me again thank my daughter’s friend Peter whose young back and legs really made the job go faster and better.)

William and I then drove the truck to a UHaul place about a mile and a half away, eventually found the guy who ran it, and finalized the paperwork. (Let me again thank my son for stopping me from backing up and running over the UHaul guy while he was inspecting the truck.) We walked back the apartment sans truck and happier for it.

Something was odd. My daughter’s apartment was not quite without electricity, but was probably at about 25% voltage. This was enough to feebly light a few fixtures but not enough to power the refrigerator. We hurried to do everything necessary before it got dark.

After dinner we left our daughter to her friends and we set off to drive a few of the dozen hours it would take us to get home. My plan was to get to Elkhart, Indiana, RV capital of the world and home of the RV/MH Hall of Fame and Museum. We weren’t planning to go to the museum, but there are a lot of hotels and restaurants near the interstate.

Oddly enough, though, there weren’t any rooms. Evidently the storms of the previous evening had caused widespread power outages not just in Chicago, but across northern Indiana. The hotels were filled with people who had no electricity at home.

I filled the tank with gas, as that seemed like a good precaution, and we hit the road again. Eventually we tried another exit and there the signs were even worse: perhaps 10 electrical repair trucks were backed up to pay the toll on the exit ramp. More repair trucks were visible in the hotel parking lots.

We got back on the highway and drove into Ohio, eventually settling in to a Holiday Inn Express around 1:15 AM. The rest of the trip was easy.

As a side effect of this trip, I got a towing hitch installed on our SUV yesterday, so I’ll be ready if I ever need to pull something in the future. It might be a rented trailer or, who knows, maybe a boat. Have hitch, will haul.

© Robert S. Sutor for Bob Sutor, 2010. All rights reserved.
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Fedora, of course, is not unusual, it was that I found the time to go to a talk at a conference. While I usually do manage to get to some of the keynotes, the individual sessions are sometimes hard to get to because I spend my days in meetings with folks. It could be the host of the conference, in this case Red Hat, or partners, or customers. Conferences provide a great way to get people together and, well, talk.

In some cases these are people to whom I speak on a regular on a regular basis, but in others it’s much more of a “hey, you should chat with these guys” and then you do. So between the scheduled meetings, the talks that I give, the impromptu meetings and the hallway discussions, there isn’t much time to attend the sessions.

That’s ok, because the intensity of the days together with my industry colleagues is really invigorating. It’s an opportunity to update each other on our strategies, make business plans, and find out what friends are up to.

I’m about to head down to the exhibit area and although it’s a happy hour, I don’t plan to drink. I have a business dinner later this evening. I may nosh a bit if I can find some suitably low carb and relatively healthy food, though conference food usually plays havoc with my diet (though it’s not the only culprit).

Speaking of exhibits, now that my children are older I make less of an effort collecting giveaways at the booths. Note that I am still a sucker for cool looking pens and squeezable penguins, but if I’m really not going to do business with you or use your software, I’ll let you save your logoed items for people who might. There are exceptions, of course, but I don’t want to waste your time or money.

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In theory I was walking back to my hotel. Actually, I walked much too far and had to eventually find a taxi.

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I’ve been in Europe this past week on business and was scheduled to return home to the United States yesterday. I’m still here though I hope to get out later today.

My Saturday morning flight from Munich went without any problems. Because I have elite status on the airline on which I was to travel home, I got to sit in the lounge before my cross-Atlantic flight from Frankfurt to Chicago. I was warned when I got there that my flight was 2 hours late and when I got online, I learned that the incoming flight was four hours late, having been held up in Chicago because of some mechanical problem.

As the afternoon went on though, murmurs about more ash from the Icelandic volcano began to spread. The current cloud is evidently fairly narrow, but is extending very far south and up as high as 35,000 feet. Therefore cross-Atlantic flights have to go way north or way south to avoid the cloud completely. This adds several hundred miles to the flight with associated additional time required.

Then my flight got canceled. When they announced it, I rushed to the front desk in order to get rebooked and maybe get a hotel room. I didn’t get the former immediately because they just weren’t sure about which flight they could put me on. I did get a voucher for the hotel at the airport. They had made me check my luggage in Munich, so they were going to take all the luggage from the now canceled flight and put it in baggage claim.

However, I knew that could take a while. I instead rushed right over to my hotel to get the room. Just as I was walking away with room key in hand, I heard a supervisor say to the reception staff that they were accepting no more room vouchers. So I was lucky and I got a free room. The hotel was not full, but the airline decided that it did not need to pay for delays because of the ash. I was lucky because I was early. In any case, I would have paid for the room. While it was important for last night, it would have been especially important if the delay extended for days.

I then went back across the street, figured out how to get into baggage claim, and retrieved my one piece of luggage. I made several more ventures out, primarily to get more Euros from the ATM in case the delay extended to several days and some food for the evening.

Though I had been given a dinner voucher, the hotel staff told me that it was no longer valid since the airline stopped paying passengers for their inconvenience. I didn’t have a problem with this, especially because I had a room. I didn’t want to eat in the hotel, so I just walked back to the airport and found a restaurant where I could get some “take-away” food.

The airline lounge opened at 7 AM this morning and I must admit I was there ten minutes early. Though they had originally planned to move me to a slightly earlier flight on another airline, I wanted to stay on this one. Essentially, I did not want to get lost in the system of the other airline if there were further problems.

So I’m now scheduled to fly out in a couple of hours, though my making the connection in Chicago is not likely. I’ll worry about that if it is an issue. Though it is a long way, I do drive between home and Chicago several times a year. What is mor probable, if I miss tonight’s plane I will hop on a very early one in the morning.

In any case, I know I can drive home from Chicago. I cannot do that from Frankfurt.

Update for Sunday, 14:00 CET: Flight just got delayed 3 hours because of ash drifting into some of the available tracks across the Atlantic. Will need to go back through passport control and security.

Update for Sunday, 16:20 CET: We got a track an hour earlier than we thought, so we’re going now.

Update for Sunday, 18:50 CDT: Landed in Chicago.

Update for Monday, 01:00 EDT: Just got home, 47 1/2 hours after I originally left the hotel in Munich.

© Robert S. Sutor for Bob Sutor, 2010. All rights reserved.
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