Text 32086, 119 rader
Skriven 2015-10-17 12:55:00 av NANCY BACKUS (1:123/140)
     Kommentar till en text av MICHAEL LOO
Ärende: Re: travel(l)ing 333
============================
-=> Quoting Michael Loo to Nancy Backus on 10-15-15  05:03 <=-

 >  ML> Swisher met Lilli and me in Paris, and then he drove us
 >  ML> down to Ian and Jacquie's, a good thing as Lilli was 
 >  ML> getting tired of driving me around.
 > Ah.  Yes, I gathered as much from later messages...  I'm sure that Lilli
 > was glad for the respite...  :)
 ML> And taking him at his word - he said he'd driven vast distances
 ML> in Alaska and could do all the traveling I could throw at him) I 
 ML> scheduled him for a 4 hr drive (not including sightseeing) every 
 ML> second day after Lilli left. That didn't last long - 4 hrs of
 ML> driving the empty highways in the frozen north may be nothing,
 ML> but 4 hrs of twisty country roads with a Citroen or worse the
 ML> dreaded white French delivery van lurking to pounce when you
 ML> least expect, that's something else. 

He could do the driving.... just not quite the same, though...  I can
understand that... ;)  I don't mind long distances that are relatively
non-hassle...  Super-stress for long periods of time are a lot less
enjoyable, though... :)  I think I could still enjoy the twisty country
roads well enough, however...  :)

 ML> That being said, we've
 ML> seen the Puy Mary (gorgeous views, but he's inherited Lilli's
 ML> luck, and it was totally socked in when we got there), the

Sigh... ;)   Maybe it's also time of year...?

 ML> cities of Brive, Argentat, Saint-Cere, Aurillac, Tulle, and
 ML> Turenne, and several of the "plus beaux villages de France,"
 ML> a rather arbitrary collection of a couple hundred villages that 
 ML> some tourism authority has deemed the most beautiful - let's
 ML> see, Collonges-la-Rouge, St. Robert, Segur-le-Chateau, Salers,
 ML> and Rocamadour. Paleolithic art at Rouffignac. Chateaux at
 ML> Sully, Castelnau, and elsewhere. Dinner at a Michelin-starred
 ML> restaurant and at another that deserves one.

Sounds perfectly lovely...  ;)

 ML> As Lilli likes to say, life is good. Speaking of which, she
 ML> just e-mailed from home asking "when can we go again?"
 
Apparently she had a wonderful time there, too...  :)

 >> Sounds probably purely circumstantial to me... ;)  But, maybe the
 >> GPSes are more accurate in less populous areas, due to less likely
 >> changes there, thus less out-of-date...?   :)
 ML> Most of it involves the traffic circles, which they miscount
 ML> the roads around on occasion ("at roundabout, take third exit 
 ML> right" when it means either second or fourth), or when the
 ML> road planners in their wisdom have added or subtracted them,
 ML> seemingly arbitrary; 

That, actually, makes sense... sadly...  definitely a good argument for
traveling with at least a backup paper map...  ;)  Of course, you know
my bias... (G)

 ML> but there are other issues, such as
 ML> telling us to take roads which 1. have been closed (happened
 ML> once); 2. are really hiking trails or private drives (happens
 ML> on occasion); 3. never existed that one can see (happens
 ML> quite frequently, which is weird).

Those do seem to be the norm for GPSes... ;)  RJ was telling me of the
utter uselessness of a GPS in Istanbul, with the constant changes from
road constructions... I guess there, even a paper map wouldn't be of
much use, either... one just has to learn one's way around, and trust to
one's sense of direction(s)...  (G)

 >  ML> Turns out that my main piece of luggage fits into the
 >  ML> sizer boxes, or would but for the fact that the handle
 >  ML> thingy is broken, stuck into a half-extended position.
 >  ML> Got to do a consultation with the others to see if some
 >  ML> fix can be accomplished; if not, I'm not sure how I'm 
 >  ML> going to handle things. I really want to make this piece
 >  ML> last until I get back to the States.
 > Good luck on that.  :)
 ML> After some work, the handle is now stuck closed, which will
 ML> help getting the piece into the overhead but will make me
 ML> grow big arm muscles the way I used to.

Maybe when you get back to the States, you can find a way to properly
fix it... or, I suppose, maybe by then you will be ready to just replace
it... ;)

 > Just as well that the current job is based stateside... or at least
 > mostly... ;)  Did I mention, he's got a job on a sailing yacht,
 > currently based in Newport RI, and readying to sail down the coast to
 > winter in Charlestown SC... By the time they are ready to sail south,
 > hurricane season should be over... at least that's what he tells me. ;)
 ML> If we believe the global climate change people, the seasons
 ML> are going to be longer.

They all still have to fit into the 12 month span... ;)   I found it
interesting that this year, the Atlantic has had only 10 named storms
(J), while the Pacific is up to O already...  other years, it's been the
other way round...  ;)  I tend to just watch and observe... and hope
that people I care about (oh, and the others, too... :>) don't end up
with totally disastrous situations...  ;)

 >  ML> Catfish in the style of unagi
 > And apparently is what Wegmans is doing now instead of unagi in their
 > store sushi... invoking the magic word sustainability, of course... at
 > least Fu still has the real stuff...  ;)

 ML> At lest Weggies is telling the truth about it, no?

Yes, they are... at least in the "small print"... it looks similar
enough to fool at a glance... I haven't actually tried the taste test...
But, since they make the deal about changing for sustainability, they do
keep it relatively obvious...  :)

ttyl         neb

... USER ERROR: Please replace user and hit enter to continue

___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.20
--- Platinum Xpress/Win/WINServer v3.0pr5
 * Origin: Check Out Doc's QWK Mail  Via Web BBS > DocsPlace.org  (1:123/140)