|
|
|
no-hassle palm trees
Thursday, February 27 2025
location: rural Hurley Township, Ulster County, NY
Gretchen and I usually go some place warm every winter, and, what with all the persistent cold, accumulated ice, coupled with a bleak political climate, we definitely wanted to do that this year. But we wanted it to be as easy as possible. Gretchen soon discovered that one could catch a three hour flight in nearby Newburgh (the nearest airport serving big passenger airlines) to St. Petersburg, Florida. So she arranged for a three-day getaway to begin this evening. With all the travel we would be doing, I couldn't really get into the mental space to do much of anything except clean the house for our housesitter, prepare the things I would be taking (which would all fit in a smallish computer bag), and do a few little things like put an automatic door-closer on the front door (so it won't just stay open if the house-sitter fails to close it). Once Gretchen realized the hoodie I've been wearing as a winter coat was filthy (since I don't think I'd ever washed it), she decided to do a laundry.
We'd met our house sitter through our house cleaner, and she has an energetic young dog named Pepper who became fast friends with Charlotte. Unfortunately, though, Gretchen found Pepper's mom to have a grating personality, so when she arrived something like an hour early this afternoon, Gretchen and I decided to leave for the airport early as well, just so we wouldn't have to hang out with her.
Since we had all this extra time before boarding our flight, we decided to stop on the way at Plaza Diner in New Paltz to have spaghetti, something I don't think we'd done since before the pandemic. (In Gretchen's opinion, there is no spaghetti marinara in the Hudson Valley better than what you can get at the Plaza Diner.) Unfortunately, though, our waitress told us that none of the soups were vegetarian, meaning we couldn't get a minestrone soup as our side, which is something that we used to do. Gretchen also initially wanted to order her spaghetti as a side just so it wouldn't be quite so much, but the waitress convinced her to get the full size instead because, due to the sides she was ordering, the price would be the same. We were wondering if it was possible that the quality of the spaghetti had deteriorated in the five years since we'd last had it, but Gretchen declared it just as good as ever. (I'm not enough of a supertaster to be a proper judge of such things.)
There are several things that make Newburgh's Stewart International Ariport our favorite airport. One is that it is only thirty miles from home. The other is that it is so small that when one parks in its long-term parking area, one is less than a one-minute hike from the entrance to the airport. A couple minutes after that, we'd gotten through security and were only steps away from our gate. We spent a little time in a shop selling magazines, packaged food, deli food, electronics, and even bar drinks. (It had the world's smallest bar and a tiny leather=faced man working as a bartender, mustly serving glasses of wine to women of indeterminate age.) Gretchen and I marveled at the toys, several of which represented Air Force One but weren't branded with any specific presidency. In the tabloid magazine area I saw that one rag was hinting at an affair between Jennifer Aniston and Barack Obama. After Gretchen bought some sort of quinoa-w0th-chocolate snack, we set up camp at a distant gate where few other people were. Don called my cellphone while we were there and told me that Joy Tarder had told him that if I wanted to slavage the Shaque from my childhood home, I should do it in the next month.
At around that time, our plane started boarding. Gretchen and I were seated next to some random woman with a window seat. I mostly played Spelling Bee until a fumble for a pen caused the page to attempt to reload, something that couldn't happen at cruising altitude.
The airline we were flying on was Allegiant, one of the new breed of budget carriers that nickel-and-dime passengers for everything. We hadn't been allowed any carry-on luggage, just "one personal item" each. For Gretchen, that was a small bag with a couple books and a few clothes. For me, that was a small computer bag with my laptop and a coupke teeshirts, socks and swimming shorts. We were even expected to pay for the non-alcoholic drinks that are usually free. I wasn't sure initially, so to see that this was the case, ordered a bloody mary mix. Sure enough, they wanted a card, so I paid $6. It wwas a very good bloody mary mix (the brand was "Filthy") and I'd smuggled some vodka onboard that allowed me to turn some of it into an actual bloody mary.
The plane had no business class seats and the seats didn't even seem as though they could be slightly reclined from their upright position. The absence of comfort coupled with Allegiant's attempts to charge for what few comforts might be available had me joking with Gretchen about ways to squeeze even more money out of passengers. I suggested there could be a metal rod intruding into the middle of the chair backs that could be electromechanically pulled back for a few minutes for a small fee.
When Gretchen and I still thought we had an hour of flight left, someone in the cabin crew announced that we were beginning our initial descent into St. Petersburg. Not long after that, we were standing out in front of the airport waiting for our Lyft. The temperature was in the 60s and there were palm trees. This was the first time I'd ever been on the ground in Florida.
Our Lyft driver had to drive us from the airport to Ste Pete's Beach, which is west of St. Petersburg proper. Our hotel was St. Pete's Beach Suites, and we'd been given the code to a lock box holding the key (though, somewhat disconcertingly, the email with this information had been addressed to a man with a random Indian name). The room smeled of bleach and was very clean, though we did have to shoo a cockroach out before settling in for the night.
The state of ice in our driveway this afternoon. Also, it says something about the state of democracy when people are displaying signs such as this. Click to enlarge.
Toys for sale in the little store near our gate in Newburgh's Stewart International Airport. Click to enlarge.
For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?250227 feedback
previous | next |
