Tuesday, March 23, 2010

A Travel Advisory and a Travel Tale


The Four Seasons in Punta De Mita.


The day after AIPAD, I headed south to Punta De Mita, Mexico, to join my family on spring break. (And now I sit blogging by the pool.) But getting here was no fun. Because of the current runway work going on at JFK, the delays have backed up all the way to LaGuardia and my wait in the security line at the Delta terminal at LaG was one hour and five minutes! So New York travelers beware. (See below.)



On a very different travel-related tack, a friend recently told me a true story about a passionate romance that recently took place between two Americans abroad. She was an artist and he was a banker, sparks flew, days and nights were spent in the rapture of new love. They agreed to meet several weeks later at some romantic island and the woman got there first. Would the man make it as promised? Would the sparks still fly? Waiting inside the lobby of the hotel she finally saw him come through the doors pulling a wheelie bag. And in that instant the dream shattered. She knew she could never love a man with a wheelie bag.



People seem to take different sides on this story. Either she was right and he was an un-macho fuddy duddy not suitable for our passionate life-embracing artist. Or she was a fickle neurotic clearly not capable of a relationship of any depth. What do you think?

I’m simply here to sing the praises of this wheelie backpack that was once my son’s that I’ve started to take on planes with me stuffed with computer, magazines, etc., and remark on how effortless it was to stand in line for the hour and five minutes pushing this along rather than to be carrying or picking up and putting down whatever wheel-less carry-on I might have had before. Viva el wheelie!