John M Scalzi's Weekend Assignment #141: Love to Travel?

Weekend Assignment #141: Do you enjoy traveling? Not the arriving and being where you're going, mind you; I'm asking if you enjoy the actual act of traveling from one place to another, by car or train or airplane or whatever. What I'm asking is if you enjoy the journey as much as you enjoy the destination.

Extra credit: Any more travel planned for 2006, or are you home for good for the rest of the year?

Dear John,

Time was, I loved to travel and spent many weeks on the road, on planes, boats and trains. These days, I'm a homebody, but not too proud of it. I wish I could still travel. The reality is, truth be told, commercial travel is a major hassle for fat people.

Take, for example, the seats on an airplane. Please.

Living as I do at the doorstep to the “back of beyond,” it is necessary to take a small plane to a hub airport if I want to go someplace. Only about a half dozen MD-90 (DC-9) or similar sized jet flights originate daily from my home airport. Great, if I want to fly to Buffalo or Cleveland by way of Pittsburgh; not so great if I need to go anywhere important in the world. Mostly, I must attempt to squeeze into a SAAB or similar sized 30 passenger business class jet with seats which measure 18 to 20 inches across with seat belts that only extend to 40 inches in girth. Consequently, I must drive to either Manchester, NH or Logan Airport in Boston, or steal the little demonstrator seat belt thingy as I board in order to expand the capability of the seatbelt or I don't get to fly – FAA rules require all passengers to be belted in.

Things aren't a whole lot better on domestic jet flights, but at least I can get a belt around my middle and the seat bottom measures 26 inches across. I am forced to either carry a weekend paper like the NY Times to serve as a “booster seat” for fat people or I suffer the tortures of the damned having my hips compressed at the joints for the full span of the trip... imagine being encased in a vice for upwards of four hours to get to your destination. Or I am forced to purchase a second ticket and sit with the mounting hardware for the removable arm rest shoved up my butt halfway to my tonsils. Now there's the way to make a customer happy when other things go wrong – screw him out of a second fare, at full price, for the “pleasure” of being stranded on the tarmac for eighteen hours in the aforementioned Cleveland due to thunderstorms. No food, no water, no smoke breaks and someone has already fouled the head with vomit from their all-night bachelor party. Try it sometime. You'll really begin to appreciate what 'long-lasting deodorant' really amounts to – the ability to continue breathing.

But that's the way it is now. Back when I was your age and younger, traveling was a thrill. I loved travel by train, particularly trains with all-night club cars. I'd board, find my assigned seat and deposit my bag(s) and then make for the club car. Beer or cocktail in hand, chatting away with other travelers – that was the way to have fun. I'd get “lucky” fairly often that way and there's real excitement to making love sharing lust between cars with a woman you've only just met.

Trains have another advantage – you can sleep fairly easily. The rhythmic click-clack of the wheels passing over old track, the jostling back and forth on the mainline from New York to Washington, for instance, all lulled me to sleep. The upgrade seats on a coast-to-coast coach trip that allow you to achieve a near-horizontal, supine position have the airliners beat all to hell, except for BOAC's business class seating. (now British Airways).

Travel by freighter is a luxurious way to go, if you have the time. Sadly, that is no longer an issue, but I no longer have the ability to pay the fare and am too old to work my way across as an engineer. But if you have the time and inclination, traveling as a passenger on a working container ship is a great way to get from here to there in comfort and style. You have to be a bit flexible, but not so much as when I traveled that way – these days the turnaround in port is often a matter of a few short hours, not days. None of the amenities of a cruise ship, but you'll get a surprisingly spacious stateroom, three squares a day and all the exercise you can manage walking the perimeter of the tops of the containers or climbing up and down stairs...

All of the above refers to travel alone or with a partner. Traveling with family was a difficult proposition. Money was extremely tight and time off too often correlated with the height of canning & freezing season – harvest time. Difficult choice to make, you know? Food on the table come January or a camping trip in August? Fortunately, the kids got to spend time with their father during August on holidays off the coast, so they didn't miss out. It was their mother and I who didn't get to do too much in those days. Oh well, spilt milk.

So yes, I enjoyed traveling, lots. But there has come a point in my life when diminished means, obesity, obligations and poor health have turned me into a homebody. I'm not happy about it, but it is what it is. We don't do much more than travel locally these days, and once winter has begun in earnest, we are literally tied to the homestead, keeping the home fires burning – failure results in frozen pipes and starved animals. With the death of my brother, there isn't a remote chance any more of going away until spring thaw, even for a weekend. And so it goes...

Give my best to your Krissy and Athena. Make the time, as often as you may, to travel as a family. I'm with you on driving to anything within six hours reach – and in my case, the hassles now inherent in the principal means of long-distance travel, flying, that is, means I'll probably won't get anywhere unless I drive. Once “they” take my license from me, that will be the end of travel and life as I have known it. Then, there just won't be any point in going on, unable to see what's over the next hill or across the next valley.

wil