If I buy a plane ticket now for our January trip to Hawaii, I probably will save a bundle since I just found tickets from Des Moines to Honolulu for about $550. But I can’t quite bring myself to buy them yet – since lots of things could change between now and then. So I’m posting this now – as a reminder in November when I’m searching for reasonable fares, of what might have been….Granted the $525 fare is a three-flight trip (DM to Minneapolis to Seattle to Hawaii). The $700 or so ticket is a two-flight trip. And it’s important to look at where the flights connect. Some of the three flight trips take you all the way to Georgia and then back to Des Moines. Not good. The best options appear to be two-flight trips from DM to Denver to Hawaii….
Category Archives: TRANSPORTATION
Driving to Kansas for Christmas part 2
What a difference a day and a few degrees can make – of course we still have a day left until we leave for our nine-hour drive to Dodge City for Christmas but as of a few hours ago, things looked better on our route at least – snow later than earlier forecast in Iowa and snow rather than the freezing rain earlier forecast for Kansas City and Topeka. But who really knows? Could have changed again in the few hours I’ve been out of my office. Anyway, on the road again. Happy holidays!
Filed under interstates, Kansas misc
Driving to Kansas for Christmas
Every year this seems to happen on the cusp of our nine-hour drive to western Kansas for Christmas with my in-laws. The steady drumbeat of meteorologists’ reports about impending doom (in the form of snow and/or the dreaded freezing rain). This year is no different, so as usual we have a wait-and-see attitude that includes keeping an eye on various websites from weather.com to the Kansas Department of Transportation (for road conditions.) We’re supposed to leave on Thursday at around 2 p.m. but now we’re being warned to leave in the morning if possible – but then we may hit freezing rain in Kansas. So maybe we’ll drive through Nebraska instead. Always an adventure.
Filed under interstates, Kansas misc
Transportation options between Chicago and Traverse City
We were looking lat summer – with little success – for mass transportation between Chicago and Traverse City, Michigan. And finally decided the best bet was to rent a car.
But there is another option a reader offered: an Indian Trails bus (indiantrails.com). It is a fairly long trip (9 hours) compared to driving a car (5 hours), but the advance purchase cost is, we’re told, $50.
The other options: take the train from Chicago to Grand Rapids (which takes about 4.5 hours) and then somehow get to Traverse City. Word has it there’s a bus connection but it takes 12 hours. (that’s crazy.)
No “body cavity searches” – Amen to that
As I prepare to fly the not-so-friendly skies for the first time since April, I am trying not to get all hot and bothered about the new airport x-ray scanners. Which is somewhat easy to do at least in Des Moines because we don’t have them yet. If I encounter them, I intend to submit quietly – 1) Because I don’t want the alternative, the “grope pat down” 2) I just want to be on my way safely and quickly.
Am I convinced this is what’s needed to ensure our safety from terrorists? No.
Am I convinced this technology is completely safe? No. According to a recent item in the NYTimes Travel section, the F.D.A.’s website says the screening system poses “minuscule” health risks (what else would it say?) but some academics at U of California San Francisco aren’t so sure.
One piece of good news: the head of the Transportation Security Administration told reporters today that body cavity searches are “not where we are.” Phew.
Filed under air security
Perplexing frequent flyer miles
I made the mistake of looking at my frequent flyer airline miles today and quickly got overwhelmed. Apparently I have gobs of miles that are going to expire next year. I guess that shouldn’t be a surprise since I can’t remember the last time I used miles to purchase a free ticket – I’d pretty much given up because they are seldom of use when I really need them (during holidays etc.) and I’ve begun to rely much more on the Capital One miles, which are much more use-able and easy-to-use. Of course, I decided to see if I could use my American miles for my ticket to Panama City in February but found the process so cumbersome I quickly gave up. It looked like the only way I could use them was by flying in a completely inconvenient way that involved spending the night in Miami. Don’t think so.
Plan B: I’m going to look more closely at the NYTimes Practical Traveler story I saved from last Sunday “Swapping Miles for chocolate” to find other ways to use these darned miles. Word has it I can now use my American Miles to book car rentals and hotel stays. And Delta will let me exchange miles for gift cards to places like the Gap and Lands End. I did use some spare miles recently to get a six-month subscription to People Magazine, which I thoroughly enjoyed (and now miss now that my time is up) and I gave away some other miles to charity.
Filed under Airlines
Trapped by the “Illinois Tollway Unattended Toll Plaza” experiment on I-88
So we’re driving late at night on I-88 through Illinois en route to Chicago and we pull up to yet another tollbooth with our money in hand, $1.90, all ready to dutifully pay – and instead no one is in the booth and we’re greeted by a little flyer that tells us to pay online or by mail.
So we go on vacation for ten days, come home and I pull out the little flyer and find out that we have now committed a VIOLATION because we have not paid our toll within seven days. This hardly seems fair. Is it really OUR fault that the Illinois DOT has decided to save money by closing this one tollbooth from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. – which is often when we manage to arrive in Chicago after a long after-work drive from Iowa?
Okay, we could have paid it within 7 days but we were away from home and computers and checkbooks – which is what a VACATION is all about !! What really irks me is that it appears from the wording that even if you DO pay after 7 days this still counts as a VIOLATION. And after three VIOLATIONS within 24 months you’re in deep do-do. So there’s really no incentive to pay after 7 days because you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Why not give people a wee bit more time to pay – or just increase by increments the fee if it arrives after 7 days?
When I finally found someone to talk to about this at the Illinois Tollway office, she told me I was okay if I just paid by mail – i can’t pay online after 7 days. So I’ve just sent in my check. But the wording below suggests otherwise.
Here’s the online info.
MISTAKES HAPPEN
You have 7 Days to Make Your Payment
- The Illinois Tollway grants a 7-day grace period to pay your unpaid toll.
| Making a payment can be done online or through the mail. Choose one of graphics below to learn more.
If you live outside the United States you must pay an unpaid toll by mail. |
Have the required information available |
|
Use our Toll Calculator to determine the total cost of your tolls.
In the event of unknown plazas or direction, toll calculations will be based on the maximum charge (per toll) on our system for your vehicle category.
Maximum charge per toll:
- Passenger Car (2 axle) – $2.00
- Small Truck (2-axle) – $3.00
- Medium Truck (3-4-axle) – $4.50
- Large Truck (5 axle) – $8.00
Missed the 7-day Grace Period?
- The unpaid toll has now become a violation.
- Violation notices are issued when 3 or more unpaid toll/violations are recorded over a 24-month period. Fines will be assessed.
- Payment after the 7-day grace period does not remove that toll from violation status.
Failure to pay tolls can result in fines and possible suspension of your license plate and/or your driver’s license.
In order to avoid the incident from being recorded as a toll violation, the mailed in toll payment envelope must:
- Have all the required information filled out completely
- Be delivered or mailed to the Tollway within 7 calendar days of the unpaid toll.
It is recommended you pay by check because your cancelled check is your receipt.
You can mail your payment with unpaid toll information to:
Illinois Tollway
2700 Ogden Avenue
Downers Grove, IL 60515
Attn: Cash Handling Division
What is the Illinois Tollway Unattended Toll Plaza Pilot Program?
The Illinois Tollway has launched a pilot program designed to improve efficiencies and reduce costs at
mainline toll plazas when traffic volumes are low. At the Pilot locations, Open Road Tolling lanes will be
operational 24/7, however all manned toll booths will be unattended between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. and
only the far right cash lane will be open to allow cash‐paying drivers to pick up a toll payment form.
Cash‐paying customers will be given the option to pay online or mail in toll payments within the 7‐day
grace period.
Where will this pilot be conducted?
The Illinois Tollway has selected two toll plazas – the Spring Creek Toll Plaza (PL 99) on the Veterans
Memorial Tollway (I‐355) and the Dixon Toll Plaza (PL 69) on the Reagan Memorial Tollway (I‐88).
Manned toll collection lanes will be unattended during the overnight hours of 10 p.m. until 6 a.m. when
traffic volumes are the lowest.
When does the pilot program begin and how long will it be in place?
As of February 16, 2010, the Unattended Toll Plaza Pilot Program is effective at the selected plazas. The
Pilot Program will be evaluated over the next three months.
Why not reopen the cash baskets at the Toll Plazas?
Exact change baskets were eliminated from mainline toll plazas when
Filed under Illinois, interstates
A review: the Megabus from Chicago to Des Moines
I planned to blog from the road yesterday – specifically while cruising along Interstate 80 from Chicago to Des Moines in the Megabus but alas, the bus’s much-ballyhooed free WiFi was on the blink. The driver didn’t know why but said this happens occasionally. Otherwise, the bus ride was just fine – and for the $10 fare, better than fine. (Some people paid as little as $1 for the ride, a few others got two tix for $8 total. Fare comparisons dominated the chitchat amongst passengers. )
The bus departed on time (5 p.m.) from Chicago at the crowded Megabus stop just south of Union Station and Jackson Street, on Canal Street – and it arrived in Des Moines about 35 minutes late, which was no big deal. The bus was clean, the seats comfortable, the air not too cold or too hot. The driver was courteous and informative, taking the time to fill us in on bits and bobs, like the one scheduled pit-stop at a small gas station on I-80 near Davenport.
A few minor quibbles, some beyond Megabus’s control, that have more to do with the nature of cheap bus transportation in general. The bus stop in Chicago was somewhat chaotic, with a large crowd fanning out across half a block as a succession of buses pulled up – one bus going to St. Louis, another to somewhere-ville Ohio, another to Ann Arbor/Detroit and my bus to Iowa City/Des Moines. As one of the older passengers correctly noted, this open air bazaar – with no visible crowd control and no benches to sit on or lines to stand in – is relatively OK in pleasant weather, which we had yesterday early evening. But it might not be so OK when it’s raining or snowing or bitter cold.
Many passengers, as expected, were young people in their late teens and 20s some tattooed and pierced, some black-clad Goths with dusty white faces, two chic geeks, some inner city kids wearing droopy pants. Great people watching and reminded me of my lost-youth, riding the Magic Bus in Europe.
But on my bus there was also a large multi-generation Asian family with a pushy patriarch, a Mennonite woman, some middle-aged couples, a few moms with kids. I worried at first when the watery-eyed man in front of me took a sip from a liquor bottle inside a brown paper bag but he was well-behaved throughout. So was the little girl who sat on the lap of the teen-ager beside me. The rowdiest passengers were some women in their mid-30s who laughed and talked loudly, as if they riding their very own party bus after hitting the bars on Division Street (which come to think of it was probably where they had been.)
There were other annoying sounds and smells but that’s to be expected: a rattle-and-squeak from somewhere in the back of the bus near the bathroom, pulsating iPod musak from somewhere in the bus’ mid-section (the Ipod must have been cranked up to blow-your-eardrums-out volume), smells of fried chicken, McDonalds (from the pitstop in Davenport), a fully-loaded brat, and corned beef (my bad. I brought the sandwich with me from a Chicago deli.)
Next time, I’ll remember to fire up my Kindle – or at least bring the cord so I can plug it in. (There was an outlet below my window but my cord was in my suitcase in the bowels of the bus.) And I’ll remember to leave my novel out of my suitcase. I’ll also remember to fire up my phone (which was also losing juice.) Thank God my iPod was still working.
All told, it’s great to have a viable and inexpensive new option for getting to Iowa City and Chicago from here.
Filed under Adventure travel, bus service, Chicago, cost-saving travel, Des Moines
Art along the Iowa interstates
Inspired by the fantastic new mural we stumbled upon inside a welcome center along Interstate 35 in northern Missouri last December, I started looking into efforts by other states to spruce up their highway pit stops with art. And lo and behold, I find out from several knowledgeable sources that the great state of Iowa – where I live – has one of the more impressive programs.
Which means an estimated 17 million people who stop at an Iowa rest areas each year may be in for a treat – if they stop at the right one. Thirteen rest areas or welcome centers – most along I-80 and I-35 – have been redesigned as part of Iowa’s “art-in-transit” program to include site-specific, regionally-themed art projects during the past 10 years – the latest in 2009 and more to come. Iowa has even printed “rest area posters.” For more info see: (www.iowadot.gov/maintenance/restareaposters.html)
Filed under Iowa, On the road, rest area
TakeBetsywithyou 