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Breakfast at Denny’s

By Vicky Wells, on August 12th, 2010

Our transportation, accommodation, food and entertainment cost so far
Aug 12 ~ Day #94	Budget to date	Spent today	Total to date	Daily average
Total	$9400	$54.00	$8466.43	$90.06
Miles by Road	Miles by Sea	Miles by Air	Miles by Train	Total Miles
13148+112=13260	4451	000	69	17780

Current Location: Sunny Sands, Pierson, Florida

Today’s Total Expenses: $54.00

Accommodation: $34.00
Food: $20.00

Breakfast at Denny’s

We both had trouble sleeping this time and only got a couple of hours at the rest area. So, it was still about 3:00am or so and we were back on the road again.

We had plans to camp on August 12th, but 3:00am was way too early to arrive anywhere.

So, like I said, in a weak moment I said, “Hey, let’s go have breakfast at Denny’s. They’re open 24 hours and that should use up some time.”

So, that’s what we did. We got Madge (our Magellan GPS) to direct us to the nearest Denny’s and we had one of their larger breakfasts.

We didn’t need it, it was way too much food. We had stuff in the car that we could have had for breakfast and it wouldn’t have cost us anything.

Our breakfast ending up costing us, with the tip, $20.00! That could have been applied to a hotel room or campground where we could have used food we have already purchased and also got a much better night’s
sleep.

Like I said, spending a few hours last night at a rest area and then spending $20.00 at Denny’s was really a false economy. Hopefully I’ve learned from this mistake.

Sunny Sands, Pierson, Florida

We will be checking into our first timeshare tomorrow, August 13th, and decided to spend tonight at Sunny Sands, a family naturist resort, in Pierson, Florida.

We arrived way too early at Sunny Sands but were able to check in at 8:00am. We had a lovely camping spot and they also had a sparkling clear swimming pool that was most welcome after all the driving and heat we’d been through.

More Rain

During the afternoon there were a couple of rainstorms, but they cleared up quickly and we were hopeful that the tent would be dry by the morning when we needed to pack up.

Shooting Stars

We were back in the pool around 10:00pm to cool off before turning in for the night and found out that there was a meteor shower predicted for tonight.

Well, we did see one shooting star, but that was it and we waited for at least an hour or so. Still, it was pretty impressive as it streaked across the night sky.

Boise, Idaho to Seattle, Washington

By Vicky Wells, on May 23rd, 2010

Our transportation, accommodation, food and entertainment cost so far
May 23 ~ Day # 13	Budget to date	Spent today	Total to date	Daily average
Total	$1300	$107.80	$1374.37	$105.72

Location: Kent Washington
Mileage: 503 Total: 4340

Today’s Total Expenses: $107.80

Transportation: $46.00
Accommodation: $42.20
Food: $19.60
Entertainment: 0.00

We were up for an early start as we had to get to Seattle for reservations we had at the Howard Johnson Hotel in Kent, just outside Seattle.

We’ll be spending a couple of days in the Seattle area as Geoff has a couple of business meetings to attend. I won’t bore you with the details.

Rodeway Inn Hot Breakfast

We were really looking forward to the hot breakfast that was promised in the coupon we had used to stay at the Rodeway Inn. After all, we had paid an extra $10 over the advertised amount because they only had a king bed room, so we were hoping that breakfast would make up for the extra expense.

No such luck – the breakfast was very, very disappointing. I think one of the regular continental breakfasts we’ve had would have been better than this.

So, just what did they think constituted a hot breakfast? There were doughy, warm biscuits; sausage gravy that was also warm but horrible; a crock pot full of oatmeal that was thicker than wallpaper paste; make-your-own waffles with an appliance that really didn’t work very well; coffee and tea; about a half dozen slices of white bread if you wanted to make toast; a few muffins and some juice. We actually ate very little and had a hard time seeing how they could refer to this as a “full hot breakfast.”

Sorry, Rodeway Inn, we not only weren’t impressed, we were really disappointed.

We told Madge (our Magellan GPS) to get us to Seattle via the most use of freeways as we had about 500 miles to cover. She obliged with a good route to get us to our destination.

We actually arrived in Kent fairly early – about 4pm. The fact that the time changed along the way and we gained an hour helped as well.

The drive itself was fairly unremarkable. Just more highway to cover. However, I insisted on doing most of the early driving because I was anticipating that at some point we would have to drive through a mountain pass and I didn’t want to be the one driving when that happened. I get sweaty palms and an elevated heart rate whenever I’m near any unprotected edges. Not good when driving.

As it turned out, there were no perilous passes along the way, so I could have driven it, but better safe than sorry. Geoff is much better at driving on any such roads, like he did for the scenic route from Monument Valley to Salt Lake City.

Howard Johnson’s Hotels Hit a Home Run with Us

When we arrived at the Howard Johnson’s in Kent, we were greeted warmly and our reservation was retrieved quickly. We were told that the queen room we had booked for two nights was not available but they were happy to upgrade us to a king room at no additional charge!

They also told us that our room keys were good for a 10% discount at Denny’s, just across the street, and a 15% discount at a Mexican restaurant right next door.

We opted for Mexican and both had a yummy chicken taco salad. It was nicely presented, tasty and filling.

Another bonus, the WiFi connection was amazing and we were able to retrieve emails and get some other work done, too.

Salt Lake City to Boise

By Geoff Wells, on May 22nd, 2010

Our transportation, accommodation, food and entertainment cost so far
May 22 ~ Day # 12	Budget to date	Spent today	Total to date	Daily average
Total	$1200	$142.07	$1266.57	$105.54

Current Location: Boise
Mileage: 359 Total: 3837
Today’s Total Expenses: $142.07

Transportation: $65.40
Accommodation: $57.51
Food: $19.16
Entertainment: $0.00

Sure, Vicky gets to talk about the incredible drive from Monument Valley to Salt Lake City – I get Idaho. It’s flat. That’s it. Oh and it’s the end of May and it snowed. Not just a few flakes but stay on the ground, everyone head for the ditch whiteout snow. Don’t believe me, we have pictures.

If you’re one of the morons that questions climate change go back and read the last paragraph again. Notice I said climate change and not global warming. Unfortunately the scientists named the problem after what is actually happening but they didn’t expect all the folks in the short bus to not believe them ‘cause they didn’t get palm trees in their back yards.

Anyway it was snowing so hard we had no choice but to spend the night in Boise. We had picked up one of the highway hotel magazines in McDonald’s when we stopped for coffee so we checked for coupon specials. We found what looked like the best deal which was at the Rodeway Inn for $39.95. They offered a huge hot breakfast, free wifi and pool (which we passed on given the current conditions). Also they are part of the Choice Hotel group and we have one of their loyalty cards so we collected some points.

When we arrived we were informed that all the rooms for the coupon special were gone and we would have to pay $10 more for a king bed. What the hell does the furniture have to do with pricing a room. Does a king bed cost more than the two queen beds in most hotel rooms? So with a king bed and tax our $39.95 room cost $57.51 – ouch.

Hotels tend to frown on anyone firing up a camp stove in the room so it was off to Denny’s for supper. I know old farts like us and Denny’s is such a cliché but it’s hard to find better value. At least in any Denny’s outside of Idaho. For some incomprehensible reason, here they equate meat loaf with hamburger patty. The staff were polite and apologetic but it still tasted awful.

We capped off this unusually expensive day with a $65.40 tank of gas. Every single gas station in Boise we passed was $3.09 a gallon.

While I’m on a rant let’s talk about free wifi. The Rodeway Inn offered free wifi and surprise it actually worked. This has not been our experience as we travel across the country. Usually you are tantalized by the network name appearing in the selection box only to be disappointed as you try to log in and fail because the signal is so weak. Even many of the MacDonald’s we have stopped at have problems. If you are in business and advertise free wifi as an incentive to make the traveller stop please make sure the bloody system works. I really don’t want to hear, “Sorry, the day manager changed the password and I don’t know what it is.” Arhhh!

If you’re from Idaho and want to defend your state please feel free to post a comment below. I’m sure there must be something good to say about it.

Orlando Practice Run

By Geoff Wells, on February 24th, 2010

North Eleuthera Airport (ELH)

Orlando vacation ~ Day one

Now that we have decided to spend the next few years traveling around Europe and blogging about our adventures, we thought it might be a good idea to get in a few practice runs.

One of the rules of living in the Bahamas is that you can only stay for six months at a time. You can get a homeowners card that allows you to stay longer but we have never bothered. Anyway, since we had to leave because our six months was up, we decided to have a mini-vacation in Orlando.

Part of what we plan to do on our adventures is travel as cheaply as possible and document everything we spend. We want to show that it is possible to travel a lot in your retirement years without spending a fortune.

We’ll talk more about timeshare later but for now know that we exchanged into a resort in Orlando where we plan to spend a week. Timeshare (now they call it vacation ownership) can be a great way to save money but one of the downsides is actually getting to the resort.

American Airlines Special

American Airlines currently runs a $69 one way special (plus taxes – total $396.40 return for two) from Eleuthera to Miami on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. This is way better than the $704 we normally pay to fly into Fort Lauderdale with the other carriers that service the island. The only problem is we keep a car in storage close to the Fort Lauderdale Airport so now we have to get from Miami to Fort Lauderdale.

We figured a taxi was out of the question as it would have eaten up any savings on the airfare. We checked for limo and shuttle services between airports but it was still more than we wanted to pay. The best price we found was at shuttlediscount.com but it was still going to cost almost $80 for both of us.

Then we remembered the Tri-Rail system that runs parallel to I95 from Miami to West Palm and beyond. A quick check online at http://www.tri-rail.com and we discovered the trip from Miami Airport to Fort Lauderdale Airport was just $1.90 each for seniors and that included a free shuttle bus from arrivals at the airport to the train station. Add a $15 (including tip) taxi ride from the station to our storage unit and we had a pretty sweet deal.

Air travel is increasingly becoming a royal pain in the ass even from a one room terminal like North Eleuthera. We still had to arrive two hours before the flight and sit and wait for the plane to arrive.

We arrived at the North Eleuthera Airport at 11:30am for a 1:30pm flight to Miami. The flight was more or less on time, which is rare for here, but we got into the wrong line up at customs. The guy ahead of us was interviewed for a long time and finally got hauled away. Of course this meant we missed the train we had planned to catch and had to wait another hour at the station. We finally got to our car in Fort Lauderdale at about 5:30pm ready for the 3-4 hour drive to Orlando. After reconnecting the battery it started immediately (I love my Jeep) and we were off.

Hard To Beat Denny’s

Before getting on the highway we stopped at Denny’s for the first food we had had since breakfast. It’s tough to beat their senior specials – huge salad, grilled Talapia, two sides and coffee for just $20 including tip.

We had printed out our Google maps to the resort before we left home but somehow they didn’t seem to match the reality of the street we were on when we eventually made it to Orlando. Anyway after a couple of stops to ask directions we got to the Celebrity Resort – Orlando around 11:30pm just 12 hours after leaving home. We were looking forward to crawling into bed for a well deserved rest but the days adventures were not over yet.

Because we booked on short notice the only unit available for exchange was a studio which can often mean very limited cooking facilities. When we got to our assigned unit we quickly discovered, as we had feared, that it was small and only had a microwave and bar fridge. Worst of all it had not been cleaned since the previous guests. Needless to say, after traveling all day, we were not happy.

The resort staff were very apologetic and immediately offered us an upgrade to a one-bedroom unit which we gratefully accepted.

So it worked out well and we got a beautiful unit with a full kitchen just across from the pool. It was a long day but we are here and looking forward to our first vacation in several years.

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