Lorraine Motel
Killed on the Balcony
Memphis – April 2013 Road Trip
Killed on the Balcony
Travels
Killed on the Balcony
Yellowstone
In the first week of June 2012, Yellowstone rewarded us with clean air, bison, geysers, hot springs, endless vistas, and best of all, open roads. Since we couldn’t talk to the animals, the rangers, guides, and staff filled our knowledge cup. Their stories sent my sister dreaming about how she might have a pet bison and escape a Tucson summer. Not interested in mosquito bites or being polite in 6-hour shifts, I nixed the room for two. I would be bored after a few hikes and bike rides, and no WiFi! If a bear chased me, how fast could I run?
At the Grant Village Visitor Center I saw “Louisville” stamped on an employee’s badge. Louisville – Cousin Joe owns King’s Shoe Repair in Louisville. John lifted his right foot and began talking about his loafers.
-See these shoes? They’re ten years old, and I love them. . . always take them to King’s for new heels and soles. John and his wife work the summer circuit, live in their RV, and make happy talk with visitors.
Chris met Daisy from Mesa, AZ working a cash register. Daisy has a cool $25 a week room with shared bath. She pays aThe first week of June Yellowstone rewarded us with clean air, bison, geysers, hot springs, endless vistas, and best of all, open roads. Since we couldn’t talk to the animals, the rangers, guides, and staff filled our knowledge cup. Their stories sent my sister dreaming about how she might have a pet bison and escape a Tucson summer. Not interested in mosquitos bites or being polite in 6-hour shifts, I nixed the room for two. I would be bored after a few hikes and bike rides, and no WiFi! If a bear chased me, how fast could I run?
At the Grant Village Visitor Center I saw “Louisville” stamped on an employee’s badge. Louisville – Cousin Joe owns King’s Shoe Repair in Louisville. John lifted his right foot and began talking about his loafers.
-See these shoes? They’re ten years old, and I love them. . . always take them to King’s for new heels and soles. John and his wife work the summer circuit, live in their RV, and make happy talk with visitors.
Chris met Daisy from Mesa, AZ working a cash register. Daisy has a cool $25 a week room with shared bath. About $50/ week for 3-meals a day in the employee’s cafeteria. A ride to Bozeman, five dollars. Escaping Arizona politics until late September would save any normal person a cranial stress fracture.
The first night, Nick from Atlanta took care of our dinner at the Old Faithful Inn. A broadcasting and creative writing major, he wants a career in comedy. Nick’s goal: Write for Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, or SNL. When he sent Zanterra his job application, he included a photo. Good looking, beautiful eyes – who would refuse?
We drove to Lake Yellowstone Hotel (built 1889-1891) for a lunch. Poor Kevin, the season had just begun, and he mets us on a rather quiet day. Richard orders a salmon wrap with french fries. Chris bites a fry and says, these are cold! Would you bring us some hot fries? We don’t see Kevin for a while. I tasted the wrap – dry salmon right out of a can mixed with white rice, corn, green pepper bits, and fresh spinach. (If only I had my Waterpik!) Let’s get everything out of the wrap and on to the plate. Richard folded the giant tortilla in a triangle and wrote Help in ketsup. Kevin brought the hot fries.
Richard – I suggest you tell the chef to add lemon juice, maybe some mayo, to give the salmon some moisture. The wrap is really dry.
Kevin – That’s a good idea.
Chris works at a resort hotel and knows about temperamental chefs. She laughs at the idea of Kevin giving the chef a suggestion.
– He just started his job. He’s not going to tell the chef anything. Not if he wants to work at the Yellowstone Hotel through the summer. The chef will say,”Get the f*** out of my kitchen before I break your legs.”
Memo to Chef – Google a recipe for tzatziki. The veggie pita promises tzatziki and doesn’t deliver. I’m far from Yellowstone, and you can’t break my legs.
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Catch-22 Travels in Argentina
Argentina — one country, one dysfunctional airline. Two airports in Buenos Aires, international and domestic, one hour apart via high traffic, congested roads. Two enthusiastic travelers leave Tucson on November 8 and cannot wait to be back in the USA on November 20. Thanks, Argentina for a great trip spoiled.
We only met five Americans, and enjoyed the company of hundreds of frustrated European travelers — hardy hikers and backpackers with sturdy boots. Flights were frequently cancelled or delayed. When mechanics threw down their screwdrivers or air traffic controllers shut the tower, tourists lined up at the Aerolinas customer service office looking for hotel/taxi/food vouchers and alternative flights.
November 10 – Night flight to Trelew [Puerto Madryn & Peninsula Valdes] confirmed. We have boarding passes and seat assignments. Flight AR1866 departed but left fourteen of us in Buenos Aires. Once the vouchers were distributed, we took a one-hour bus ride with a map-challenged driver to the Torre Hotel. Our food vouchers for the pizza joint opposite the Torre entitled each of us to three slices of pizza or three empanadas filled with mystery meat. We had to order from the Aerolinas menu. We were also promised an airport bus at 5:30 a.m. Catch-22: The bus did not arrive, and three of us shared a taxi to the airport.
Ron, an IT guy from Toronto, had been in Ushuaia (Argentina’s most southern city). His next stop: Iguazu Falls, a domestic destination. For some reason, he took a flight that landed at the international airport. Of course, he missed the flight to Iguazu.
Four Swedish women were at Iguazu and going south to Peninsula Valdez. They wanted their luggage checked through to Trelew. No, no. They must recheck their luggage at the Aeroparque in Buenos Aires. They didn’t get on the flight to Trelew either, but at best they had their luggage.
November 11 – Since we missed the flight to Trelew, we also missed the 8:30 a.m. excursion to Peninsula Valdes. Only option, pay $200 USD for a private guide, driver, and car. We paid, had an excellent guide/driver, saw a herd of guanaco, and caught the 4 p.m. whale-watching boat. The southern right whales showed us their stuff, flukes and flippers.
I chatted with a cardiologist in one of the airports. His Catch-22: He and wife (who will only eat at McDonald’s) were on a boat excursion out of Ushuaia. “Is this the trip where we see the penguins?” “No, that’s the other boat. This is the Beagle Channel cruise.”
We met Lauren and Frank, a couple from Connecticut at the Hosteria Los Hielos in El Calafate. They had traveled to Mendoza, the wine-producing region. However, their return flight to Buenos Aires was cancelled. Catch-22: A 15- hour bus ride to make the flight to El Calafate. Lauren said they traveled in 60 countries, and knocked off Cambodia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Thailand — Argentina air travel was the worst!
Nov. 15 – Richard and I were at the El Calafate airport for a 6 p.m. departure to Ushuaia. 
Flight delayed until 8:30 p.m. No, change that. The flight was cancelled! Forget our trip to Tierra del Fuego. (I’ll never walk in Charles Darwin’s footsteps.) We could get stranded and miss the flight home. Decision: become “stand-by” for Buenos Aires. We were given seats on the 11:30 p.m. flight. [Minutes before take off, six backpackers raced to the exit door in first class. They thought the flight was going to Ushuaia.] We checked into the Castelar Hotel at 3 a.m. courtesy of Aerolinas and another voucher.
Nov. 16 – We stopped at a multiplex cinema and planned to see Flamenco Flamenco at 16:40 the next afternoon. Taxied over, and we read the times listed under each movie poster. 16:40 was gone. The new time: 18:20 and we did not want to wait. Here’s the Catch-22: In Buenos Aires movie times change on Thursdays, not the films necessarily, just the times. [One advantage over American movie theatres — no previews, no commercials, just buy your ticket and watch the film.]
We had highlights – a hake and mussels dinner at Los Colonos (Puerto Madryn). In Buenos Aires, the Japanese garden and restaurant, a city tour, the dusty Museo Nacional de Arte Decorativo, a bus excursion/boat ride to Tigre and its delta islands, and an Italian street festival with gladiators, great pizza, and a life-size Jesus laid out horizontally on a cross. Mothers posed their children for photos with Jesus.
November 19 – Eduardo arrived on time for our transfer to the international airport. Rain slicked the highway. Flight AA 996 to Dallas had a hour delay. We took our pesos to an exchange. Catch-22: The agent insisted on our original U.S. dollars to AR pesos document from Banco Nacional, which we did not have or were not given. Screw it! We spent our last pesos on an $8 beer, an $11 chocolate bar, and tossed the remaining money into a charity container.
November 20 – Online, safely at home, I groaned at a final Catch-22 — one that failed. Alaska Airlines erroneously sent an email stating American Airlines 996 for Saturday, November 19 had been cancelled.
Yosarian lives! Situations beyond our control made no sense. If you do not understand the Argentine paradigm, you lose and you learn.
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Fast Ferry – Proviencetown to Boston (9/27/11)
The 90-minute fast ferry will take longer this afternoon. One of the engines has lost power. Still, even if we dock late, I will have time to catch Jet Blue’s red-eye to Phoenix. Besides, I have a plan for the ride from Provincetown. I’ll continue reading Ann Morrow Lindbergh’s Gift from the Sea. Admirable intentions, but the passengers are a definite distraction.
My eyes and ears settle on a man and a woman sitting shoulder to shoulder in the first row of the cabin. They stare at a small screen television set into the wall. They watch Wolfe Blitzer giving a CNN news report. I watch them, the man and the woman watching the TV in silence. How can they sit with perfect posture like two mannequins. I silently yell to them, turn off the television!
A woman appears and stops. Leaning over the couple she begins her own news report. She once lived in California; she majored in psychology. She stayed with friends who have a house in Provincetown. Blitzer’s report on the Michael Jackson autopsy has no audience among the three. Forward in the bow seats, a girl child babbles loudly to her mother and father. She lets out random, piercing screams followed by silence. Four rows ahead a Japanese man holds a cell phone to his left ear. His eyes are closed as he listens to something.
On the starboard side, a yellow Lab is stretched in the down-stay position. Its owner hovers over a laptop keyboard and screen. The dog watched enviously as the man paused to eat from a Styrofoam container. Good dog. He never moved.
The engine noise, constant and loud, adds to the distractions. Gray water and gray sky barge by the cabin windows. A man on the bow has a wide lens attached to his camera. The wind rips and billows his nylon jacket. He is ready to shoot those first harbor sightings – oil storage tanks, bridges, and old custom houses along the wharfs. Did he photograph the cruise ship Celebrity as it passed? Happy people going to the Bahamas.
Sitting still has chilled my bones. I pull my already buttoned jacket on over my head. I cannot read or concentrate. I go to the snack bar for a cup of hot water. Back at my seat I bob a green tea bag up and down and inhale the musty aroma. No point in forcing the quiet of Lindbergh’s book into my brain. Maybe on the flight to Phoenix I’ll get back to grace and solitude.
At Long Wharf we disembark and head toward Boston’s downtown streets. I look for a “T” – a transit station to take me to the airport. The weekend in Provincetown with its casual, party-place attitude ends at MacMillan Pier. A red-haired man rushes to a friend walking ahead. A quick few words are exchanged. His knees fold into a jump, and he plants a full-mouth kiss on the lips of his tall friend.
“See you on Friday,” he says with a laugh and a smile. Off he goes rushing to another destination.
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