A Year On The Ground: If You Can’t See My Mirror, I Can’t See You

by Sallie Bingham

We chose the short way back from Los Angeles, a line ruler-straight along I-40 east across the desert to Santa Fe.

© Francis Donald.Now we are in the company of the trucks, marching along head-to-tail like elephants in an old-time circus parade. Like airplane pilots, the men inside are mostly invisible to us, except for a hint of chin now and then in a long side mirror; the squawk of a horn proves someone is up there in the cab, responding to children signaling, with bent elbows, that they want a blast—a signal apparently all truckers respect. I’m reminded of the long ago time when stewardesses (as they were called then) handed out gilt pilot’s insignia to children riding the planes—and there was even a time when children were invited to visit the cockpit before take-off. Now we have the truckers for entertainment.

Nearly all the eighteen-wheelers carry some kind of message, corporate or personal. One is advertising for “compliant” drivers, which may be a good description of airplane pilots, too, since these men must first of all abide by the rules of the road and the air. But compliant in its other meaning seems weird attached to these great lumbering vehicles.

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Dem Big Cats

by Judith Fein

Achoo. Scratch scratch. That is my response to dogs, cats and anything that has more than two feet and is covered with hair. My eyes blow up. I wheeze. I get a je-ne-sais-quoi hairball thing in my throat. And how can I help offending friends who are in love with their Poopsies and KitKats? All I can think about is: get me home so I can throw my clothes and myself in a washing machine.

© Paul Ross.But it’s different when the hirsute ones are out of doors. I went on a safari in South Africa and got so close to the lions, zebra, tigers, elephants and giraffes that I could see the whites of their eyes. No wheezing, no sneezing. I actually bid on a baby camel at a livestock auction in Tunisia, but I couldn’t figure out how to build a camel pen in my bedroom that would filter out airborne (hair) allergens.

After a long hiatus from the animal kingdom, which corresponded to my running out of Benadryl, I happened to be in Northwest Arkansas, and heard there was the largest big cat reserve in the country at Turpentine Creek in Eureka Springs. Beloved by the NW Arkansas citizens, it inspired local giants Walmart and Tyson to donate about 300,000 pounds of chicken, turkey, beef, fish and pork every year to feed the beasts. And visitors can sponsor an animal and even choose its name. Hey, I’m a sucker for feel good things, so off I went.

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A Year On The Ground: Motel 0

by Sallie Bingham

In Ajo, Arizona, the $49 motel, nameless and windowless—containers for uneasy sleep—nearly disabuses the Roommate and me of the notion of traveling on the ground.

The $15 dinner, the worst yet—thick red sauce on leathery enchiladas with pasty cheese—causes indignation as well as indigestion, and it becomes difficult to put the romanticized image of the local tribe—the Papagos—together with the enormous people at every eat stop.

The US is now in more ways than one the land of giants; speculation about the sexual behavior of these behemoths only proves us hopelessly out of place. The bubble that is Santa Fe excludes us, as well as protecting us, from experiencing this country; air travel provided another layer of protection. Now we know the behemoths will win if only because there are more of them. On the airplanes, these same travelers overflow their seats, apparently with equanimity, but there are a lot more of them on the ground.

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A Cautionary Tale

by Shirley B. Moskow

In Madrid, thieves work in pairs. One tells you that a bird has soiled your jacket and offers to clean it. The other slips it off and rubs a spot. When they helps you on with your jacket, your wallet is gone and so are the scam artists. In the Caribbean, some street moneychangers deftly fold paper money so that unsuspecting travelers can’t see that they’re counting the same bills twice. The skills of pickpockets on Rome’s trolleys are legendary.

I’ve listened to many travelers recount such tales of their mishaps. Of course, I sympathized, positive that no similar fate would befall me. I prided myself on taking precautions and always being aware of my surroundings.

At the National Museum of Prague, as I was paying for a book in the gift shop, the lights suddenly went out. The old castle was all confusion as people milled about in the dark. Several minutes later, when the electricity came on, I discovered that my wallet had disappeared.

My husband and I reported the theft to the police. They seemed uninterested. We returned to our hotel and the manager helped us to notify our credit card companies. That’s when I realized that my husband and I shouldn’t have been carrying the same bank and credit cards. We had to put a hold on all of them. Now neither of us had access to credit, and between us we had little more than two hundred dollars in cash. I wondered how long it would take for relatives to wire funds. The answer was never. We were traveling through three countries, staying at a different hotel almost every night. Under the circumstances, no hotel would accept a wire.

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A Year on the Ground: And Now a Blast from the Past

by Sallie Bingham

“Please don’t use the towels to clean luggage, shoes or cars,” the sign on the medicine cabinet in the Gadsden Hotel bathroom reads. This ancient grand dame of a place reminds me of the hotel in Pittsburg where we stayed on long car trips when I was a child; “fire trap,” my mother would mutter, hardly deigning to place herself on the cretonne-covered bed, her feet in high-heeled shoes never coming in contact with the scrofulous rug.

© Francis Donald.Now that motels rule the interstate with their room rates from $29 dollars a night to $58; the Gadsden hardly stands a chance. In its ornate lobby, marble  pillars support a ceiling of stained glass; a few undaunted individuals are cleaning up the decorations—fake ivy and silver garlands—left after a presentation for a supplement called something like Xanadu. From the number of chairs set out, they expected a crowd, but the elevator operator ( the old Otis elevator has no door and so must be operated by a employee) says no one came. Loud music blared when we dragged ourselves in but has now been put out, and the remnant of presenters is scurrying to the parking lot (security from 10 pm till 4 am, the hotel clerk assures us), clicking open locks.

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A Year on the Ground: Abandoning air travel? Sticking to the ground? Am I crazy?

by Sallie Bingham

Racing by the turnoff to the Albuquerque airport, I jeer (in my head, sparing the Roommate reluctantly riding shotgun with Jack the puppy) at the ducks-in-a-line cars turning off, each one sporting a single head as in a two year old’s toy car, heading toward the mile of glinting metal and glass, the far-out parking lot, where I used to leave my car to avoid paying literally hundreds of dollars at the packed airport garage.

Beyond the garage, the familiar litany of irritations waits: the kiosks that have largely replaced desk personnel, and which routinely refuse my credit card or ask for airport acronyms only a terminal supervisor would know, the ridiculous security parade, where I numbly shed articles of clothing that have nothing to do with any imaginable threat (how long ago was the tennis shoe bomber caught?), the unexplained delays and cancellations, the miserably cramped seats, the disappearance of blankets and pillows, the outrageous sums charged for horrible snacks, and now even for luggage.

This time, I’m driving—1150 miles from my home in Santa Fe to my son’s in Los Angeles.

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