Miscellaneous Ramblings

Vacation is 12 days away. And believe it or not I was able to make and tolerate changes to our plan this close to the date.

Although I wish I was more so, spontaneity is not my forte...especially when it comes to spending money. I'm not a scrooge but I like to make sure I get the most that I can for the buck. Vacations can be a rather large ticket item so lots of advance planning ususally go into it and after spending that much time analyzing the possibliites I am reluctant to change.

Anyway, the car has been acting up. The mechanic isn't positive what the issue is and now I'm feeling less comfortable taking it on this trip. Truthfully I've felt that way since we first thought of it but the alternatives (renting a car) seemed out of our budget. So on Monday I started checking the alternatives again to see what we could manage:

1) Rent a car here and keep the auto train reservation - this doesn't make sense really. Why rent a car here only to have it spend the better part of 2+ days on a train?
2) Switch auto train tickets to regular tickets and rent the car in Orlando
3) On a whim I decided to see if Southwest had any last minute fare bargains and lo and behold I ended up getting two roundtrip tickets to Orlando and a rental car from Enterprise all for $15 less than what we were going to spend on the Auto Train taking our own car. YAY!

I'm disappointed to miss the train ride but we can do that another time. I have to put in a plug for AMTRAK and their awesome customer service. Cancelling the tickets was super easy AND no service charge. We are getting a 100% refund no questions asked. I can't wait to give them my money on another trip sometime. They deserve it.

In other "news":

I purchased a new helmet today and took my bike out for a ride around the neighborhood. I admit to being a bit paranoid. I wondered if the bike was messed up (although it didn't appear to be) or if maybe I just don't have quick enough reflexes to avoid a spill or who knows what. I know this must sound silly as I didn't have THAT big a spill. Since Saturday I've been informed of two crashes this past weekend by folks that I marginly know through my work. One broke his collar bone and one died. By comparison what happenend to me is just silly. Yet I was anxious nonetheless.

Halfway home I realized this whole excercise would have been easier if I had gone clockwise around the neighborhood - right turns instead of left turns from the center lane - but I made it anyway.  I didn't fall off but then I only had to deal with cars not big rodents. I'll go out for something longer on the weekend.