Tag: travel

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Pet cats traveling in amphibious DeLorean name top six travel destinations

If your pet cat were riding in an amphibious version of a DeLorean automobile, what are the top six travel destinations it would prefer to visit?

That’s the question travel humor writer Bob Payne came away with after listening to Grant Martin, editor of the travel blog Gadling, speak to an audience of travel media professionals this week at the New York Times Travel Show.

Martin used the examples of cats and the unusual car as images that worked well at catching reader interest. “But it’s not something you can normally use for a travel blog,” he said.

But Payne, who is Editor in Chief and Pet Cat Travel Columnist for the travel blog BobCarriesOn.com, thought differently.

“I could not see if the amphibious DeLorean that Martin put on the screen had a cat riding in it, as I was way in the back of the room, having arrived late after walking the distance you would expect to from a $12 per day parking garage in New York City,” Payne said. “But it seemed to me that if there weren’t a cat riding in the DeLorean, then there ought to be, and that it would make a good travel story, especially for readers who typically rely on their pet cats for travel advice.”

So following the talk, Payne contacted some of the thousands of pet cats who are regular readers of BobCarriesOn.com and asked what travel destination they would like to visit if riding in an amphibious DeLorean —  which is a real, although one of a kind, car built by someone from, not surprisingly,  San Francisco.

Here are the pet cats’ top six choices:

Cat Island, Bahamas

Once thought to be the island where Christopher Columbus first landed in the new world, Cat Island is now best known as the site of Mount Alvernia (207 feet), the highest point in the Bahamas. It is easily climbed, even in an amphibious DeLorean, and is an excellent vantage point from which to keep an eye out for Bahamian curly-tailed lizards.

Ninety-Mile Beach, Australia

For pet cats who have had to endure the indignity of a cat box, this ninety-mile stretch of pure white sand is kitty litter heaven. And if you have an eye-catching car, like an amphibious DeLorean, it is a perfect place to cruise for chicks, and fledglings, and hatchlings.

Perdido Key, Florida

This sandy strand along the Florida Panhandle is small enough so that if a cat has a fast car, such as an amphibious DeLorean, the endemic Perdido Key beach mouse, whose endangered status has been vastly overstated, should be easy to pounce upon.

Pigeon Cove, Massachusetts

There’s nothing quite as soul satisfying for a pet cat as cruising along this New England shoreline in an amphibious DeLorean in the Fall, especially if the pigeons have grown tired of guarding their nests.

Catalina Island, California

Anyone can take the ferry, but the classic way to arrive at this refuge from the dog-eat-dog world of the Southern California mainland is in your own private transport, such as an amphibious DeLorean. There’s plenty to do, but don’t be mislead into visiting The Sandbox, which sells clothes for small humans.

Cataract Falls, Indiana

Not the highest waterfall in Indiana, but for pet cats who are adventure junkies it’s a real thrill to plunge over this cascade in an amphibious DeLorean, a thrill only heightened by the knowledge that ownership of the car cannot be traced back to you.

Travel humor writer Bob Payne owns the franchise to sell amphibious DeLoreans in Indiana, excluding Indianapolis.

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Take my shoes off? Not in this lifetime.

 

So here it is, almost the end of the time, according to the Mayans, which is a special day for travelers because it means you can do and say all those things you’ve been wishing you could ever since the first TSA screener told you to take your shoes off.

Here are just a few of the possibilities that travel humor writer Bob Payne will be trying out. But feel free to contribute your own. And let’s check in day after tomorrow to see how things worked out.

Lean toward the woman whose child just threw his glass of juice at a flight attendant and say, in a compassionate voice, but loud enough for everyone within five or six rows to hear, “Does he take after you or your husband?”

Dine at a nearly impossible-to-get-into restaurant where the cost of the meal includes being humiliated by an insufferable wait staff, and then don’t tip.

Give every single person who puts their hand out — waiter, bellman, concierge, taxi driver, porter,  tour guide, beggar on the street– a thousand dollars, by check.

Sample everything in the mini-bar, even the $12 condom.

Walk out of the hotel carrying a TV.

Rent a car, the luxury model, back it into a pole in a parking lot, breaking a tail light, and then happily confess, when that irritating guy with the hand-held device is checking you in, “Yep. I did it.”

Go ahead, ski the double black diamond.

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Twinkies demise could cause collapse of U.S. Space Program

The announcement this week that the production of Hostess Twinkies may soon cease has far-reaching implications that could signal the permanent end of the U.S. Space Program, and possibly life as we know it in the U.S.

“The program was teetering on the edge of collapse as it was,” said America’s chief rocket scientist, Bob Payne. “But faced with the prospect of having to invest the billions it might take to develop another food whose 30-year shelf life could sustain mission crews on even the lengthiest journeys, space exploration is not likely to survive.”

The situation is so grave the Obama administration is considering a bailout of Hostess Brands, which also produces Ding Dong’s, Ho Ho’s, and Wonder Bread. And support for the plan seems to be coming from both sides of the political aisle.

“This isn’t Detroit, or Wall Street,” said former republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. “This is a crisis that affects all Americans, but especially those who after having their taxes raised under a Democratic administration can still dream of being among the first tourists in space.”

In related news, mothers across the nation warned that if Hostess Brands ceased production the fabric of the American family might be torn beyond repair.

Bob Payne, spokesperson for the lobbying group, Mothers Who Deserve Still More Time for Themselves, said that for decades mothers have prepared school lunches with the expectation that if a child came home with an uneaten Wonder Bread sandwich the sandwich would be equally nutritious on any day for the remainder of the child’s school career.

“Now what are the mothers  supposed to do, make a sandwich each and every day of the school year?” asked  Payne. “Not unless you want them abandoning their families to sign up for the Space Program.”

Travel humor writer Bob Payne served as the chief astronaut aboard Apollo 18.

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Zombie attacks air passengers, survivors grateful for extra legroom

In an aviation first, a zombie attack occurred aboard a commercial airliner today. It was a scene of horror worse than even passengers who routinely fly in the most uncomfortable coach seats, with the most restrictive fares, could recall experiencing in some time.

The plane, a Boeing 767 with 173 passengers aboard, at the start, was about half way through a six-hour flight from New York to Los Angeles when the attack occurred. Survivors recall that a woman near the back of the plane began screaming to the man next to her that being unhappy because he was stuck in the middle seat didn’t give him the right to dismember people.

The woman was the first of dozens of victims, many of whom had been waiting for the rear lavatories and did not run following the initial attack for fear of losing their place in line.

“Those of us who survived were really lucky,” said coach passenger Bob Payne, of Pelham Manor, New York, who had been in row 36-E. “If it hadn’t been for some of the things in our carry-on’s we’d forgotten to check, like machetes, calvary swords, and one fellow’s chain saw, I don’t know what we would have done.”

Payne said he’d noticed the man during boarding. “He was snarling and snapping at people, and dragging himself down the aisle, pushing a carry-on the size of a body bag. But you see a lot of that these days, so I didn’t think much of it.”

As soon as the rampage started, a flight-attendant, Enola Swift, who had escaped with only the loss of a leg, hopped up to the cockpit and explained the situation to the captain, who after checking to make sure the cockpit door was secure immediately requested that he be allowed to make an emergency landing.

“Unfortunately,” the captain later told reporters, “There was already a hijacking taking place on Southwest; a United flight had a family with a child who wouldn’t stay in his seat; and an American cabin crew had taken over a plane and was forcing everyone onboard to watch them perform a scene from Les Miserables. So air traffic control told us all available controllers were busy assisting other pilots and we’d have to continue on to L.A. as scheduled.”

Flight attendant Swift said that some passengers quietly accepted what was going on, as many usually do, and just seemed happy, as the people around them had the marrow sucked out of their bones, for the extra leg room. But others, Swift said, especially those whose assault had turned them into zombies, too, were almost unmanageable.

“They were banging on the call buttons, stacking the beverage carts with arms and legs and pushing them up and down the aisles, even smoking in the lavatories.”

The most difficult to deal with, Swift said, were the children. “Take an already cranky kid and turn it into a zombie, and that’s a flight attendant’s worst nightmare. I hope I never see that kind of behavior again.”

At the carnage continued, the surviving crew retreated to the forward cabin, which up until then had remained zombie free, and were able to temporarily keep their attackers at bay by pulling the curtain closed and making an announcement to remind coach passengers they were not permitted in First Class.

“Finally, though, they pushed in anyway and we were still fending them off (thank goodness for that chain saw) when the plane pulled into the gate, where we were met by a customer service representative,” Swift said.

Mobbed by reporters after deplaning, passenger Payne said that as horrifying as the ordeal had been he couldn’t help feeling sorry for the original zombie and the others he had turned into monsters.

“Watching as a First Class passenger who had been complaining about the noise was attacked by a horde of zombies and then stuffed down the toilet in the forward lavatory, you knew that deep within those tortured soles there was still some faint spark of humanity.”

In the aftermath of the incident, the nation’s airlines have come together as a group and quickly moved to reassure an on-edge flying public that any passenger who missed a connecting flight as a result of dismemberment or other major injuries would be reimbursed, upon presentation of receipts, for all meal, accommodation, and medical expenses, up to $25.

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Trouble saving your seat? Let wild animals help.

It’s happened to all of us. You get up from your seat on a bus, or train, or Southwest Airlines to use the lavatory or ask somebody behind you not to cram their carry-on bag into the same space already occupied by your souvenir sombrero, and when you return another passenger is sitting where you were. Or worse, when you start back you realize you have no idea where your seat is.

That’s when wild animals can help.

The example shown here is of a leopard, spotted on a train between Marseille and Barcelona. But any wild animal will do as long as they have a tail that will allow them to hang down from overhead. That way they are plainly visible no matter how far you wander, and they make it clear to anyone who thinks of occupying your seat while you are gone that there will be consequences.

As successful as wild animals have proven as place savers, even being known to keep celebrities at bay, be aware that there are times when they do not work.  One example is if the animal is seen as symbolic of man’s inhumanity to man, such as an elephant or wild donkey during U.S. political campaigns, when you may return from looking for an in-flight magazine that doesn’t already have the cross-word puzzle filled in to find your guardian hanging from the end opposite its tail.  Or you may return to discover that a five year old you don’t recognize insists on sitting in your lap.

In those few instances, the best alternative is to hang a stalk of wild asparagus.

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TSA secrets the flying public doesn’t want you to know

Not since the days when the postal service mattered to anybody has a group of federal workers (Congress excepted) taken so much abuse as the agents of the TSA.

That the TSA performs a necessary function is clear. Their vigilance, study after study has shown, has resulted in airline passengers bringing aboard far fewer knives, handguns, and explosive devices than they used to.

Yet the abuse of TSA agents has become so pervasive it has been estimated that comedians such as Jay Leno (“Have you heard the TSA’s new slogan? ‘We handle more junk than eBay.'”) David Letterman (“TSA says they are going to crack down on the invasive pat-downs. In fact, one agent was transferred to another parish.”) and Conan O’Brien (“ I don’t mind being patted down by airport security, but I don’t like it when the guy says, ‘Now you do me.'”) would be hard pressed to get through their monologues without some reference to the alleged humiliation faced daily by the flying public.

Of course some of the abuse is well-deserved.  There’s no evidence to show that grandmothers in wheelchairs are more likely to commit terrorist acts than any other group. And what kind of person takes a stuffed animal away from a four-year-old boy, even if the animal does turn out to contain gun parts?

But try putting yourself in the shoes of a TSA agent. (Admittedly, not as easily done, at most security checkpoints, as TSA agents putting themselves in yours.) The fact is that the two things the flying public finds most outrageous about the airport security experience – pat downs and body scans – are the two things that make it most difficult for TSA agents to come to work each day (that and most of them don’t earn enough to own a car).

“Everybody says airport security is a system built on fear,” TSA spokesperson Daniel Butts said, “But what they don’t say is that the biggest fears are those faced by the TSA agents themselves. To understand why, you just need to look at most people making their way through an airport terminal, picture them naked, and then imagine having to run your hand up the inside of their thighs. It’s not exactly a Ken and Barbie world out there.”

Considering the stress that results, it is a wonder, Butts said, that the TSA team holds up as well as they have. “Sure, there have been cases of verbal abuse, theft, drug trafficking, and dealing in child pornography, but at least nobody’s gone postal.”

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