My Travel Tips

Here is how I avoid those predatory airline baggage fees which can easily cost you $50.00 per bag – EACH way. Follow these suggestions and you will NEVER have to check a bag again. You can easily travel with a small carry-on bag or backpack and do just fine. I am starting off with women but the advice for men is very similar.

First of all, if you are packing in winter, turn your heat down before you start. If it is summer, turn your air conditioner up. Then lay out everything you are thinking about taking with you for your trip. Consider the weather at your destination, whom you’ll be visiting, what kinds of activities you’ll be doing, etc. Then you should probably put half of the things you think you need back in your closet. Traveling these days requires you to be extremely Spartan in what you take with you. Gone are the days of steamer trunks and hat boxes.

The trick is to wear almost everything you are taking for your trip. Begin with your underwear layer, unless you think you might be going swimming. If so, put on your bathing suit first. Next, you can easily wear 5-6 pair of underpants. Start off with your newest, tightest-fitting pairs (such as thongs) and progress to your older, looser-fitting ones. If you are over 50, you can probably skip the thong layer, and you might even want to layer in a pair of Depends if you will be on an exceptionally long flight.

The same thing goes for bras. Put on your barest, strapless ones that go under evening wear, then layer up to your old-lady bras. You can skip this bottom layer if you are going to visit your grand kids. In that case, your daughters-in-law or daughters will be wearing the sexy, strapless evening wear when they go out, while you will be staying home and babysitting the grand kids.

Next add any leggings or panty-hose with feet. These should go over the underpants layers. Choose the sheerest pantyhose first, then move to the heavier footed leggings. If you are taking socks, put these on next. Make sure to smooth out as many sags or wrinkles as you can so you don’t end up looking like one of those elderly eastern-European ladies. As soon as you’ve completed this layer, move on to the pants layer.

Start with any stretch pants. Now add a pair of regular jeans, if you are over 50. If you are under 50, and have ‘skinny’ jeans, you might want to skip taking the heavy leggings. Now you can ease your dressy pants or skirts over these layers. This may require using one of those elastic button extenders, or just leaving them unbuttoned altogether. Elastic waistband apparel is the best travel wear and is much easier to layer. The shirts and blouses layer will hide any waist band issues.

Now assess your blouse situation. Obviously, put on your most form-fitting shirts first like Tees, then add your looser, dressier blouses. You can leave the top buttons open to show a few of the other layers underneath. This is quite stylish and may help off-set the initial shock of the final look of your travel wear. Skip taking sweatshirts, you can always borrow one from whomever you are visiting. If you have a favorite sweater, feel free to add it here – over the shirt/blouse layer.

Depending on the season and your destination, you may need a winter coat, gloves, hats, and boots. These can significantly add to the bulkiness of your outfit, but don’t get discouraged. Add your warm, woolen socks over any thinner or silky socks, leggings, etc. Plan to wear your bulky winter boots on the plane. Often you can skip the boots if you are visiting big-footed friends or relatives, or those with older kids. You can usually borrow an extra pair of winter boots from them, in which case, plan to wear your next bulkiest shoes on the plane. If you absolutely need to take high heels, these will have to go into your small carry-on bag with your essential toiletries, medicines, nightgown, etc. Pick one pair that will go with everything.

The MUST here is to forget about your pride or any sense of style. You will look like a bag person. Accept this, and think about all that money you’ll be saving on baggage fees. Back in the old days, people who traveled by plane were very stylishly dressed and coiffed. Airports were full of these well-healed glitterati. However, you will look more like the people who could only afford to travel by bus or train. These days, its is the opposite. Fellow plane passengers will look refreshingly similar to you, and it is the bus and train passengers who would probably avoid sitting next to someone dressed like you. Also, accept that you will be somewhat uncomfortable wearing all those clothes. Getting too hot – especially in summer, is the major problem. However, you can take off quite a few outer layers, such as winter coats, hats, scarves, etc. and put these in the overhead compartment of the plane with your small carry-on. You can also slip off any bulky winter boots and put them under the seat in front of you. You will be surprisingly comfortable.

There is another upside these days to ‘packing’ by wearing everything you are bringing on your trip. You do not have to fear those intrusive, genital-pawing pat-downs by the TSA agents.  You will look like the Michelin Man or the Pillsbury Dough boy. They can pat away to their heart’s content and you won’t ever feel a thing. Your modesty will remain preserved.

Another thing I’ve learned from my flying experiences is that these days, almost all of the flights you take will be totally full. As has happened to me most times, I get to the gate with my carry-on bag, the gate agents look around at all the people with carry-on luggage, and realize that it won’t possibly fit in the overhead bins and under the seats. They announce that if you bring your carry-on bag up to the gate counter, they will check it to your destination for FREE.   I then use this opportunity to quickly stuff my bulky items that I’m wearing into my carry-on bag, and eliminate having to deal with putting them into the overhead compartment. The airline puts your bag directly onto your plane, and you get your bag checked for free – which should have happened in the first place. Imagine how steamed you’d be to pay $50.00 to check a bag at the check-in counter, only to find when you get to the gate, they are checking them for free for your fellow passengers!

One other important note to consider. Try to avoid drinking a lot of liquids at least 12 hours before your flight. The same goes for taking any ex-lax, stool softeners, or diuretics. Totally skip the Starbucks kiosks on your way to the plane. Having to use those Lilliputian restrooms on the plane with all those clothes on, is very challenging. You may find yourself having to step back out in the aisle to pull up your pants layer. This can be humiliating. If you find that you absolutely can’t make it the whole flight, choose the restrooms at the back of the plane to lessen the number of fellow passengers who will be treated to your post-restroom floor show. However, if the bathing suit you put on for your first layer is a one-piece, you are completely screwed.

I now look at plane travel as a personal challenge to see just how much of the stuff I am taking that I can either do without, or actually wear on my person. Obviously, you still need to carry a small zip-lock bag with your less-than-three-ounces of liquids like shampoo, toothpaste, mouthwash, breast milk, etc., but with the essentials like your cell phone, your Kindle, or laptop, you’ll be surprisingly free and unburdened by unnecessary ‘stuff’ and unnecessary baggage fees. Part of keeping up with the times is being flexible to make the most of your travel resources. Readjust your expectations and remember to keep laughing.

Bicycle Stories

When I was a little kid, my Grandmother used to tell me that when I went out of the house to go somewhere, I should always make sure I had on clean underwear that looked nice. Not the old, faded, well-worn kind. She said that if you got hurt or got into an accident and had to go to the hospital, you didn’t want to be embarrassed by having on your worst old underwear. This was common advice from many of the older people of that era. I grew up thinking that must be the worst part of needing to go to a hospital, being embarrassed about my underwear. I later found out that wasn’t the case.

I borrowed a bicycle to try out riding a bike after not riding one since 1993. I have visions of getting a bicycle and riding around the lake and to the park with the grand kids. Many people in Portland ride bikes for pleasure, to work and back, and to go to the grocery store and the library, and most anywhere else that people usually take cars. So I thought I would try it out and see if riding one at age 66 was as fun as it used to be. The plan was for me to ride the bike while Paul took Yuki on their ‘power walk’ for about 1 hour this afternoon.

So I took my shower and put on my newest pair of grannie-panties since I was going to be tooling out-and-about on a risky contrivance that I hadn’t ridden in a long time. I thought I was borrowing a big, slow, wide-tire beach cruising bike. The one I borrowed was a 7-speed racing-looking bike with tiny, thin tires and a very squirrel-y nature. I tried to pedal slowly to pace my self with my power-walking companions. I eventually shifted it from gear 7 to 3 to gear 1. This allowed me to go more slowly to match their pace, but if I went too slowly, the bike would tend to twist and fall over. I managed to get my foot down in time to avert disaster – until the last ½ mile. We were going over a pretty little stone bridge, in a pretty little neighborhood along the route, and I slowed down too much. I didn’t get my foot down in time and the bike and I fell over in a tangle on the trendy, quaint paving stones on the bridge.

Jeez! How embarrassing! Paul helped me untangle myself from the bike and I assessed pretty quickly that nothing was broken, in spite of the blood and torn flesh. I landed on my left hip, knee and elbow but the bones held firm. I was going to get back on and ride the rest of the way home but Paul absolutely forbade it. He made me sit at a picnic table in a near-by park while he walked the bike and Yuki back home, then came back and picked me up in the car. I sat there texting Dan (my uber-biking-guru son) asking him how I could have gone so wrong? I told him that what I really needed one of those 3-wheelers that wouldn’t fall over with me when I slowed down too much.

Paul picked me up and I came home and got back in another warm shower and cleaned off my poor ouchies. I slathered myself with antibiotic creme, and in spite of some nasty looking scrapes and bruises, I felt pretty darn good.

As I was laying on the ground trapped under the bike, I briefly thought I was so glad I had on good underwear. I’m sure my Grandma in Heaven was very proud of me.

Fast-forward to 2012. What a difference a year makes! After my nasty fall last year, son Dan took me shopping for a bike he felt would be safe for me to ride. That would be a large ‘cruiser-style’ bicycle with wide tires and a deep ‘step-through’ so I could get off and on the bike safely and quickly, if necessary. We found the perfect bike for me at the Bike Gallery in Portland, OR – Portland being somewhat of a super biking capital of the world. (Portlanders think so, anyway.) I picked out a purple Electra cruiser bike with peace signs all over it in various colors and sizes. Perfect for the aging hippie Grandma that I am.

Over this past year, I have had a great time riding this pretty bike all around our lake and through our neighborhoods with and without my grandchildren. Sometimes, we would ride together through our local nature trails all the way to a nearby village shopping center where we would stop and get ice cream cones for a treat. Then we would ride back home again. I was still not able to ride along while Paul took Yuki on their power walks, because it was impossible to ride slowly enough to stay with them. For that I really would need a 3-wheeler.

At the end of our summer in Portland last year, we took my beautiful bike back to our winter home in the desert in Yuma, AZ so I could ride it there. It is the perfect place for biking – wide, flat, paved streets, low volume of slow traffic, and I could ride for miles and miles all over our desert community. The late fall, winter, and spring is perfect to be out and about – temps in the 70’s and 80’s and sunshine every day. It was lonely riding my bike alone, though. Not a lot of people my age were riding bikes around our retirement community.

I decided I could take our dog, Yuki, with me if I had a way to safely bring her along. I considered a child bicycle seat on the back or front of the bike, but I was afraid it would upset my balance on the bike enough to make that a dangerous proposition for both of us. Also, I could not securely fasten her into one of those and she was likely to leap out of it the first time she saw a dog along our route. So I bought a bicycle trailer designed to hold 2 small children. It attached securely to the back of my bike and was very stable and easy to pull. With Yuki’s car seat harness, I could strap her into the child seat belts so she couldn’t jump out of it on our ride. After the first couple of trys, Yuki loved it.

Here we are riding down the street in front of our house with Yuki’s pretty, white fur flying in the desert breeze. After the first test ride, I decided that I really ought to have her inside the trailer more securely by zipping the screen across the front so she couldn’t just hang out the front. I was still worried she might try to leap out when she saw a dog she wanted to play with. She could get tangled in the rear wheel and get hurt if she managed to get far enough out of the trailer.

We had many good rides together and Yuki would get so excited when I asked her if she wanted to go for a bicycle ride with me. She got to see many dogs along our route, both walking with their owners along the streets, and also in their yards thorough fences and gates. I have become somewhat of a novelty in our community of older people, as Yuki and I cruise around in our rig, sometimes stopping in to see friends for a snack and some ice tea along our route in the warm afternoons.

I left my “peace” bike in Yuma when we came north to Oregon for the summer this year. My plan is to get a 3-wheel bike to keep here in Oregon with a large basket on the back, so Yuki can ride along safely with me. It will be much more stable for the kind of riding I do here in the Portland area where there is a lot more traffic, steep hills, and stop-and-go situations. One of these years, I want to do the Portland Bridge Pedal bike ride on a Saturday morning in August, where the City closes all 10 of the bridges across the Willamette River and friends and families ride their bikes together along various-length routes across these scenic bridges. That looks like so much fun to me, and with a very stable 3-wheel bike, Yuki and I should be able to join the kids and grand kids for this fantastic ride one of these years.

I’ll have to let you know my future biking experiences go. All I know, is that I want to keep biking for as many years as I possibly can, as it is a great way to get exercise and see the the world outside and up close.