For whatever reason, our trips start out the same, not always good and with a story.  So here goes…air travel has not changed.  We have travelled via air a couple of times post COVID, so I am unsure what I was expecting, but in a nutshell, people are the same.  The flights are still over-crowded, running late, and full of inconsiderate people.  Perhaps it’s people who have not changed and it’s little to do with Air Travel.  Anyway, strange thing happened in the airport during out connection from Jacksonville to Columbus.  I had someone I have never met before ask me to watch their bag while they left to go eat…uh, no.  Now, I am not the most experienced traveler in the world, but this is kind of anti-terrorism page one, right?  First off, I have never met this girl before and secondly, I have no idea what is in her carry-on luggage.  Strangely enough next, she picked up her wallet (perhaps detonator) and left!  So now I am sitting next to this potential bomb package in the middle of the crowded Charlotte Airport.  Something says bad idea so when Ron returns, we moved!

Good news is the flight made it fine and I have no idea what happened to this girl when she returned or her stuff.  It was 1:00am, we picked up the rental car and headed to the hotel.  We had stayed in the Dublin area before and at the hotel right next door to where we were booked so we had hoped for an uneventful check-in and to just go to bed.  Well, not so fast. 

Many years ago, I thought I had had my worst hotel experience at the “Cass Hotel” in downtown Chicago, but no such luck. The Cass Hotel had bullet-proof glass at check-in, rented rooms by the hour, and was the closest I ever want to get to bed bugs. Now here I am and our hotel had COVID glass, a Meth-whore check-in clerk, and the parking was a joke…it seems our hotel was along the same lines as the Cass Hotel. Ron and I actually had to move the picnic table to create a parking space for ourselves and we found out the next day that there had been a shooting at the mall across the street the days before. Thank God We weren’t on the motorcycle yet!

Needless to say, we got out quick 5 hours sleep and checked-out the next morning.  Is the fact I got a “free” gas station muffin a bonus?  I think not.  So, we got the heck outta dodge! 

We ended up moving hotels three more times during our Ohio stay.  Unbeknownst to us, there had been a huge power outage the day before we flew in and record high temperatures.  This meant that many folks had opted to get a hotel to escape the heat and many of the decent hotels at reasonable priced hotels were sold out.  The budget for our trip was busted already this week so we will need to do better as we start our trek and stay outside the cities.

Good thing we had fun with family the next couple of days and Ron worked hard in the heat to get the bike trunk painted and put together.  We also got a new tire put on and Ron ordered brakes.  The plan was starting to come together!