So a few months ago, Amtrak had a sale on USA Rail Passes.  Rather than the regular $499 rate, they were $299.  I bought one on impulse.   I was not sure if this was the best or worst idea ever.  I am still not sure.

You can find the details HERE or you can read on where I explain it in my own words.

So you have a pass that is good for 30 days.  You can take 10 train rides.  Since my pass was a special offer, I had a very clear use by date.  Normally, it is good for 120 days after purchase (30 days after first segment is traveled).

Thing I did not know before booking:  Amtrak does not have WiFi west of Chicago.  So my plans of working from a train were foiled.  I had to be a bit more creative.  I also needed to make sure I could be online completely during working hours.  Not like arriving in a city at 4:00 am and not be able to check into a hotel / not be able to find somewhere open to work from.  Same with checking out of hotels.  I didn’t want to take trains that left at like 3:00 PM if I had to check out of a hotel at 11:00 AM.  Most of my work is video calls, I didn’t want to be making these from a train station.  Most sit in places, such as Starbucks, have their dining rooms closed because of Covid.

I only wanted to sleep in states I had never slept in before.  I wanted to go to New Orleans.  That was really all I needed to get started. Continue reading →

Hi!

If you are reading this, that means you signed up to get notified of new blog posts by email.  It also means I have failed at turning off email notifications.

LET ME EXPLAIN.

I am trying some new things over here.  First:  We all agreed that you guys would rather read one big trip report at once, than having it posted one day at a time.  So I have been doing this.

But this is causing a couple of issues:

1.  It makes my blog completely impossible to search.  If someone searches for “Apache Hotel review” on Google, it pulls them to the first page of a 17 page trip report.  The Apache part is on like page 14.   I am losing some traffic here because it is not landing on the exact page they are looking for.
2. I am going to redo my theme and I need a separate post for each day for the new theme.

So what I am going to start doing with the trip report I am working on now (it will be finished before I leave in 3 days for another trip), is make 16 separate posts, but post them all at once, linking to “next post” on each page.  This way, each day is searchable by Google.  And you still get to read them all in one sitting.

Now.  I don’t want you guys to have to get sixteen emails whenever I make a new post, one for each day.  I also will be breaking up some older trip reports that I posted in one post, so that those are also searchable.  I definitely do not want you to wake up one day and have 8293748374 emails from me.

So I tried turning off email notifications and this is a test post.  If you get a notification of this post, I failed.  And I am not going to try again because I have already wasted 384783 hours of my life trying to figure out how to do this.

So if you do not want 834282437 emails from me, you can unsubscribe.  If  you do want 8324873 emails from me, well bless your heart.

And of course, if I am doing this right (crossed fingers) then I was successful in turning off notifications and I am just typing to myself because you will never see this.

Here we go in 3…2…1…

Sigh, it failed.

Hello and Happy 2017!   Let’s start this year off by actually publishing a new post!  In 2016, I published a whopping sixteen posts for the entire year.  This is going to change in 2017.

A lot of bloggers start out the year with the same promise and it is very common to see bloggers of all sorts set out to publish a new post every day for the entire month.  There is even an online guide for topic suggestions to take you throughout the entire year, which you can find here.  Ironically enough, today’s writing prompt is travel related with “What’s the 11th item on your bucket list?”  I can actually find the answer to that in my drafts folder, where I have an unfinished post that contains my bucket list.  I had this really cool idea that I would publish it and as I visited the places on it, I could insert links to the posts I wrote about each place.  But I never got that far because lazy.

(In case you are interested, the 11th item on my bucket list is the world’s largest Beagle.)

Continue reading →

My blog turned two last weekend!  I probably should have posted this on it’s birthday, but I was too busy being a delinquent mother and gambling away in Atlantic City.

Last year, I did a post about things I learned in my first year of blogging.  This year, I learned one huge thing and that is I am cursed.

Some things that have happened to me in the past year:

I lost all my non-published content.  I work on four computers.   One is my PC at home, my preferred computer to work on.   One is my work computer.   One is my netbook that goes everywhere with me because it is small, but it also sucks and is frozen all the time.  The fourth is my actual laptop, which works wonderfully but is too big to travel with.

Going back and forth between all these computers should not be a problem.  But for me, it is.  Why?  Because the internet will not work on my home PC.  That leads to this:

Everyone:  If your wifi works in your apartment, you should be able to connect a cable from the modem into your PC

Me: Yes, I know.  I used to do this.  But one night I defragmented my computer and for some reason, it lost a lot of abilities, including going online.  I also lost the ability to choose 256 colors, or change my theme, and everything now defaults to Times New Roman, which I hate.

Everyone: But if the wifi works, the internet should work

Me: It does, but the COMPUTER IS BROKEN.

Everyone: Maybe you just need a new cable

Me: (smashes head into keyboard)

Continue reading →

Wednesday, August 5, 2009: Last Day

[If you would like to start reading this trip report from the beginning, you can do so by going here.]

My first thought when I wake up at the California Hotel this morning, is that I cannot wait to get home and see one of my favorite bands play.  They are the reason today is my last day. I had to change my flight to come back a day early because they are playing.  This excitement about LEAVING Las Vegas is unprecedented.  It really makes my time in Vegas seem like a waste of money.   I’ve never had any thoughts anywhere remotely along these lines before.

I am woken up by a completely unnecessary text at 5:46 am which causes me to curse myself for getting a phone charger.   I get dressed and go out figuring I can always nap later as my flight isn’t until 11-something tonight and I have the room for the night.

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Tuesday, August 4, 2009 – My Only Full Day in Las Vegas

I am up at the California hotel and out at 7:00 am.  I am exhausted and would go right back to bed, except that I never checked out of Harrahs when I moved yesterday.  I realize I don’t HAVE to check out (the hotel will eventually figure out you are gone and check  you out) but I use this as an excuse to get moving and get OUT and experience my only full day in Las Vegas.

I eat breakfast at the California coffee shop.  Cheddar omelet. It’s delicious.

Continue reading →