Vacation Dictators.

[Amanita]

I've actually got that American Experience DVD about the Golden Gate, it's awesome! That and a stack of books all about the bridge, including one with blueprints!

[artk2002]

Mildly O/T: The boys have been invited to go to Gettysburg with the family of a school friend (not the total flake family from my previous post.) The friends aren't coming back directly, so we're going to have them put the boys on the train to Chicago. Mrs.k2002 and I will meet them there, after visiting her son and his wife in Peoria. We'll all take the train back to Los Angeles.

I live just south of Peoria and my daughter lives in California. I want to take that train sometime! How long of a trip is it?

We'll be coming from Chicago (probably renting a car and driving to/from Peoria.) According to Amtrak the trip from CHI to LAX varies depending on the route.  The Texas Eagle takes 64 hours; the Southwest Chief 42 hours; the Empire Builder/Coast Starlight takes 78 hours including a 4 hour layover in Portland. In other words, two to three days. For any trip that long, I strongly recommend spending the extra money for a roomette. That will include all of your meals and gives you a real (if a bit narrow) bed. Otherwise you end up sleeping in your recliner seat in the regular car and having to pay meal-by-meal.

[MayHug]

We've taken a few train trips. My favorite was 28 hrs Chicago to Boston. We did not get the roomette and it was still comfortable and enjoyable. My daughter and grandson came from N Dakota and did have a roomette. But he was just a baby and she needed to be able to confine him.

I've driven to S.Cali once, hope to do that again and take the train sometime. Flying is usually the best so we get more time with the grandkids. Maybe when they're older we can take the train together.

Back on topic now, sorry!!

[Take2]

I have taken the Texas Eagle from LAX to CHI. We did the roomette, actually we did 4 of them as there were 8 of us travelling. The food was reasonably good, the trip was nice, the staff was very friendly. We enjoyed, in addition to the extra sleeping space and the food, the lounge available only for people who paid for beds, it was uncrowded and quite nice. We played cards and hung out there comfortably for hours, watching the world go by.

I was not a fan of sleeping on the train, though. In Europe, I have found sleeping on the train quite comfy. There seemed to be some extra rocking motion that made me sort of sea-sick when I tried to sleep on the Eagle. And of course, the beds are teensy and the room is precisely the size of the bed, but we expected that. Otherwise, the trip was perfect.

[andi]

Sometimes when people say - you have to keep me awake, they really mean help me avoid road hypnotism. I drove people back and forth from Georgetown, Texas and Houston for 3.5 years. One of the the "rules" was either you talk to me - or you are going to listen to a monologue for about 3 hours. If I sit there and stare at the road going by things start to blur, and I'm not as alert.

Also part of being a good passenger in parts of Texas - is helping to watch out for wildlife crossing the road they put those deer crossings in the worst places. Sis and BIL will drive 18 hours tomorrow. They don't mind the other sleeping during daylight - but both of them will be awake starting at dusk to look for deer.

Man I've made that trip about 1000 times. I used to take a friend to visit her boyfriend and she'd always fall asleep on the way home. I'd be chatting away and somewhere around Paige I'd realize there had been no response since Brenhem.  Made me mad!  I'd rather make the trip alone (and did - a lot!)

And yeah - Theres nothing like a 2 lane, no shoulder, middle of nowhere road after dark in early November - with the truck bed fully loaded with "mandatory stuff for the cabin". Scary

[AuntieA]

OT: To see a stellar example of Vacation Dictators watch the Audrey Hepburn/Albert Finney classic "Two for the Road". It's a story about a specific couple's relationship, but it's told in vignettes of their travels between England and France during their lives. Funny and touching.

[CrochetFanatic]

My mom hates "woodsy" places due to bugs and poison ivy, and my dad loves them.  My mom loves the beach, but my dad can take it or leave it.  Since my brother and I grew up, we don't really do the "family vacation" with any sort of regularity, but when we do it's usually a day trip for outlet shopping.  The reason for this is simple.  My mother decided that she does not want to alternate Upstate with the beach anymore, and would rather just go to the beach.  My dad, who likes the beach well enough, refuses to go there anymore out of principle.  So...that's that.    Stubbornness=boring trips.

[ladyknight1]

I have decided not to vacation with my parents again. It is like vacationing with stubborn, tantrum throwing toddlers. My youngest sister is ok, but a complete gimme hound and she is very immature. I think we will stick to just traveling with my oldest sister and her husband, who are very compatible with our vacationing style.

We are trying for a cruise together in 2014.

[TootsNYC]

When my now-DH and I had been dating for something like 2.5 years, I mentioned that I was trying to figure out where to go for my vacation.

Then-BoyF said, "we could go here."  I said, "We??" He said, "well, I want to be with you!"
OK, I figured, we're pretty much a couple, so OK, why wouldn't I want him along?"

(This after I'd learned the lesson about not vacationing with good friends whose idea of "sleeping in" was 11:30am and who wanted to eat at Perkins and sit there for 3 hours. She wanted to make my week in Calif. a joint vacation, and I said, "No. I want to have total autonomy, I don't want to compromise for anyone. Not on this vacation." So including my boyfriend was a big concession.)

A couple of weeks later, he says, "My parents want to come along."
I'm like, "No, sorry--this is MY vacation, and I didn't invite them."
He says, "but we haven't had a family vacation in a long time!"
I'm like, "Well, fine, but I'm not in your family. You're not having your family vacation on MY vacation! I get only 2 weeks. This is the one I'm spending to relax, since I use the other week to visit my family half a continent away. It won't be relaxing if we go w/ your parents!"

He wheedles, well maybe we can vacation in the same place, but we'll travel up separately, etc.
OK, finally, I agree to that.

First, we got stuck w/ his brother. We stayed in a B&B just outside the town, and they were supposed to stay somewhere else. Suddenly his brother was staying at the same B&B, so after we arrived, we were responsible for his transportation. And he was annoyingly passive aggressive in the TRUE sense--in this case, it was expressed in that he'd take forever to get ready to go, bcs he didn't want to be on that vacation. He was in college and about as self-focused as a 14yo. And I had no patience for him. I wasn't rude, but I didn't like to be around him bcs it was so much work not to express my exasperation. But we had to take him back and forth to the B&B. And so the B&B wasn't a romantic place to stay anymore.

So it wasn't MY vacation, but it wasn't "our" vacation for us as a couple either.

I don't like to eat in sit-down restaurants all the time; his parents do. Every meal, we had to negotiate where to eat, or if we said we were eating somewhere else, they'd pressure us not to. And they'd offer to pay, as if that would make us fall in with their plan.

Then his dad got the idea that we'd go out on the harbor in a boat ride; Boyfriend and I wanted to climb a mountain (we were in Bar Harbor, Maine). We declined. His dad pressured. It would be fun. I said, "No, there's nothing to see, the coastline of Maine all looks the same, andI can see it from the other shores just fine, and looking at water is not interesting. I don't want to do this."
   His dad said, "I'll pay for it! We can be together." I said no. He wheedled. I said no. Finally my Boyfriend said, "we'll climb partway and meet you for the boat ride." I ended up giving in.


And then we got SADDLED WITH HIS BROTHER again, who didn't want to go climbing and made us get a later start than we wanted, and didn't think he could do any hiking, and was always asking for reassurance instead of just shutting up and letting the day unfold. PLUS a deadline. Which his brother kept fretting about, so it wasn't like there was a 3-minute time frame in which I could just enjoy the climb and not thing about the deadline.

So we climbed with an eye on our watch, and just as we were really having fun, we had to turn around. I Female Dog plenty about it to Boyfriend, since he was the one who got me into this.

Then we go on the boat ride, and I'm trying to find something good in it. And it was boring. And loud. And windy. And COLD. And concentrated time with his parents, who are lovely but not (at that point) anyone I'm relaxed around or know very well.  I was SO mad that I cut short climbing the mountain, which I was loving, in order to go on a boat ride that I did NOT want to go on in the first place and that I'd tried to say no to.

THEN--on the drive home, somehow BF and I end up SADDLED WITH HIS BROTHER AGAIN. (In all honesty, it was probably an awful vacation for him to, since he kept getting dumped on us, which can't have been comfortable; he had to know he wasn't really wanted). And when they both had French onion soup for lunch, the two of them slurped so loud that I went into the women's bathroom and leaned on the wall for 20 minutes until I was pretty sure they were done; it was the only thing I could do to keep from screaming at them.

It was bad enough that I seriously thought about breaking up. I told my boyfriend, never again. Not ever. Just no.  He agreed. If he hadn't, I'd probably have dumped him. It's been 25 years--I'm *still* sort of pissed off about it.

Then, when the kids were young, we spent ONE weekend at a resort w/ his parents for some social-club gathering; his parents assured us it would be fun, the kids would like it, etc. The kids did sort of like it--and DH & I did not enjoy it at ALL. His parents keep bringing that sort of thing up, "the family can be together," and we just say no. They say they'd like to vacation w/ us, and we say no. They offer the idea that we can split up and do our own things, and we just say no.

DH and I have very, very similar ideas of what a vacation should be; we're really good at saying, "Oh, sure, I'll go enjoy that thing you really, really WANT to do." And we're really good at saying to one another, "I'd kind of like to do this silly thing" without worrying about being scoffed at.

But I won't ever, ever vacation--truly *vacation*--with his parents. To be honest, while I spend vacation time on visits to my family, I don't consider this true vacation either; they're family trips, which is different.

I can't say they are or were "dictators" in the unpleasant sense--maybe "iron fist in a velvet glove."

[rachellenore]

Vacation dictator..

My husband and I got married while on vacation visiting his dad and dad's girlfriend. We had a quick court house marriage and were deciding where to eat. Dad's girlfriend named some horrible sit down chain restaurant, I said I wanted to find a place with better reviews. I found an amazing little hole in the wall in which to eat and the food was excellent. The whole time, dad's girlfriend was complaining about either the atmosphere or the menu or the food, and then just started crying when we got the bill.

Sorry for thinking I can pick where I want to eat on my wedding day!

[TootsNYC]

Why did she cry about the bill?

Were they treating you? Or was their share of the bill so expensive that she foresaw financial difficulties?

[sparksals]

I have several. One is my BF from college; who swears up and down she gets sick (colds, sinus infections etc.) from blowing a/c. She and I went on a cruise, leaving from San Juan, in May, where it was hot, and humid. We get to the hotel we were staying in the night before, and she insists we cannot have the a/c on. Um no, while I am willing to compromise, its 95 degrees and 100% humidty. There is no way in ehell we are turning it off.  I said we can turn it down (I prefer it arctic), you can have my blankets etc. nope, and she whined and carried on but I won the argument. While it wasn't as  cold as I would have liked it, it was acceptable, and I was ok with it.

Then on the ship, she insisted we turn the blower down in the cabin (you can't turn them off completely, yay!) but she also wanted to sleep with the balcony door open, letting all the hot in. I have issues with humidity; it gives me raging sinus headaches, but I manage.  So no, that isn't happening.  And she did get sick, but I don't know if that was from the "blowing" air or not but 8 years later I am STILL hearing about how sick she was from that. Like it was MY fault. So I iwll never travel with her again.

The other is my cousin; we went away several years ago, to a beachy resort area. Now she is a compulsive shopper. If there is something to be bought, or looked at, she is all over it. She wanted to shop every day. Including the same stores she has near her at home. I went along but if we ever go away again, I'm going to pass and do my own thing.  She also was insistent we cook dinner in teh condo and only go out one or two nights. Um no, we can do breakfast and lunch but I want my dinners out, and budget accordingly. I did win that one as sometimes we were out and about at dinner time

I have to say it sounds like you weren't really compromising at all on the ship.  Why were your preferences more important than your companion? 

No matter what the temp is outside, I need the window open a bit, even if it is 30 below in winter or 100 degrees in summer.  I need the fresh circulation of air.  If the windows are closed and the AC on, I will wake up stuffy and most likely get a cold b/c of the poor circulation.   I think her compromise of the AC on with the door open would have been a fair agreement.  I can understand why she got sick!  I would have too!  Considering you were on a ship, I'm sure there was a breeze coming through that would have cut the heat and humidity.  It sounds like you only cared about your needs and didn't compromise with respect to hers.

Yeah, i had that same thought!

I could just see her posts here: "I went on vacation with a Dictator who didn't care that I was going to get sick from the AC. She refused to open any windows at all, And of course, I did!"

I'm with siamesecat on this one. 1. It's not reasonable to expect someone to sleep with the door open in that kind of heat and humidity. 2. Having the A/C on doesn't cause colds or sinus infections. It just doesn't. 3. Even if it did, leaving the door open would have caused siamesecat a raging headache. As someone who gets migraines that are triggered by humidity, I would happily take a dozen colds over one of those.

That really is an interesting assumption.  My husband just came home with a respiratory infection b/c of A/C on a recent business trip.   The spores and particles can certainly cause problems.  I have also have the same thing happen.  Anytime I sleep in a hotel room with windows that don't open, I get extremely stuffy.  If there is AC, it is even worse. 

It is not reasonable to expect someone to get an illness b/c of AC and conflicting sleep requirements to be comfortable.  There has to be give on both sides.

[violinp]

sparksals, I think Bexx meant that the cold air itself cannot cause disease, which it cannot. It can dry you out, certainly, but cold air alone will not give you the rhinovirus. However, you are also correct that the air circulated can and does have pathogens in it. Then again, so does normal air.

[Wordgeek]

Enough with the a/c.  Move on, please.

[weeblewobble]

Toots, my blood boiled just reading that. Shame on them for hijacking your vacation.