The Best Laid Schemes o' Mice an' Men Gang aft Agley

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I've been told that we get but once to celebrate our 60th birthday and since the end of 2012 would usher in that formidable milestone in my life, I wanted to do so in style. I was given the opportunity to pick where we would spend our Christmas Holidays this year and I opted to choose a place we had never been to before. Last February in my efforts to avoid doing the taxes for as long as possible I had stumbled upon this website: http://users.tpg.com.au/adsl8fbu/Clairanew.htm. I decided I'd like to rent out a nice house whereby we could stay in one spot all week while doing daily driving excursions to local sites. Down in the south of France we'd be near beautiful Provence, the Spanish border and many Cathar mountain castles.

When Gail discovered that Christmas falling in the middle of the week meant she would have more days off than usual, we decided to add more to the itinerary. Without really paying attention to a map of France and paying no heed to distances, I decided that I'd like to see some of the D-Day beaches in Normandy. Even though we'd been to Paris at least 10 times before, we had done virtually no exploration beyond the city limits. Almost 70 years after the War, I assumed there wouldn't be much left to see and the longer I waited, the more the old ruins and remnants would disappear over time. I'm still kicking myself for taking so long to see Berlin and missing so much of the old Cold War memorabilia.

When I presented this addition to our plans, Gail asked if we could squeeze in a visit to Mont St. Michel, also in Normandy. Long ago she and I had planned a trip to see that historic island attraction but our plans had fallen through. Everytime we had seen Mont St. Michel on Rick Steves or Rudy Maxa's TV shows we said we had to get there someday. We decided 2012 would be the time to go.

When I saw just how far apart Normandy and Languedoc were, we totally dropped the idea of the rented house in southern France. I then decided to start looking for rental properties in coastal Normandy. I found a fabulous old farmhouse to accomodate what I thought would be a big group of 8 or more people: http://www.stayinnormandy.info/. But as summer approached one by one family members and friends opted out. Before long what I expected to be a group of 10 was down to just 4 of us. I cancelled that accomodation and using www.booking.com I worked and re-worked an itinerary across the Normandy coastline. A couple of times Gail and I considered bagging the whole plan and returning to Germany instead. Neither of us were very impressed by what we had seen of France in our visits to Paris, Provence and Lyon. The only section of France that we really enjoyed was Alsace which is more German than French.

A month before departure the place on Omaha Beach that I had booked notified me that they were sold out (I had booked it 4 months earlier - probably found a sucker willing to pay more). Too bad because not only was it in an ideal location, but the rooms were private cabins and the resort had its own highly regraded restaurant. Instead they re-booked me almost 200 miles away at their other resort. Fortunately I had double booked those four days, including Christmas and Boxing Day, just in case. If I hadn't we might have been hard-pressed to find Christmas accomodations at that late date. As things transpired, the hotel we did use in Arromanches instead turned out to be more than adequate.

As the months counted down to our departure I double then triple booked cars and hotel rooms just in case those we had invited changed their minds. I added to and subtracted from our itinerary. I ordered 3 different green Michelin guides and a D-Day beaches tour book off of www.half.com . Two weeks before we left I totally reworked our final 5 days of the journey by skipping the U-Boat pens in St Nazaire and going to Guerande instead. Using an itinerary of a professed Francophile on the Fodor's website I added stops in Brittany incorporating a number of award winning small villages near the Loire. I had plans to see a chateau or two along the Loire, but not knowing the operating hours during the Holidays I had nothing set in stone. Knowing we would be spending most of our time in a small corner of Normandy led me to believe we would have plenty of time to see everything. I felt I had micro-managed our travel schedule carefully and allowed plenty of room for casual sightseeing once we got to our pre-booked accomodations. In retrospect, I probably should've put more time and effort into our daily explorations instead of continually working on saving bucks on our hotels and car rental.

Two days before departure I was seriously considering cancelling all the reservations except for the car and heading to Germany. I kept remembering how unpleasant and boring we had always found Paris to be. And I wasn't overly impressed with the French folks I had met in Provence or Lyon either. Gail talked me out of it.

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The worst part of every vacation for me is leaving the dogs behind. I stress out almost as much as they do when taking them to the kennel. This year we added a third dog, a puppy named "Aphie". Fortunately she's pretty adorable so we easily found folks willing to babysit. My son and daughter-in-law happily (at the time) took her in for the next two weeks. Somehow we failed to mention that she is still working on that whole housebreaking thing.

The day before the two older dogs were scheduled to head to doggie camp, one of Gail's ex-students called and asked if he could watch them instead. After all the work they had made for him last summer when he babysat we never figured he'd offer to do it again. If he was crazy enough to do it again who was I to argue? Besides, the dogs would be much happier with at least some human contact.

After taking little Aphie out to Northern NJ for her two week sleepover, I hustled home and prepped our dumpy house for two weeks of kennel duty. That meant dropcloths on the wood floors, blocking off corners of the house, brushing out some of their hair and getting all their meals together.

On D-Day (Departure Day) Gail headed to work and Cassie and I finally started to pack. Knowing the car rental we had would have room for three large suitcases and one small, I tried to pack a 19 inch bag for myself. I got everything stuffed inside, but it bulged to twice its normal thickness. Besides, I would have no room for my souvenirs. I then repacked all my gear into a 22 inch suitcase that was falling apart after 5 plus years of heavy usage. Smaller than Gail's and Cassie's I figured it, along with Grandma's usually small bag, would easily fit in our rental. I forget to consider our carry-ons and future purchases.

Picking up Gail from school and heading to Newark Liberty Airport posed no problems. We had a little trouble getting to the poorly posted Parking Spot location, but eventually pulled into the half empty lot. A shuttle bus stopped right behind our car and the driver helped me unload our stuff into his van. Very impressive.

Check-in went rather smoothly if not a bit slowly due to the start of the Christmas rush. Security was once again a pain in the butt with huge lines and very very slow movement. Next to the anxiety over caring for the dogs, going through Homeland Security is the biggest downer of air travel for me. Or at least it was up to this point. Luckily I had taken one of my Happy Pills and I avoided having my stomach twisted into knots of worry. It took almost 45 minutes to get through. Why do we still have to remove our shoes? And why don't they just run an express line for people who are willing to strip down naked for them to inspect? I'd do it just to get through faster.

It turned out United was departing from our favorite terminal and gate area at Newark. This wing of the airport had a centralized food area with Chinese, Italian, veggie, McDonald's, a cheesesteak and ice cream counters. I decided to give Nathan's a try. Bad choice - by the time I got my burger and fries, Cassie, Gail and Grandma had already finished their McDonald's. That meant the still hungry Cassandra was picking through my meal while I tried to scarf it down before departure time.

Once boarding began I was once again complaining. This time about the idiotic boarding procedures airlines use today. Why do they not fill the back of the plane first. then call for passengers in the middle then the front? Instead they try to load those with window seats first, no matter whether they are in the front or back. And of course half the passengers pay no heed to what zone they are in and try to squeeze on first. As a result, everybody has to wait while the little 5 foot 200 lb lady tries to cram her 27 inch carry-on suitcase into the overhead bin. Ridiculous. In the Good Old Days suitcases were checked and you were allowed two checked bags. How does limiting us to one checked bag and allowing a steamer trunk in the cabin facilitate loading?

Things got more uncomfortable right after take-off. Thank God I had an aisle seat. We were flying across the Atlantic in the smallest jet-powered aircraft I had ever been on. United 54 was a Boeing 757-200 with one aisle, three seats per side. Room for 200 people. Three bathrooms for all of coach class. The aisles are apparently extremely narrow because passengers, flight attendents and beverage carts were continually crashing into my right arm while my left arm was cradled into my chest due to Monsieur Tubolard next to me hogging both his armrests.

But even that was bearable. What has me considering never traveling again is the way this tiny plane twisted, turned, yawed and dropped over the skies of northeast America and continued to do so most of the way across the Pond. After last summer's near death experience on a Chinese 757 trying to land in Hong Kong during a typhoon (landing aborted and rerouted), I have become a rather nervous flyer despite over 40 years of experience in the skies. A couple of times I had to grab the seatrest in front of me and I felt my hands sweat as we plummetted toward the earth. No doubt these were no more than milliseconds of turbulence, but it scared the Bejeezus out of me. I don't know what I would've done without the seatback entertainment system to divert my terror.

My fear didn't deter me from eating both the dinner and breakfast that were served. No booze however. It isn't free on United. And I think it's great that the airlines are taking all those senior citizens out of their rest homes and giving them jobs as stewardesses.

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Photos

United 757
Not our plane but the same size.

Interior of the Deathstar
I borrowed this stock photo from Boeing's website, but this illustrates perfectly just how tiny this aircraft was. I can't believe they fly these things 4000 miles across an ocean.