Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

I took advantage of Presidents’ Day Weekend to go up to the Vineyard with my mom and her twin sister. I know, already it sounds like “Diary of a Rich Girl”. Maybe it is, but really, who would turn down a weekend on MV? Also, don’t the “Day Weekend’s” sound wrong somehow? Like Presidents’ Day and Memorial Day and Labor Day have powers to extend past normal twenty-four hour boundaries? Anyway…

Following what seems to be Caitlin’s Travel Rule #1, I tried to cram in as many modes of transportation as possible. It wasn’t “Trains, Planes, and Automobiles”, it was more. Friday I slipped out of Con Law 20 minutes early (I know, I’m a bad student – I have Friday classes) and caught a cab to National. There I got the 1:45 shuttle from DC to Boston.

The great thing about the shuttle is the very obvious class distinctions. It’s practically it’s own sociological study. I break them down into the following three groups: college students, businesspeople, and “other”, which, unlike on censuses, is not a catch-all, but a very specific group in and of itself. Each breed is very easy to spot. The college student gets on the plane with backpack in hand and music listening devise in pocket. He or she is unobtrusive enough sitting down, having traveled this route for every major holiday since freshman year. Upon sitting, books of some sort are produced for the semblance of work and/or educated entertainment, which is usually useless because they often fall asleep promptly after take-off, the result of professors struggling to fit assignments in right before the break in question.

The businesspeople are swift and direct. They travel with laptop/brief-cases and stow them in a matter of seconds. They are flying between cities for brief meetings, perhaps a one night stay-over; they are not taking-up a lot of time or space, and would appreciate it if you would do the same, thank you. The “other” category, then, is of course very difficult for them to tolerate. Others do not understand what the hurry is. Sure, one wants to get on and off the plane quickly, but you have to give them at least a minute to get together their large shopping bags of travel items and fit their just barely small enough carry-on suitcases into the overhead compartment, possibly moving your things out of the way to do so.

I must note, I am by no means a frequent traveler, nor have I never been guilty of the no “checked baggage” air-travel felony. In fact, I didn’t check any baggage on this very trip. However I say to you Others, there is such a thing as faking it. Yes, you may have children. Yes, airplanes feel small. Fine, the rest of us are in too much of a hurry. I feel your plight. But learn the rules, explore the culture, and try to adapt just a little bit. Just as one would recognize the responsibility to understand foreign laws and customs before traveling and remember not to graffiti in Singapore (we won’t make that mistake twice), it is wise to understand air travel before one attempts it. When in Rome…

Class-conflict aside, and needless to say, I made it to Boston fine. We always do. In fact, my no checked baggage move to avoid missing my bus as a result of delayed baggage claim or flights was unnecessary. I made it fine to the Bonanza Bus from Boston to Woods Hole on the Cape. Being the only one on the bus for the first 5 minutes, I was even honored by the abridged autobiography of my bus driver, a Portuguese man with an accent touched by Boston who had left his “honey” to come to the States and had just seen her after a 28-year absence. Just don’t tell her husband or his wife how much fun they had! Thankfully saved by my iPod and more passengers, the remaining 2 hours to the Cape were uneventful.

Once on the Cape, I had to wait for my mom and aunt to arrive via car. They were transporting a couch that took up the whole of the automobile. Because my mother had my ferry ticket, I had to climb over my aunt’s front seat and onto the hump in between the driver and shotgun in order to drive onto the ferry with them. Strong winds provided a fairly choppy 45-minute ferry ride, and my hump-seat was a not-so-comfortable 20-minute ride from the ferry terminal to our island home.

Being that February isn’t a very happening time in Edgartown, Martha’s Vineyard, it turned out that there wasn’t all that much to do. We ate at the usual favorite restaurants, the ones that simply can’t close in the winter; we did cute Vineyard Haven shopping; I allowed the Gordon twins (a.k.a. my mom and aunt) to generally spoil me in all possible ways. We were there for two full days of relaxing Vineyard fun.

Monday, I drove home with the twins to Philadelphia where I caught a train to DC, arriving at my dorm around midnight. Why, you may ask, did I not pay the $30 extra to get a roundtrip plane ticket and save about 8 hours? Evidently, because I am very, very stupid. That being said, it enabled me to top off my cab, plane, bus, and ferry transport story with car and train. Because they say it’s the journey that matters.