"Better to be looking at it than for it"

Me with Annemarie, the originator of the expression "Better to be looking at it than for it"

One of our fellow travelers on our latest Overseas Adventure Travel (OAT) trip used this expression early is our travels.  

"Better to be looking at it than for it".  

At first I had no idea what it meant and since my learning style it to do it and talk about it, by the end of the 2+weeks together I had a clear understanding of the phrase.

Just now in a text conversation with another fellow traveler I used it and chuckled once more.  Today's situation is a discussion of whether we need a PCR test in order to enter Jordan on our upcoming trip.  The Jordanian website and our detailed materials from the travel company disagree so I called the travel company.  They also referred to the Jordanian official state website that appears we DO NOT NEED A PCR test.  However, the customer service persons at OAT said, sometimes airlines have a different requirement than a country so be safe we are going to get the PCR test.  In other words:

 "Better to be looking at it (the results from the PCR test) than looking for it (a test center in the airport to get a PCR test)"

We must have said this 100s of times in Africa on that trip but I have not really thought about it since until just now.  It is a very worthwhile phrase and has a lot of uses.  

Good and Bad Customer Service Experience AND Counting my blessings

I am not going to name this institution because why bother.

It is Saturday and I am trying to make a hotel reservation for a relative who needs to be near their sick relative.  I go to the website of a hotel my family has used since the 1970s and there is a phone number to make a reservation.  I do that, good doobie that I am and for 45 minutes I am on hold "32 callers ahead of you" "31 callers ahead of you" "21 callers ahead of you" etc.  

I lost patience since I was on our road trip with dodgy cell coverage so I decided to hang up. Mind you I had been on hold for a while, and my relative was waiting to hear what hotel I had booked so I called and got through to the front desk.  

The person at the front desk could tell that I was frustrated and did the exact wrong thing "Ma'am I cannot talk to you with that tone in your voice" and hung up on me.  I was gobsmacked.  We have been staying at this hotel for 50 years and had never had anything but stellar customer experience.  I empathized with him knowing that COVID and PTSD has hit us all including me. AND I was frustrated and angry and impatient. 

I called back the same number I had just been on hold for 45 minutes with.  Why did I keep trying this hotel?  I am a loyal person and our family has used this hotel for over 4 decades.  I got "32 callers ahead of you" etc.  I waited 25 minutes this time.  I finally got a live voice and requested the room.  

It was so painful to give her my personal information to rent the room and the personal information of my relative.  Multiple times she repeated back the wrong name, number or letter.  AND just as she put me on hold right after getting my credit card number and security code she said "I am going to put you on hold to get your confirmation number........" 

Wait for it, the line went dead.  

You can ask Murg but I could have had a heart attack right then I was so frustrated and angry.

I called the hotel right across the street from this one and made a reservation in 10 minutes.  The two experiences were night and day.  I know this is a first world problem and I lead a very privileged life and in the grand scheme of things this was not a huge deal.  My relative had just had a stroke and it was unclear how bad it was.  This put my own life in perspective.

A few days later I called the original hotel back, explained the situation and the Manager was excellent.  He said they had rooms that night and the process was for the front desk person to make a reservation. He reassured me he would address it and gave me his email address.  I felt much better and might stay there the next time I am in that area.

My learnings,

• In the grand scheme of things it was not such a huge deal that I insisted on making it
• The person at the front desk, and the person on the phone deal every day with impatient, demanding, angry people like me.  YIKES I cannot imagine implementing all those techniques I taught so long ago in customer service training.
• COVID has effected me and most of the rest of the world
• I have a choice about how to react to things and do not have to wind myself up the way I did
• I am human and will make mistakes AND hopefully learn from them

EPIC Road Trip 2022-2023 Sofy's experience

She learned to push the button 5 miles from home on our return

We got back on Friday January 13th from an epic road trip.  Murg collected the statistics on the trip and posted on FB:

"Epic roadtrip complete

Sat 11/19/22 thru 1/13/23

54 Nights in 2 houses, 8 hotels, 3 AirBnB

21 States (one new one for me - Michigan)

8,080 miles

19 families with 45 individuals visited

Sofy lost count of the number of dog parks visited but did learn to open the car window herself during the last three days on the road."

The biggest reason we drove to Tucson was because of Sofy. OK, not the biggest reason but a huge factor.

Our car was a Tetris puzzle and Sofy's block was right behind the passenger seat. Before you start to even feel sorry for her for one single minute, trust me, she had plenty of space. She could not have the window opened on the highway but we opened it a crack or a few inches when on non-highway traveling.

We had her water dish and food dish readily accessible and a few toys to play with which she ignored and looked at disdainfully: 

"You want me to play with that thing AND keep track of every truck, car, RV and squirrel on the horizon?"

On our VERY LAST DAY we found a marrow bone at a truck stop, bought it on a whim and she gnawed at that for the entire day. Why did we not buy her a bone before that? As an aside, truck stop convenience stores are the BEST, and change depending on the part of the country you are in. We could have wasted a lot more time browsing them if we did not have a destination for that evening.  

DOG PARKS: Our most common search on Maps was "Dog parks close to me". We found some terrific ones. The best one was the dog park combined with a Disk golf course. I cannot understand who thought that was a good idea. Sofy only chased and stole one disk from a dog owning player. When we pulled up to this particular course, it was not fenced in like many of the others, and Sofy took off like a bat our of hell across a ravine. She usually kept an eye on us, because who wants to be left in the middle of Oklahoma or Minnesota? Rescue dogs in general worry about being left and apparently Australian cattle dogs are attached to a single family member. Truth be told Sofy kept her eye out for Rod, and if he was not in view she looked for me (chopped liver). As long as we got her a long dog park run, she was tired enough to sleep for an average of 23 minutes in a day of driving. Someone in the car had to keep their eye out for those squirrels.

SLEEPING: Every hotel we booked had a king size bed. The first few nights we brought her dog bed in from the car and gave up after that. She slept some where around us on the king size bed more often than not on Rod's side leaving him about 9 inches of space for his legs.

The very best hotel for Sofy in the entire trip was Magnolia in St Louis. They have a person with a job description of PET CONCIERGE and they do not charge for pets. Sofy got a bag of dog biscuits upon arrival and because she is so special she got some when we left. We had a 20 minute chatty conversation with the pet concierge. They hand out a list of pet friendly restaurants, close dog parks, vets, doggie day care facilities, pet stores etc. Take note all of you hotel owners (usually chains) who charged us $75 as a non-refundable pet cleaning fee. Part of my search for the nightly least expensive hotel, was their pet charge. In a pinch we had to pay $75.

Once we got to Tucson we discovered that our AIRBNB was .5 miles from a really nice dog park. We met a lot of snowbirds, and their dogs. For 6 weeks Sofy was a regular there.

EATING: on our westbound trip Sofy ate one bowl of food for the entire 4.5 day trip. Even at home she is not food driven and does not gobble her food. Eastbound she averaged one bowl per day on the 10 day trip. She did finish ice cubes from drinks and I bought her Slim Jims as her treat.