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Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Dismal public transportation



There's a whole lot of logistics concerning my trip south early next month. One of the problems is what am I going to do with the car? Leaving it at my stepmom's could be worked out, but my boat is 170 miles away from her place. Florida is big. Like most of the US it doesn't have much of a public transportation system either.

Right now I'll most likely just look for a reasonably secure storage place for my car near where my boat is currently located. (Ft. Myers.)

For a while I thought I'd found a good solution. Why not rent a car, drive it one way, then rent another one when it's time to come back? Weekly rates on cars are pretty reasonable, right? Indeed they are, unless you intend on dropping off a car somewhere else rather than at the place you rented it from. Holy smokes do they charge for that little service! I've purchased second hand cars for less.

Anyone else remember when cheap bus service went to just about any little podunk town in the country? It wasn't the fastest way to travel, but it got you anywhere you wanted to go for a reasonable fee. Now there are many gaps in the system. Many of the places I'd want to travel to or from have no bus service at all.

Trains? I'd love to go on a long train trip someday, but they service fewer places than buses.

I don't fly. It's not that I have anything must against it, except for the silly security theater. Even before 911 I didn't have much patience for the security people. Now it's just best that I avoid flying. Besides, I've too much gear to haul around.

There's not a lot of time to figure out what to do. We are leaving to head south around December 4th. Right now we plan on taking the car and leaving it in storage somewhere in Ft. Myers. We are doing much of this by the seat of our pants. Hopefully, we'll be better organized next year.

-Sixbears

12 comments:

  1. I'm sure you will come up with the best solution, Sixbears. And for me, just talking it out seems to help in the deciding process; same with writing it out. Does typing it out work the same? Hope so ...

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    1. Yes, typing it out helps. Writing the blog helps the thinking process. Plus, I often get good suggestions from my readers.

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  2. Sounds like you've thought of just about everything. Hopefully storage won't break you. Suggestion when you store it....disconnect the battery (but I'm sure you already thought of that).

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    1. It looks like there are some places in my price range. Storage is a big business these days.

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  3. This is a perfect opportunity now to start a book about your deeper jump into sailing with this new boat. I want to buy it when it comes out!

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  4. Now, if you had one of those Google self driving cars you could have it pick you up where ever you need a car (grin).

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    1. The "future" has been a bit of a disappointment. :)

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  5. Make friends with a resident with lots of space near your launch site and ask them if you could leave your car there.
    I've done it. You'd be surprised how many nice people will help you, An appropriate gift will be appreciated.

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  6. You're right about rental cars. I thought about renting a nice new car to drive up North to see the kids. My vehicles are getting long in the tooth to be going too far from home. The car rental place in town was willing to rent me a car to drive to Tennessee at a reasonable rate, but they said they wouldn't rent me the vehicle if I was going any further North than that. They didn't know why, it was company policy.

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    1. Funny how the local agent doesn't even know the reason. I don't know about you, but I'm sick and tired of the "policy" excuse.

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