On last-moment travel plans

 As I write this on Sunday night, I'm still in Boston. I was supposed to leave Boston last night and get to Philly this morning. That didn't happen.

It didn't because I kept on delaying actually buying the Amtrak ticket to the very very very last moment, until the stressful meeting on Friday was over. Didn't buy the tickets immediately after that, spent several hours 'relaxing', eventually got around to checking the prices. Oh boy, they were four times what I had been expecting. I got about checking  the next closest ticket that was affordable, which was Wednesday evening, so that's when I'll be leaving for Philly now.

N tells me I should just get a plane ticket, it'll save me so much hassle and time and it's probably not even that expensive. It's true, generally speaking, except I don't get the freedom of the train. Because with trains sometimes I can literally decide the day before, or the day of, to make an eight-hour trip, for a quite reasonable price. That's not a freedom you get with the planes.

Why do I keep a lot of my travel plans to the very last moment even though it would save me a lot of headache and stress on planning? Because it gives me room to maneuver, to explore alternative options, show flexibility to other things that might come up. It's not a big deal during Covid times, obviously, but what if I'd bombed on the Friday meeting, my mood would have been totally in the dumps, it's likely I'd have to cancel the Saturday trip and get a new ticket. What a waste it would have been.

There's also a sense of danger and adventure in making plans the last moment. When you don't know if you're going to be on your bed the following morning, or crashing on somebody's couch, or trying to get a good night's sleep on the Amtrak overnight train because you have actual work the next morning, but you didn't plan for it, things get interesting. What's next? What are the possibilities? What other wild things might happen? You keep yourself guessing, and the world guessing.

Sometimes, it's just for the reactions that I do these things. This one trip, I took a bus up from NH to DC with a notice of 2 days, the trip took 12 hours, I spent eight hours in the city and then took a 12 hour trip back to the place because things happened. Everybody was confounded, but the world wouldn't bend to my wishes and the travel plans, so I had to be flexible. The price I pay is in my time, time on a bus or a train, something I could have been spending more productively or relaxing. Or not. I'm wasting my time anyway, it's not very valuable, might as well spend it on a land vehicle, that's my justification anyway.

So yeah, I've got a one-way ticket to Philly, with no end in sight. I might stay there for a week or two, eventually go to VA where again I'll be there for a week or two, or four, back to Philly and then NYC, and then to Seattle, where again I'll head out with a one-day ticket. Anything beyond that, I'm leaving up to fate. It's fun.

Fingers crossed.