I… don’t know how to drive.
Restating what I accidentally posted in the polls thread before it got moved:
I picked 4 in the driving poll, but it really depends on the kind of driving. I don’t really like my commute, mostly because I get frustrated by the traffic. But I love a weekend drive on a twisty back road in my convertible. I’d pick 5 if it was just limited to that type of driving.
Og forgives you, this time…
My husband didn’t know how to drive when we were married. He grew up in NYC. Then we moved to Princeton, NJ, where it was an awful lot easier to go grocery shopping with a car. So he learned how to drive.
Driving isn’t good or evil. It’s a skill that some people need and others don’t.
Yeah, that was great. I own the DVD set and re-watch from time to time.
Driving, I rated it as “meh”, I’ll do the errands I need to and to get from place to place, but I rarely enjoy it. Thankfully, my wife enjoys it more than I do, but that’s largely because she’s part of the subset that gets noticeably motion sick if she’s not driving. It’s bearable for her in the passenger seat, but she’s likely to feel uncomfortable in the back seat.
On the other hand, I can sit and read a book happily in the front or back seat without any problems! So she does most of our paired driving.
I used to loathe and dread (so 1-2) long drives when I was a younger drive, because almost all of those were me driving alone, with lower speed limits, a crappier vehicle, and the very limited options for distractions, normally just a cassette deck and whatever radio I could find. And since several of those drives were 430 miles (to family in Texas) or 630 miles (to family in New Mexico) they were lots of empty ugly terrain with little radio and limited cassettes.
These days, much better between digital audiobooks, streaming music, and 20+ gigs of MP3s on my phone for easy access, but still, it’s a chore, though it’s also still that 630+ mile drive a few times a year (the family in Texas is still there, but after moving farther away that I almost never do the drive and just fly!).
Hotel amenities:
If I am paying (huge proviso) it must (!) have A/C, free parking, and decent wifi. I say decent, because for decades now hotels have provided wifi, but it sometimes didn’t cover all the rooms well, was prone to dropping, or had speeds that were unusable. Sure, I can use my own devices, but coverage in all areas isn’t a given, with some of the same issues above depending on your carrier. If someone else is paying, well then, the equation changes.
My last experience that didn’t have free parking was when I accompanied my wife to a conference in Telluride Colorado where she was presenting while working on her PhD. Her department ended up paying for the stay (and it was pricey, as were most things in Telluride), but parking and anything else was on her above the room. So we parked half a mile away in a residential area and walked to the hotel with our stuff. I believe this was 10ish years ago, but still about $20 a day IIRC.
(for those who don’t know, Telluride is one of those picturesque Colorado mountain towns popular for arty and/or rich folk, and absolutely one where the local labor can’t afford to actually live in town)
This, this 100% this. If I’m driving somewhere fun it’s a 5; work commute is probably a -2. Interstates are boring, soul-sucking roads & on all but the longest trips I will avoid them for some part of the trip to enjoy the twist-turny country backroads; especially in summer with the top down.
This weekend will make four of the past five weekends I’ve driven at least 350 miles, with two of them over 500 miles.
I’ve been using Chat GPT more and more lately as kind of a souped-up Google. If I’m curious about a subject that defies a quick and simple Google search, it usually does a good job of aggregating the available information and giving me a fairly comprehensive answer. One recent example was the history of border disputes between Michigan and Ohio. If it’s anything remotely important, though, I’m not going to trust what it tells me without verifying.
The only absolute deal-breaker when choosing a hotel would be air conditioning. But I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a hotel without it.
(Why is the wi-fi complimentary, but the breakfast complementary?)
When you log on to the wifi, it tells you that you’re looking very attractive today. But you still have to pay for it.
Even in winter?
I didn’t answer the hotel polls, because it’s so situation-dependent. There are things I’d care about in some circumstances but not in others, but nothing that I’d always need or even want.
Funny you should mention this. I’ve been at a hotel in New Jersey for the last 11 days. The first few nights featured overnight lows in the 20s.
Even though I set my thermostat at 68 for sleeping, it never got below 74 in my room. They had the heat cranked up in the hallways (and presumably the surrounding rooms). I was waking up bathed in sweat.
By the third night I wised up and switched over to AC, despite the outside temps. I’ve been sleeping in cool comfort ever since.
You couldn’t crack open a window?
I stayed at the airport hotel in the Aalborg airport in Denmark when my flight was cancelled. They offered me a choice of the airport hotel or a hotel in the town, a couple miles away.
It didn’t have AC because no one has AC in Denmark, and no one ever wanted it until a couple of years ago.
They also didn’t think to close the drapes during the day, and the room faced south. So the room was much too warm, even though it was a pleasant 19°C outside. I cranked the window open as far as it would go, and stood in the doorway opening and closing the door, to pump air through for a while. It was still too hot, but by bedtime i was able to sleep.
Even had i known, i would have chosen the room that was walking distance to the airport over any other. I would have made a different choice in other climates, i think.
Although rare, I have been in hotels where you cannot crack open a window.
I require a functioning climate control system within the room with both options for heat or air conditioning because it is not always simply related to the outside temperature.
IME it’s fairly common. I think it’s intended as a deterrent for people to sneak a smoke in their room.
I love driving, even on my torturous commute. I’m one of those who insists on driving a car with a manual transmission. Traffic sucks, but not as bad as the sheer boredom of driving an automatic.
Separate from being broken I don’t think I’ve ever stayed in a US hotel that didn’t have AC unit in the room.
The hotel I was in last week had two knobs. One was for the fan - A/C hi/low, fan on, Off, Heat - low/hi but the other was a turning knob with a red/blue background. Now if I had this in my home I’d see it often enough to know where on the dial is what temp but this was the stoopitest thermostat I’ve ever seen for a place I’ve never been before; where on that dial corresponds to, say 68°? I had no idea. I had to guess set it & then adjust it a couple of times to get it to a decent place, further on the ‘cold’ scale than I would have expected.
Meh on driving. I’m an anxious driver, and I find it stressful most of the time. But sometimes I can enjoy driving, if I know the route really well. I like a nice drive through the country. It’s been a long time since I’ve been anywhere near the country, though.
I love driving, long distances, short commutes, all of it. This past October we went on a driving tour of the American southwest (grand canyon, monument valley, Albuquerque balloon festival, more), over 2,700 miles in 12 days, I did all of it and enjoyed every second.
I had a Hornet! But it was an earlier model…I think. I can’t remember exactly when I switched from the Valiant to the Hornet.
I’m a SoCal native, so I’ve been driving forever. I’ve told people (and it’s true) I can feel my blood pressure lower when I get on the freeway. I almost feel like I’m on autopilot sometimes the driving seems so easy and relaxing. My commute for the last five or so years that I worked was 40 mi one way (it was 35 before that), so that was a good thing.
I also had a long distance relationship on and off for a number of years, and that was a 400 mi one way commute, so that was a lot of driving, too! Depends on if I was in a hurry or not, but I could fly up I5 and get to Marin in about five hours, but it was a boooooring drive. The scenic coastal route was prettier but a lot slower.
You can fit more than 100 otters in a Lockheed McDonnell 3-12
whether they’re allowed in the cockpit or not.
Even if they’re quite large.