Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Being from the west coast, I'm used to living a maximum of twelve hours away from family by car. Now living on the east coast, I am in complete and utter shock at the cost it will be for my family (of 3) to get back to the west coast for a visit.

I've been pre-planning a potential trip to my Mom's for Christmas 2006 (yes, I know, way early right?) well...I found out to fly there is going to cost three of us over four thousand dollars! WTF?

My Mom wanted to take the train across Canada and come to visit this summer. The train used to be affordable, right? Not so much anymore - one way for one person is nearly six thousand dollars! That's insane!

The car is just out of the question really - who wants to drive that far? Most of the vacation time will be spent travelling to get to where you wanna go and the travelling to get back home. That's not much fun. Sure you can sightsee along the way, but unless you have a few weeks to do it properly, is it worth it? Not really. And with the cost of gas the way it usually goes near summer, it would probably be just as much as it would to fly. Well, maybe not quite.

So...I'm going to start saving. Hopefully stockpile some airmiles too. I don't know if we'll be able to swing Christmas. I think it would be fun to save up and meet everyone in Disneyworld or Disneyland for Christmas one year. Did that when I was in grade 7 and it was so much fun. Our daughter will be five in 2007...might be a good idea, right?