<p>Christmas is coming and I can’t recommend Garmin type car navigation devices highly enough. Yes, they’re expensive $300-$600 but very useful. You can throw them in your luggage for out of town trips, and lend them to your friends and children before they leave town so they will quit calling you for directions!!!</p>
<p>It sounds like the OP and D are close, and on pretty much the same page, so it all worked out. Actually, I don’t think that the OP went “WAY” past checking-in or whatever - as long as the D was ok with it, then it doesn’t really matter - and I would have done exactly the same thing, and D would have been cool with it.</p>
<p>I’m gone 24 hours and my thread moves to page 2. Geez! How quickly they forget.</p>
<p>Anyway, the thread took a nice turn with the GPS discussion. My car at home has one factory installed, and I love it, love it, love it. When I went to pick up my rental car yesterday and they asked me if I wanted one, I said yes. I’m glad I got it (Garmin), but it doesn’t have nearly the features that my one at home does. If you know the address you’re going to, then it’s fine, but I tried to put in Mt Saint Helens Volcano National Monument, and it ‘thought’ for about 3 minutes before I finally canceled the search (thankfully I had the written directions with me). However, when I put in the address for my accomodation, it took me there perfectly from Mt. Saint Helens.</p>
<p>But yes, soozie, if someone knows I’m at home and have my computer available, then they’ve been known to call me and ask me to look up directions. We do carry maps in the car, but I can’t remember when was the last time I looked at one. Our county has so much new development going on that the maps are probably outdated now.</p>
<p>Enjoy your trip! Back in 1980, my husband and I drove cross country for six weeks. That was the year Mt. ST. Helens blew and so when we were driving out west in that region of the country, there was the ash all over everything, like snow. And I recall scooping some up and saving it.</p>
<p>Teri- Did you make it to Mt. St. Helens? When we moved up there, my D was 5, and she used to call it Mt. St. Heavens.</p>
<p>Have a great time, and enjoy every minute.</p>
<p>Speaking of Mapquest and GPS etc. - has anyone seen Street View, yet? It’s on Google Maps for some of the larger cities. It takes you right down to a 360 degree street level view. You can actally “drive” down the street and see everything down to the license numbers, people standing around, store fronts and the cat in someone’s window! It’s not in our city yet, but there was a news story recently that it’s coming soon. Some people think there ought to be an advance notice of when the camera crews are scheduled and some feel it’s a huge invasion of privacy, since people have been spotted doing everything from sunbathing to criminal acts! </p>
<p>Have a nice trip teriwtt!</p>
<p>anothermom - yes I did; although they had been forecasting 100 chance of rain by 6PM, when I arrived around 4:30, it was beautiful; I stayed for about an hour and a half, and when I hit I-5 on my way out, it started to sprinkle a little, go good timing. So, I’m trying to figure out, if you took your daughter when she was five, and it blew 27 years ago (oh… I feel so old now), she must have been around 7 or so? I imagine it would thoroughly impress someone of that age! I remember when my kids were around that age, and we visited Yellowstone - that’s when I first learned how nervous I can get about my kids’ safety!</p>
<p>We moved to washington state when she was 5…she didn’t see the eruption…but when she was in 5th grade she took a field trip there. But whenever we flew into Portland we had a great view of Mt St Heavens!</p>
<p>My niece in Portland got drenched the other day, in a hail storm. Hope you have not gotten too much of Oregon’s liquid sunshine.</p>
<p>Hope the rest of your trip is great. I am in the Bay Area for my Mom’s 89th birthday. We had a great chinese food lunch, and I am now heading home.</p>
<p>an update - I alluded in post #22 that my daughter had a trip planned over her fall break… Well, we survived that one, too.</p>
<p>She took a Greyhound bus from Allentown to Montreal to visit a high school friend who attends McGill. So about an hour after she’s supposed to leave, we’re at dinner with D1 who we’re visiting in Syracuse and someone asks how D2 is doing. I report her plans for the weekend, and the other parents are amazed that she’s so independent. D1’s study abroad roommate was there, and commented, “Well, she DID walk around London by herself when she was there, so this doesn’t surprise me.”</p>
<p>So I text D2 to make sure the bus got off OK, and she texts me back, saying the bus hadn’t arrived yet… evidently there was some horrible traffic tie-up in Philly, so they’re going to run late. When the bus finally arrives and she boards, she texts me saying she’ll let me know what happens when she gets to Port Authority, where she has a transfer, because she will now probably miss her transfer. So here I am at dinner, no access to a computer to start doing some research on her options, but I held it together and did not rush to leave.</p>
<p>When we returned to the hotel, I couldn’t find a phone number for Greyhound in NYC that anyone would answer. I was hoping to see if the bus delays have also affected Port Authority, and she might still make her 11PM transfer. So, I dig deeper on the Greyhound website and discover that the 11PM wasn’t the last bus out that night. I was looking at the date of 10/12, but when I switched to 10/13, it showed a bus leaving Port Authority at 12:01AM!</p>
<p>So I texted her back and told her to not assume she wouldn’t make a bus because there was one at 12:01, and she needed to haul butt to that transfer as soon as her bus arrived. Neither one of us still really knew what time the delayed bus was going to arrive at Port Authority, but the options were looking better.</p>
<p>At 12:09, she texts me to let me know she’s in line for the 12:01 bus. I am gratefully relieved. At 12:45AM, she texted me to let me know they had just pulled out, so although it was running 45 minutes late, she made a bus to Montreal, and did not end up sleeping on a bench in the bus station. She does have an ex-boyfriend who is at Fordham in Manhattan, and possibly could have called him for a place to stay for the night, but then by the time she would have gotten the 8:30AM bus, she would not have arrived in Montreal until that night, and basically a whole day there would have been gone. </p>
<p>She did say that when she arrived at her friends dorm, she went to sleep - that what she had done during the night was nap… said the bus driver was unbelievably annoying, making all kinds of announcements about duty-free purchases, etc. all during the night, so with that, and a couple of other stops, she did not sleep well on the bus. </p>
<p>She loved Montreal and sounds like they squeezed in quite a bit in three short days. She caught an 11:45PM bus out of Montreal Monday night and arrived back at her dorm just after lunch on Tuesday. </p>
<p>Something else we hadn’t considered… when we were at dinner Friday night and she texted us with the news of her not making a transfer, my husband asked, “Well, why then did she get on the bus? She should have waited until the next morning and left Allentown when she knew she could make her transfer in NYC.” We kind of realized, as he said that, that she had no choice. Her dorm closed at 6PM for the fall break, so she had no where to stay!</p>
<p>I think she’s learning a lot about travel and its inconsistency. The good news was that, for the first time in our family’s history, my husband and I had a successful, on-time, with checked luggage, round trip flights to Syracuse - a rarity for us.</p>
<p>I’m so glad that your D’s Fall break trip worked out, and you were kept informed along the way, which is good.</p>
<p>I think my mom only really began relaxing over this kind of thing after I studied abroad. I couldn’t call her all the time, and she knew that I would be wandering all over London every day. As long as I sent the occasional email, she was usually happy (or at least not freaking out). It certainly helped me grow up, as I had to figure out how to go everywhere, get train/plane/tube tickets, and book hotels. The experience was definitely valuable. I finally felt like an adult!</p>
<p>to: paying3tuititions with regard to your question: “Now I’m curious: Is this only a concern (nighttime travel alone in strange places) for parents of girls?”</p>
<p>I have both a son and daughter in college and worry is distributed equally between them. Gender does not come into play here at all. Keeping in touch is a good thing, and my children willingly accept keeping the communication going.</p>
<p>And don’t forget us locals who would be happy to put up a stranded college kid for a night. Pssst…I’m 15 minutes from your daughter, Terrwtt</p>
<p>I</p>
<p>kathiep - well, now that she’s made it through a series of travels from Allentown (her fall break trip, and her trip home for Thanksgiving), I’m feeling much more relaxed, and confident in her abilities to navigate the systems. Can’t remember if I told you her roommate’s family also is 15 minutes from campus, but they have cats, and daughter is VERY allergic to them, so they’re really not an option.</p>
<p>Thanks for keeping our backs covered, though :)</p>