Category Archives: Travel

Road Trip #2: Gold Country

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At Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park

The second road trip in the Taycan is a little more adventurous since the round trip distance exceeds the vehicle’s range. This is the first time we will be required to charge in order to get home.

This was originally going to be our first road trip, replicating the first long trip I made in the first car I bought in the US, back in 1998 the I first arrived here. We moved it to the second for scheduling reasons.

The trip started with the battery at 100%, thanks to our JuiceBox at home, and an estimated range of about 240 miles. The direct route to the park would have been about 130 miles, but we had a stopover in Davis, CA which added a few extra miles to the trip.

The majority of the route was straight freeway driving, but when we turned onto CA-49 for the final few miles into Coloma, CA, the road narrowed and became windy, giving us a chance to see what the Taycan could really do (it is an incredibly impressive machine, and an absolute blast to drive).

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Road Trip #1: Bodega Bay

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Taycan in the parking lot at Bodega Bay Inn / Roadhouse Coffee

The first road trip in the new Taycan was meant to be up to Gold Country (similar to the first longer road trip I took in the first car I bought here in the US). We had to make a small change in the plans though as we were also planning a visit as part of the trip, and that person was unavailable this weekend. So, as a replacement, we went to Bodega Bay, on the Pacific coast here in California.

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Uber’s Response

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[This is a follow up to my earlier post about this issue.]

Over the weekend, Uber’s escalations team replied to the ongoing email thread, though the reply was basically the same as all their others. At least this one did not try to say that it was because I had explicitly opted not to use the credit, but their position is still “tough luck – we changed it, didn’t tell you and we don’t care.” Not a great bit of customer service.

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Uber’s Amex Credits Scam

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One of the benefits that comes with my American Express card is a monthly $15 Uber credit. I don’t use it often, but on our recent trip to Florida, the timing worked perfectly for us to make use of it for both our trip to the airport at the very end of September and on the return about 10 days later in early October.

It appears that during our trip Uber made a change to the way this scheme works (although at least some of their support people seem unaware of that).

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EasyJet vs Eurostar

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As part of our recent trip to the UK we took a three day excursion to Paris to let the kids experience something a little different, and see a new country. It is also a city I love having spent a year living there back in the 1990s.

For various reasons, it worked out simpler for us to fly into Paris from Gatwick on Easyjet, but on the return we had a choice of flying back or taking the high speed Eurostar train. Given that the kids have not experienced high speed rail before, I opted for the train. The timing was also a little better for the kids, getting them home before their normal bedtime, even with the train ride from St Pancras across London and down to East Grinstead, the nearest train station to where we were staying.

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Virgin Economy Delight

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Our recent (extended-)family trip to Europe meant booking a group of eight people, including two small kids, for flights from San Francisco to London. Virgin Atlantic has recently split their economy class into three tiers: Light, Classic and Delight. Since eight Premium seats was not an option, we thought we’d try the Economy Delight, and using miles to pay for part of it made it basically the same price as Classic.

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Review: Virgin America

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I am writing this from my seat in the main cabin on Virgin America’s VX321 from Fort Lauderdale to Los Angeles. The first leg of my journey home. I have seen mixed opinions of Virgin America, but my previous flight with them, shortly after they launched, was pleasant enough that I booked this business trip with them flying SFO – LAX – FLL (on a red eye), and the same route back.

Booking 

I booked the flight on their website directly, and the process was simple, and the options for different cabins or other upgrades were clear. The one thing I would have liked would be a more detailed receipt breaking out the upgrades from the base price, though I suspect there as many, perhaps more, people who appreciate them being hidden for when they submit their expenses.

Check In

At the appropriate time an email arrived in my inbox with an invitation to check in. Tapping the button in the email took me straight to the online checkin page with all my details completed. Since I was flying with just one carry on bag, I chose the no bags express checkin option, and that was that. The next page had two buttons, one for each segment of my flight, to load my boarding passes into Passbook on my iPhone.

At The Airport

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Traveling Light

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As I write this the view out of the window next to me looks similar to the photo on the right (snapped with my iPad camera moments ago) and I am writing this on my iPad seated in 3A at the front of the main cabin of an Airbus en route to Los Angeles from Fort Lauderdale.

Unusually though, even though this was a business trip, I do not have a laptop with me. Normally I would have my trusty 13″ MBP in my bag, but this was a quick trip (I was in Florida for a little over 24 hours), and I did not need to present anything at either of the conference sessions I was speaking at (both were panel sessions).

Instead, I brought just my iPad, my TwelveSouth Compass stand, and a Bluetooth keyboard in case I needed something more than the on screen one.

So how did it work?

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