Some of you already know of my desire for my wife Karen and I to enjoy a USA road trip visiting many of the towns along the old Route 66, if not actually following the Route exactly, as well US towns mentioned in song titles. I first wrote of this almost a year ago in this post.
Do you know any musicians?
Originally I had hoped to take this trip last September/October, after the 6 month anniversary of Karen's double lung transplant. Unfortunately her extended, and slow, recovery meant that this date had to be pushed back first to 12 months post transplant and then later 18 months.
Some of the reason for this was financial. While Karen's surgery was paid for under the New Zealand health system (a typical lung transplant costs $NZ 450,000, Karen's transplant costs we stopped estimating at the $NZ 1,750,000 mark), my ongoing costs were much more than anticipated eating up our savings, our credit card limits and finally a couple of refinanced personal loans.
In two weeks time Karen turns 65 and qualifies for New Zealand National Superanuation, a pension paid by the government for the remainder of the persons life. Karen has not had any income since her health deteriorated over 3 years ago and National Superannuation is currently just over $NZ600 a fortnight. As she has owned the house we live in since 1979 and the current mortgage is sitting at just under $NZ 3,000 it was an easy decision to make to raise the costs of our trip by getting a mortgage increase and paying it off over the next few years while I remain working.
Since Christmas I have been refining our itinerary and researched activities and attractions that interest us both.
This last week I have been laid up with a severe head cold/chest infection and have been researching accommodation online via Trip Advisor and Trivago web sites. But I did not make any actual bookings deciding to leave these until we confirm the bank loan around the time of Karen's birthday.
Yesterday (Sunday for me) I decided to check out the costs of flight to see if they had increased since the last time I looked. What I found was that our national airline, Air New Zealand, was holding a special sale on flights in and out of Houston airport until midnight tonight with approximately a 40-45% fare reduction.
Now my reaction was that it was a pity this sale was not scheduled for this time next month, and I resigned myself to having to pay full fare in a few weeks time.
This morning I returned to work after my illness and while eating lunch at a roadside rest stop in my patrol car I had a wild idea. I wondered if it was possible to book a flight through a travel agency and pay for it in another 3 - 4 weeks. I doubted that it was doable but decided to head homeward half an hour early and call in at a travel agent in the main provincial city near us to ask the "stupid question".
I tried telephoning my brother who is currently on a weeks' annual leave to find out which travel agency he had booked his European holiday with last year, as he had told me he had gotten a great deal. Unfortunately he was not answering his phone but purely by chance not only did I walk into the same agency he had used but I also spoke to the same sales agent.
When she checked airfares she found out that the deal travel period actually started the day after we intended to travel, but by moving our itinerary out a day we could save over $NZ2,000 on the airfares, a more than 40% discount.
Initially she told me that they had to pay for the tickets at time of booking, but after establishing that my brother had also been her customer she offered to book me the tickets provided I paid a $NZ600 deposit, which equals the cancellation fee of the tickets, with the balance due at the end of the month.
Deciding to risk $600 to save $2,000 I said "yes", without hesitation. And before I left I enquired about a rental car and was told that for our entire stay she could arrange a rental car for $NZ 1,800, almost another $2,000 less than I had envisaged.
So we depart Auckland late afternoon on Tuesday October 9th arriving in Houston just after midday that same day. Between then and departing Houston again on on Wednesday 14th November we will visit Houston, Waco/Austin, San Antonio, El Paso, Tombstone, Tucson, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Flagstaff, Albuquerque, Amarillo, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Kansas City, St Louis, Memphis, Nashville, Chattanooga and New Orleans, plus no doubt a plethora of smaller towns along the way, before returning to Houston November 13th.
And what makes this especially sweet for us is that tomorrow is the first anniversary of Karen's transplant and what ended up being the most stressful 3 months of my life as I waited to learn if she would survive the surgery.
Like the wise man once said, the only stupid question is the one you don't ask.
Do you know any musicians?
Originally I had hoped to take this trip last September/October, after the 6 month anniversary of Karen's double lung transplant. Unfortunately her extended, and slow, recovery meant that this date had to be pushed back first to 12 months post transplant and then later 18 months.
Some of the reason for this was financial. While Karen's surgery was paid for under the New Zealand health system (a typical lung transplant costs $NZ 450,000, Karen's transplant costs we stopped estimating at the $NZ 1,750,000 mark), my ongoing costs were much more than anticipated eating up our savings, our credit card limits and finally a couple of refinanced personal loans.
In two weeks time Karen turns 65 and qualifies for New Zealand National Superanuation, a pension paid by the government for the remainder of the persons life. Karen has not had any income since her health deteriorated over 3 years ago and National Superannuation is currently just over $NZ600 a fortnight. As she has owned the house we live in since 1979 and the current mortgage is sitting at just under $NZ 3,000 it was an easy decision to make to raise the costs of our trip by getting a mortgage increase and paying it off over the next few years while I remain working.
Since Christmas I have been refining our itinerary and researched activities and attractions that interest us both.
This last week I have been laid up with a severe head cold/chest infection and have been researching accommodation online via Trip Advisor and Trivago web sites. But I did not make any actual bookings deciding to leave these until we confirm the bank loan around the time of Karen's birthday.
Yesterday (Sunday for me) I decided to check out the costs of flight to see if they had increased since the last time I looked. What I found was that our national airline, Air New Zealand, was holding a special sale on flights in and out of Houston airport until midnight tonight with approximately a 40-45% fare reduction.
Now my reaction was that it was a pity this sale was not scheduled for this time next month, and I resigned myself to having to pay full fare in a few weeks time.
This morning I returned to work after my illness and while eating lunch at a roadside rest stop in my patrol car I had a wild idea. I wondered if it was possible to book a flight through a travel agency and pay for it in another 3 - 4 weeks. I doubted that it was doable but decided to head homeward half an hour early and call in at a travel agent in the main provincial city near us to ask the "stupid question".
I tried telephoning my brother who is currently on a weeks' annual leave to find out which travel agency he had booked his European holiday with last year, as he had told me he had gotten a great deal. Unfortunately he was not answering his phone but purely by chance not only did I walk into the same agency he had used but I also spoke to the same sales agent.
When she checked airfares she found out that the deal travel period actually started the day after we intended to travel, but by moving our itinerary out a day we could save over $NZ2,000 on the airfares, a more than 40% discount.
Initially she told me that they had to pay for the tickets at time of booking, but after establishing that my brother had also been her customer she offered to book me the tickets provided I paid a $NZ600 deposit, which equals the cancellation fee of the tickets, with the balance due at the end of the month.
Deciding to risk $600 to save $2,000 I said "yes", without hesitation. And before I left I enquired about a rental car and was told that for our entire stay she could arrange a rental car for $NZ 1,800, almost another $2,000 less than I had envisaged.
So we depart Auckland late afternoon on Tuesday October 9th arriving in Houston just after midday that same day. Between then and departing Houston again on on Wednesday 14th November we will visit Houston, Waco/Austin, San Antonio, El Paso, Tombstone, Tucson, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Flagstaff, Albuquerque, Amarillo, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Kansas City, St Louis, Memphis, Nashville, Chattanooga and New Orleans, plus no doubt a plethora of smaller towns along the way, before returning to Houston November 13th.
And what makes this especially sweet for us is that tomorrow is the first anniversary of Karen's transplant and what ended up being the most stressful 3 months of my life as I waited to learn if she would survive the surgery.
Like the wise man once said, the only stupid question is the one you don't ask.
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