127sale, episode 7. In which I share travel tips and birthday beignets.

Since our fleamarketing adventures back at the 127sale and because of the careful (persnickety) planning involved in organizing those adventures, I have officially earned my unofficial travel guru badge.  I am not a travel agent, but I play one online.  I have always considered myself a very organized person (my wife deemed me so freakishly and obsessively organized that she once videotaped my alphabetized and categorized collections to show her Psychology students).  

Doesn't everyone keep their

48 identical spice jars

(labels facing forward)

in alphabetical order?!

Back to the obsessive-compulsive business of travel...  Planning a trip for me begins with making a list. Once we decided to fly to Nashville and use that city as our HQ, we started a list of places we wanted to visit (Opry, Loveless Cafe, Louisville, Lynn's Paradise Cafe) and consulted a road atlas (always a permanent fixture in my car--one of the pragmatic habits I inherited from my dad) to help plan hotel stops along the 127sale route.  We also researched Louisville and looked at hot-to-us spots that we could visit on a Wednesday afternoon/evening since we wanted to start shopping the 127 on Thursday morning.  We had originally planned to drive back to the 127 on Sunday morning, but, as you know from the previous episode, we decided to spend the day in Franklin. We learned at our hotel before heading out Sunday morning that there was a sunset riverboat dinner cruise on Sunday evening, so we fit that nicely into our revised schedule.


That's the General Jackson up there and two of its giddy passengers to the right.

Visit generaljackson.com

for planning information.

We flew out of Nashville the next morning, on a Monday, bubble-wrapped treasures in tow--smaller treasures also "in toe" (in the toes of packed shoes that is).  That Tuesday was my wife's birthday and even though it's exciting to travel for your birthday, traveling doesn't always provide the best excitement.  That's when Lou-the-travel-guru steps in.

Planning this trip online was the first time I was able to take advantage of the multi-city itinerary option and plan a two-night layover in one of our favorite cities, New Orleans.  I want to put in a good word for the multi-city option when you are searching for flights.  Because we live in such a remote area of Texas that we must first fly to a hub (Houston or Dallas) before leaving the state, every trip is essentially a multi-city option. I usually start with Orbitz to gauge pricing and then go directly to the (lowest cost) airline's site for better booking options (I'm getting a little too old for those 5:15 AM flights out of McAllen, which are always the cheapest option).  Mari and I had previously been to New Orleans during the last leg of our 5000-mile honeymoon drive back in August, 1990 and I was craving beignets and chicory-laced coffee something bad.

Adding an extra stop to your itinerary, believe it or not, does not always increase the cost of travel. Of course, time of day, day of the week, and season all play a factor in costs and seat availability, but try it.  It won't add as much as a second round trip, that's for sure, and it's a golden opportunity to tick an unvisited city off your travel bucket list.  Mari had a lovely birthday weekend (in the middle of the week) and we both enjoyed her birthday morning powdered-sugar-covered visit to the Cafe du Monde.

We've since used multi-city to add an overnight stop in Kansas City on the way back from Chicago (dinner at Lydia's, lunch at Jack Stack's) and even an indulgently extra weekend in London (fleamarketing adventures on Portobello Road another time) on the way back home from a Mediterranean cruise.  If you're gonna be that far away from home anyway, make the journey last as long as possible.  

I have really enjoyed reliving our 127sale adventure these past few weeks and we have discussed a return visit some day--perhaps even the same route--because we enjoyed it so much.  I have not yet decided where to take us next on this blog, (there has already been a fleamarketing/thriftstore weekend on South Padre Island and reservations made for the 47th annual Spring Original Round Top Antiques Fair in April since I started this online adventure a few weeks ago) but there will be more fleamarketing with Lou (your unofficially official travel guru) next time.