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Raw Bytes Computer News KPBX FM 91.1 Radio National Public Radio Network Frank Delaney Producer Broadcast on Wednesday Morning 7:35 AM During Morning Edition Support Public Radio ! The Theater Of the Mind |
In computer news this week 07/29/2009 Using the web to Plan your vacation .... Maybe 20
Years ago when I wanted to plan a vacation I’d either go to the library
or to my local AAA office to get travel brochures and maps and check out places
I was interested in visiting. I’m
still an AAA member, but today I do it all from my computer, and there is so
much information online now related to travel that you can virtually have a
virtual vacation and get tired out, without going anywhere. Probably
the biggest expense people have on vacation is the motels they stay in, so
I’ve been using an online service, www.hotels.com to help check out rates and reviews of
the motels. You’re supposed to get discounted rates by doing this, and
you can also read reviews of other travelers about the places you may be
staying. AAA, hotwire, and many other sites offer the same services. I’ve
used www.hotels.com for a couple years,
and I had a bad experience with a motel in Walla Wall once that www.hotels.com
really went out of their way to help me with, instantly getting me another
room at another motel, and issuing me free credits for future rooms. Another tool
I use is a website that shows you the approximate distance between cities,
which is CityDistanceTool. You type in your starting and
ending point, and it shows you the distance as the crow flies
which is relatively close to the highway distance.
Another
website I’ve used for years – not so much related to vacation
travel but to airlines – is http://www.flightarrivals.com I’ve mainly used this for
flights arriving in Spokane, and you can see pretty much exactly when a
flight is going to arrive here, and then jump in your car and head to the
airport. I have saved a lot of times waiting at airports with this website.
This year
I wanted to go to Montana and spend time around Missoula and Kalispell.
Friends gave me their tips on what to see, and then I started searching the
web. All cities and chambers of commerce now have extensive online
information; pictures, movies, maps, information you can print out, just
about everything you’d need. You just have to figure out which of these
places – all of which look good – you’d like to vacation
at. I’ve
always been fascinated with Mountain Men, and at historic Fort Missoula I was
able to buy several books on them, including one on the famous Liver Eating
Johnson that the movie Jeremiah Johnson was partly based on, one on John Colter, and the journals of Lewis and Clark. But my
biggest surprise at Fort Missoula was to learn that the Buffalo soldiers,
Black soldiers in the army there in the late 1800’s, were used in a
program to test the viability of the cavalry using bicycles – instead
of horses – with some of the supposed benefits being that you
didn’t have to feed a bicycle, and that it wouldn’t neigh or
stomp its hooves while you were trying to hide from hostile Indians. This
program didn’t work out, and I felt very sorry for the soldiers riding
bicycles in the Montana heat when there were no roads for them. I found
several other vacations places by searching the web, and checked out many of
them, including the great Montana
fur trading company just North of Kalispell where you can actually buy
beaver pelts or a buffalo hat. Excuse me PETA but I’m on vacation. |
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For Raw Bytes This is Frank Delaney (C) 2009 MTA Micro
Technology Associates http://www.mtamicro.com/kpbx.html PO Box 31522 Spokane, Wa 99223-1522 (509)624-7230 |
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