Things You Only Learn While Traveling

It's true that every trip you go on is an entirely new adventure and with that comes great advice to be remembered for the next time.

- People are nicer out west. More laid back. Definitely more nice. Something's in the drinking water and that should promptly get fixed.
- Being nice to service people actually pays off. The nicer you are the more freebies and upgrades you get at no cost. (Exception? Circumstance. Like bat pee)
- A hotel bed is never as good as the bed you sleep in at home whether you sleep on a futon, ratty couch or those memory foam beds.
- The GPS is never always right or always wrong. It'll get you there correctly about 90% of the time. The other 10% is its way of trying to figure out what dumbass move you made or why you decided to go in the middle of a national forest with extremely windy roads for "fun."

Always have some sort of schedule and leave room to take the road less traveled. Well. Give yourself time to get lost because honestly the GPS is not God and sometimes you need to stop at a place that says Confusion Hill a place that defies gravity, a remote cherry stand or take a big picture of Snoopy because no other place has a huge statute of Snoopy on a sidewalk corner.

You can put anything in a crepe. I mean anything. I've had ice cream in a crepe as well as a breakfast sandwich served crepe style, proving that some items can be great for savory and sweet. Unlike the waffle cone. Put scrambled eggs and tomato in a waffle cone and tell me how that tastes.

It's a good idea to write down the names of places that had memorable things to make proper recommendations. For example, having experienced the best slice of blackberry pie known to mankind, I will forever have to say, it's at that place. In this tiny city. Ferndale. Cute cafe, outdoor garden/table area. As small as it is, like there isn't a few of those cafes there already.

And sometimes it's just nice knowing that the trip you took was so on point with other interested travelers. Barely a month after I had returned home, I saw a travel article in the New York Times documenting the places they visited in Northern Cali and places that were worth skipping. It's safe to say, I was right on.

Happy Travels.