How Low Can You Go?

November 19, 2013

At some stage in plotting out our Southern Tier itinerary we asked ourselves the basic question: "Are we looking to 'do the Southern Tier', or are we looking for somewhere South (and hopefully snow free)to cycle in." We had already decided to start in the East and head West, which would make for a warmer overall trip. But this new question came up because of Key West, Florida. Key West is not on the Southern Tier, which begins at St. Augustine. It is not even on the Florida Connector, which begins at Fort Meyers. Instead, Key West is about as South as you can go in the continental United States. So to rephrase our question, "How Low Should We Go?"

Just because Key West is so out there, at the end of the Florida Keys, it makes an interesting spot to be in. To boot, Jeff Arnim - one of our favourite Crazyguy bloggers - started his diagonal crossing of America there. The only thing, it is about 800 km from Key West to St. Augustine. 800 km is coincidentally about the distance from Tucson to San Diego. So given that we have limited time to do this trip (we need to beetle over to Montreal in April to see who will be our newly arrived grandchild!), starting in Key West could result in ending in Tucson.

What did we decide? Key West!

Having decided on Key West, we then had to move on to the logical consequence. How to get there. It would seem simple. Obviously we have to fly. But nowadays, "fly" is not such a simple proposition. The various airlines, as we all know, have gone overboard playing with fares and fees and schedules. You can wade through the airline websites and/or you can wade through the Pricelines, Expedias, Kayaks, and many others that claim to survey all available routings, but that never come up with the same answers.

We already know that we can not fly from home (Victoria, BC) without mortgaging the farm. So we will fly from Seattle, where our daughter Laurie now lives. So fine, what is the issue then? Hah. Let me get out my list.

Should we fly in the morning and arrive at night, or fly at night and arrive in the morning?

Should we insist on a 7-8 hour total flight, or consider some of the itineraries the computers dream up, some taking 15 hours, but that could possibly be cheaper?

Given the differing policies and fees about bikes, which airline should be chosen, all other things being equal (which they are not).

Should we try to use our hard cases for the Bike Fridays, just roll them into plastic bags or bike boxes, home make hard case sized cardboard boxes that will duck under the airlines' size restrictions?

A lot of this angst does revolve around the bikes. The US airlines have bike fees that range from steep to outright robbery. Here are a few: United $100, US Air $200, American $150, Delta $150, Southwestern $75, Jet Blue $50, Alaska $75, Frontier - never could figure it out.

These prices are for bikes in boxes. So that's why we have Bike Fridays, right? Wrong. If you fold your BF and put it in its hard case they still see you coming and charge $35, anyway, for a second checked bag. Then at the destination, what do you do with the case? You could ship it home through something like shipbike.com for about $50. So that's $35+$50=$85. Might as well fly Southwestern and use a bike box, right?

Wrong. Southwestern flies to St Augustine (Jacksonville) and Fort Meyers, but not Key West.

Once you land at the destination, particularly if it's at night, it would be nice to hop over to a motel to assemble the bikes and bags and get set for a fresh morning start. Not in Key West, apparently. Not unless you have about $200 for the motel.

If you are getting tired being asked to think about all these "gotchas", that's how we feel/felt too. So what's the plan?

Pay Delta their $150 blood money per bike (box), fly at night to allow daylight at the other end to get organized in, pay extra for a more direct flight with fewer stops, contact one of the two warm showers hosts in Key West for a place to crash.

Getting ourselves (with bikes) to Key West will cost about $1000. Assuming we can find any Campingaz for our stove out there, we can see a lot of cheap noodles in our future!

Dodie takes a break from figuring out how to get there by figuring out what to bring. Shifting from colder to warmer trip options has down jackets and fluffy sleeping bags and sandals flying in to or out of the panniers. The blurry focus is a fitting representation of how our thinking is doing.

Staple items like oatmeal, raisins, coffee, and hot chocolate can stack up quite high and weigh quite a lot. We decided to not take this stuff, but to bring along the containers and buy what we need once we arrive at the start of the tour. Note in this shot photos of Avi and Violet looking on bemusedly from the wall behind.

p.s. "How Low Can You Go" not only refers to airfares, and Going South, but was the question famously asked by Chubby Checker in his 1962 song "Limbo Rock".

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