(31-05-2014, 12:10 PM)Samantha Rogers Wrote: Our numbers for SCC have doubled, girls and we now have a contingent of six of us planning to attend. We have members journeying to Atlanta from all over with the most distant joining us from Europe. It is not too late for you to join us too! C'mon, girls....do you really want to be sitting at home seeing pictures and reading reports of all the fun we six are going to be having when you could be there with us having all that fun yourself? Frankly, with the crew we have attending so far, I expect massive mayhem and a monumental riot. I am advising everyone to bring bail money...lol.
If you cannot attend, rest assured we will be proving a regular stream of naughty pics and steamy accounts just to torture you for failing to join us...tee hee.
For those that would love to join the mayhem, but have problems with the cost, distance to travel or time off work, here are a few thoughts. Firstly, sharing hotel rooms is a possibility. On several of my more adventurous trips to the more remote and often decrepit railways of the world, in which my wife did not wish to join me, I have taken 'pot luck' in sharing hotel rooms with whoever the tour organizer has designated, and on the whole it has turned out well (particularly the tour on which my designated companion failed to show!). On an adventure, such as SCC will be for most of us, a room mate has for me turned out to have more advantages than disadvantages, and I would certainly be prepared to share my room for a contribution towards cost. It also allows deferring a decision whether to come without the risk of not being able to get a room at the hotel.
As to travel, the Tuesday and the Sunday will be travel days anyway. A substantial part of the population of the US and Canada lives within a thousand miles of Atlanta, which in my experience is a quite practical if lengthy days drive for two people coming from the same direction so that they can car pool and share the driving for most of the distance. For myself, with 1500 miles to come, I am using frequent flier points: while my wife is to say the least ambivalent about my attending, she would, cost apart, certainly put her foot down if I proposed to drive the entire distance solo.
Time off work is the short week after Labor Day, but I appreciate that is a problem for some. For myself I used to find that I never used my full vacation entitlement. If I had, then I might not have run into the health problems that forced my early retirement and decreased my retirement income. So if you have the vacation entitlement, why not use it for this big adventure?