Trip Report: Kentucky, Florida, D.C., Chicago (Oct. 2008)

THE MISSION: Share the drive from Wisconsin to Florida so my daughter could participate in a run and log some hours working for Disney to sustain her seasonal cast member status and put her nearer to New Orleans where she was planning to spend the coming winter as she did last year.

THE COMMON THREAD: If we should have turned left, we turned right; when it rained, we drove straight into it; despite being a proofreader, I messed up a phone number we needed; although Mandy was familiar with old stomping grounds, we attempted to enter the wrong apartment where we were to stay. I can count a blunder on every finger and thumb I came home with--fortunately, that still totals 10, but a broken blood vessel in my hand (tripped on a sidewalk in D.C.) reminds me our missteps were not imaginary. Oh, and I had a lot of bad-hair days ...


PARFUMERIE (Thursday): Lovely, lovely shop. Darling shop girl Rosalee (her youthful look belies her age) taught me that Weil is pronounced "while" and let me sample Antilope and Venus. I can't give a fair account of the scents since I had just a passing experience, and there were a lot of attractive visual distractions. Parfumerie's claim is they can track down any perfume for you. I didn't meet the owner of 25 years, Ruth, but Rose gave me a sample of Ruth's composition, My Racing Heart, a green fragrance created for the Louisville Thoroughbred Club (Kentucky's bluegrass has been grazed by some of the better race horses). I'll give a review of MRH at a later time. In addition to frags, the shop deals in antique jewelry and objets d'art. I'm grateful I was able to take photos because I didn't have much time to study all the details when I breezed through.


After a wide swing through Nashville (you folks who know your U.S. geography will be sobbing with laughter over how far off course that put us), we eventually made our way to to Orlando. On Saturday we took it easy as Mandy readied herself for Disney's nighttime Halloween 13k run. On Sunday we played mini golf and took in Magic Kingdom attractions. Come Monday, I was champing at the bit to take pix at EPCOT with my new digital camera. I wasn't too concerned about sampling perfumes--would rather do that at home. What was special was being able to shoot pix without limitations (try doing that at any other Guerlain outlet). So here are some of the scenes I brought home to "decant" for you, my friends.


Tuesday put us on the road for New Smyrna Beach and Luscious Cargo (BELOW). Mandy had visited LC a couple years ago, so we knew to anticipate an inconspicuous-looking house. We had the address right, but the vibe wasn't. A couple newspapers in their plastic sleeves littered the sidewalk. Nothing was visible on the porch. I rang and knocked, but no one was around, so I tried calling their phone number (except I'd transposed two numbers when I'd typed it for our trip itinerary) and got a no-longer-in-service message. I visited a florist shop visible from LC's 206 Downing location, and its operator had never heard of LC. It just felt like another "one of those things" that was happening to us.


Since we were just a couple miles from the Atlantic Ocean, which I've never smelled, we stopped at a beach just long enough to say I'd touched the water and then backtracked to get me to DeLand's quaint depot where I waited for the Silver Meteor train.

At least trains don't get lost.


An eight-hour layover in D.C. the next day afforded lots of walking and photography. Eventually I'll crop this pic of the statuary (ABOVE) outside of Union Station to use as an avatar. She seems to be saying, "Spray me right here." After getting sandblasted by the winds buffeting D.C., I retreated to the station, where I enjoyed perusing the well-stocked Douglas Perfumery and studied all the scents at The Body Shop before buying the Patchouli I've been meaning to get--my memento for the trip.


My connecting train, the Capitol Limited, provided its own merry combination of pluses and minuses. Pluses included a new diner car (ABOVE). Minuses? My sleeper car had some gross friction problem (right under my roomette, of course), the noise from which caused everyone in the car to complain.

Thursday: Arrive Chicago! I kinda knew where I was much of the time as I walked to and from State Street (okay, walked about 11 blocks getting there and seven blocks back). Filene's Basement and T.J. Maxx proposed nothing desirable, but up the block was Macy's. I checked out Lush's Go Green per Pia's suggestion (it's just a hair more citrusy than I hoped, but real nice), interrogated the Carol's Daughter representative about the limited distribution of Lemon Blossom and Sotto (they may nor may not be rereleased next year) and sampled Pearl (meh, too fruity for me). Then I smelled the motherlode of sub-niche lines available from the Merz Apothecary wing (BELOW). Fun, fun, fun. I don't have time to tip-tap type out all my thoughts right now. So I'll close and get back to laundry, mail, email, and clients.


Oh, yeah ... here's the punchline to this "joke" of a vacation. The daughter has changed her mind about wintering down South and is going to drive back to Wisconsin this weekend. WTF? I'm trying not to say, "So we went through all this for nothing?!? After all the time, effort, expense and inconvenience, she could have spared us--why? why? why? She could have just flown down to do her Disney things. Now she's going to try to get her job back up here. Oh, well, parenthood. Whatcha gonna do?

Hey there, moongrrl. I share the love. And what was amazing is that nobody at Merz bothered me, so I felt free to sniff what must have been more than 50 products. The SAs were clearly available, but didn't hover. And Susie (manager?) was so receptive to another customer's request to stock sweetgrass oil.

Kumquat, I can't even remember what Mayotte smelled like. I have some Angelique Noire (think green Jicky, minus some refinement). Vega and Liu bear that old-world Guerlain good-funk. The Disney stores are even less accessible (by phone or web) than the most exclusive boutiques, so I recommend getting samples from The Perfumed Court--or just camping out at Disney where Geir Ness (Norway) and Shiseido (Japan) frags can also be sampled (BELOW). And, no, Mike dear, I didn't buy the Liu, just applied it as my SotD--but it was hard to appreciate while walking through the ethnic food clouds.


Mike, I didn't notice whether they had HR parfum or the CE "syrup bottle." Frankly, it was kinda dizzying standing amidst all the Guerlains. Thanks for the link about (and propagation of) the word colognoisseur. I noticed a couple comments while glancing around here today (love the Colognossaurus Rex), but I have to force myself to stay away from BN until I get my client's work done (argh!). I've got so much I want to read.


Thanks for all your words, Nukapai, Jillsy, Socal (and congrats on your BN job). Shades, your lovelies were waiting for me when I got home (I ate the chocolate today already ), thank you so, so much. Lilybelle, there's a lot of good to be said for train travel. Here's a snap from my private roomette. I got one-third the way through Burr's The Perfect Scent. Some months ago I applied for the Amtrak Guest Rewards charge card, so I had enough points to pay for almost the entire cost of first-class travel through two zones.

You wanna Shalimar factice, L? I'll give you a factice ...

After literally exhausting the boutique's supply of paper strips spraying and sniffing , I just felt in the mood for Liu, what can I say? This is the only Guerlain shop where they expect nothing but weirdo tourists, so I felt at ease pigging out on sampling while wearing a Mickey Mouse t-shirt and hat-flattened hair.

I'm still kicking myself that I stood at LC's front door and then called the wrong number (of course, then the odds that I called a wrong number that was also disconnected are probably astronomical, too). I'm sure that you have to make an appointment to find someone on premise, but given all the trouble some people have had in getting their LC orders (according to posts here and at POL), I don't feel any need to even think about this outfit again. There are more reliable sources I'd rather patronize.

Seattle, I'm with you, preferring a northern clime. Good news is, I get my personal chef back as Mandy pays the rent by doing all the shopping and cooking.

Musse, that's a really tough question. It'll sound odd, but I totally rocked at the new Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin. Mandy, who's soooo reserved and subdued, broke character when she saw my final score--"You got as many points as the next three people put together!!!" (Apparently I can navigate the galaxy better than I can the Interstate highway system.)

Aiona, taking pix for you guys played a big part in my having fun. Hey, tdi, you wanna share in the purchase of a GPS unit? Wow, VM, you bought a t-shirt from the U.K.? I didn't even know that was possible. Thanks. Now I can buy almost a gallon of gas from the proceeds.

Thanks, tdem, it's good to be home/home and home with Basenotes.

Anamari, would you believe the daughter drove herself home from Florida on Saturday--all in one day! That's something like 17 hours! But we have good kids, you and I, so things will work out somehow.

Oh, yeah--the trip curse continues: Today I discovered that the 2GB camera memory card I took on the trip with me has been SOAKING IN WATER FOR 3 DAYS. It was taped to the underside of the lid of a plastic container I used to "protect" my extra batteries, battery charger and earbuds. I forgot it was attached and threw it in the sink.

And when I finally got off the train in Wisconsin, I almost said out loud: I love that dairy air! Honest. We be cheeseheads,

So glad I've got all of you laughing, my dears. Bluesoul, I wished I'd stopped at your place, you could have given us directions to Chattanooga. Yes, Chantilly, I've got to branch out in the use of my camera's capabilities.

Here's someone else's vid from the Silver Meteor train between Florida and D.C. Not only is the train's appearance just like that I experienced, but the woman's voice starts out sounding just like mine. My whole family was creeped out and thought I was speaking. Her voice then evolves into a different pitch, but it's just freaky how her timber and timing paralleled mine for a time.