Holiday travel not for timid
Traveling by air any time can be so stressful, and at the holidays it’s ratcheted up several notches.
Last Friday I thought I could dodge this week’s Thanksgiving holiday travel chaos to fly Salt Lake City for a few hours to join my sister Ronna and her family from Blackfoot who were gathering to welcome my niece Emily home from an 18-month mission in Bolivia. Just a little fly-in cameo at the SLC airport for hugs and reuniting and then hop on a flight back to Spokane as Ronna's family drove home to Blackfoot..
I’m able to do such things thanks to a daughter who’s a flight attendant and the parents-fly-free perk. Sounds great and is great but as I’ve traveled near and far for the past 16 years one must have a sense of adventure to fly non-rev standby. We fly space available, meaning there must be an available seat on our chosen flight.
Therein lies the challenge at certain times of year — Thanksgiving, Christmas, winter months when everyone is heading to sunshine, spring break and summer vacation when everyone’s heading everywhere once the kids are out of school making available seats scarce. In other words it’s not for the timid or the faint of heart or my husband who prefers to buy a ticket and know for sure that he’s getting on a flight at his preferred date and time or even better yet to travel by car.
So off I flew on Friday afternoon from Spokane, so far so good. But when the time came a few hours later for me to catch the 10 p.m. last flight of the day from Salt Lake to Spokane it got a little dicey. I paced in the boarding area watching the standby list. The plane began boarding before all the standby passengers were cleared. I watched the screen for available seats, comparing the list to the number of standbys still uncleared. There were five available seats remaining and five standbys on the list, including me at the No.5 spot.
The closest I’ll likely ever come to knowing what it feels like to win the lottery is hearing my name called for the very last seat on the very last (100 percent full) flight of the day to Spokane. Safe travels to everyone heading out for the holidays!
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Since 1995, founding member Walt McClain has had perfect attendance with the Post Falls Rotary Club. Prior to that time he was a Rotarian in Blythe, Calif., with perfect attendance. He’s homebound recuperating after suffering a stroke recently, with his perfect attendance in jeopardy. Fellow Rotarian Christi Fleishman paid Walt a visit at his home and set him up with Facetime. When Wednesday’s meeting came around there was Walt, wearing his Rotary shirt with his Paul Harris Fellow and Perfect Attendance pins beaming in to the meeting with all of his good friends. Here’s to a speedy recovery, Walt!
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Big doings in Coeur d’Alene this weekend with the Christmas parade and lighting on Friday night and the kick off of Kootenai Health’s Festival of Trees events. I’m looking forward to a lucky 13th year of emceeing my favorite Festival of Trees celebration with the North Idaho Eye Institute’s Festival Social on Saturday morning.
And you’ll want to be sure to see Ellen and Margaret Travolta, along with Jack Bannon in The Christmas Show opening on Friday at The Coeur d’Alene Resort through Dec. 18 and Traditions of Christmas show at the Kroc Center opening Dec. 9. It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas in our little corner of the world!
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Why shop local? Local businesses pay local taxes, provide paychecks, donate and contribute to organizations and events throughout the year. If not for local businesses, who would be donating to the auctions, raffles, scholarships, grad night parties, senior centers, charitable causes, youth sports sponsorships, etc.? This Christmas season let your gift giving pay it forward in our communities — SHOP LOCAL!
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“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.” John F. Kennedy
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Happy birthday today to David Eachon, his daughter Dana Ortega (40!), Chris Beck, Dennis Hall, Dee Dee Morris, Rocky Carneiro, Julia Hopkins, Ronda Mitchell, Stephanie Morrison, Tim Williams and Carol Daniels.
Sharing a Thanksgiving birthday this year are Mike Jarrett, Jeff Morrison, Lisa Black, Jesse Gunderson, Debbie Magnuson, Mike Lindquist and Eric Knudtsen.
On Nov. 25 John Cocoran, Sue Thilo, Sue Servick, Kelly Westover, Buck Wilhelm, Mike Reagan and Babette Banducci can find some great Black Friday birthday sales.
Tom Torgerson (50!), Marilyn Fisher, Danell Phelps (30!) and Sandy Osburn celebrate on Saturday.
On Sunday Sue Hutter, Ian Martin and Bob Eachon take another trip around the sun.
Nov. 28 birthdays belong to Katie King, Cody and Tristan Webb, Breanna Joyner and Judy Dahl.
Happy birthday on Tuesday to Gary Ingram and Jodine Spry.
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Kerri Rankin Thoreson is a member of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists and the former publisher of the Post Falls Tribune. Main Street appears every Wednesday in The Press and Kerri can be contacted on Facebook or via email mainstreet@cdapress.com. Follow her on Twitter @kerrithoreson.