To Check or Not to Check

We flew to Dallas last month for a wedding, and I noticed the most curious airline practice. The airline is, mercifully, one that didn’t charge the accursed per-checked-bag fee, which I think should just be discreetly concealed in the price of the ticket. “But what”, you ask, “if I only have a carry-on?”

My hubby and I travel a lot, and I’m here to tell you that we have witnessed more flagrant, utter bullshit watching passengers try to deceive, manipulate, hector, and delude themselves, the airline employees and fellow passengers that  1.) their carry-on is within the regulation size limit, or 2.) the woman that weekend trying to convince the gate attendant that her four carry-on items - a wheeled suitcase, a brimming mesh contraption hanging from the wheeled suitcase, a totebag, and her purse-were actually two.

Really, it's just my carry-on

The attendant tried to tell her four carry-ons was unacceptable, whereupon the woman brashly turned tail and lumbered down the ramp onto the aircraft, then held up the line behind her while she stowed all the items in overhead compartments. Upon arrival, she held the line up getting the damn things off, too. This was in addition to watching other people cram oversized, overstuffed bags of every sort into the compartments, then pry them back out to deplane.

Examining checked bags for homeland security hazards apparently got so costly that the per-bag fee was implemented, causing hordes of passengers to try to dodge the fee by stuffing perhaps appropriate sized bags to bursting, and in some cases, bags that don’t even pretend to be regulation size, to carry on. The cost of examining carry-on luggage is now apparently such that airlines are considering a fee for those as well.
 
Air travel is people watching at its finest and just part of the entertainment to be had while travelling, but I digress. The curious practice I spoke of involves the inconsistent handing out of in-flight snacks: Four flights; Seattle-Salt Lake City, Salt Lake City-Dallas. And back. First flight-two tiny packages of peanuts containing about 12 goobers each. Next flight-the attendant handed my hubby a pack of cookies and apparently supposing that I didn’t need anything, passed me by. Third flight-a package of pretzels, package of peanuts, AND pack of cookies. (I traded my hubby the cookies for the peanuts). Fourth flight-one tiny package of peanuts.

In-flight Snack

My question is, why the difference in distribution approaches, on different flights on the same airline?

Cooking while Traveling

I thought I'd share our strategy for cooking when we travel. We take four to six trips a year and normally stay in condos, either Ron's timeshare, or mine. His condos have dishes, ample cookware, coffee, tea, basic spices like salt, pepper, Italian, dried parsley, red pepper flakes, garlic powder, and dried onion, dishwasher detergent; mine have dishes and cookware. (I sold mine last year when we bought a joint membership at Grand Mayan in Cancun.)

I get the impression that many, if not most people don't cook much while traveling; perhaps they don't do it for entertainment like I do. In fact for me, cooking is a vacation. I dream food! One of the other reasons we cook is that neither of us is particularly fond of fast food, eating in restaurants for several days can really add up, using money that would be better spent on something else-lift tickets, for instance.

I've learned when we travel, at least in the states, to take along a few essentials. Maybe more than a few, and they can change depending on what I think I might plan on cooking. Our last trip, for instance, I'd brought pork loin chops, lamb chops and chicken drumsticks. The friends who joined us brought salmon caught on their last trip to Canada, which we barbequed and I featured in an earlier post .

They once called me and asked if I liked duck...boy, do I, however until then I hadn't had duck since my Dad hunted when I was a kid. They invited me over for roast duck, wow, it was a dream come true! Yum-yum!

In no particular order:

Coffee; Ron drinks instant, but the condo usually has a couple packets of drip-type
Coffee creamer; Ron's also
Tea; I like loose tea (I elucidated in an earlier post my love for tea and my fave tea shop) but I often take bagged teas on trips. Convenience factor. In fact, I've bought so many boxes of bagged teas on trips, I take it now just to try to use it up
Olive oil
A couple cups of flour
A couple cups of sugar
Sea salt in mill; I need a new one, the one I have doesn't work so well
Peppercorn mill
A mix of spices; this time it was Montreal seasoning mixed with dried parsley flakes
At least one head of garlic
Red pepper flakes
Dried rosemary (that I grew and dried)
Spice packets leftover from prior condo excursions, once opened they discard them, this way they aren't wasted
Some kind of pasta
Rice
Microwave popcorn. Usually we watch a couple of movies, but that week we watched the Olympics

Butter
Cheese
Bacon
Miscellaneous stuff that might rot in the refrigerator during the week if we don't eat it before we leave!
Since we were skiing that week, sandwich ingredients-bread, sliced turkey, cheese, mustard, mayo
Salad ingredients-lettuce, green onion, green pepper, bleu cheese dressing, mushrooms
Hershey's chocolate for my chocolate milk in the mornings
(Not to get on a soap-box, but if you are even mildly environmental, follow this link about Nestle's marketing and try to be cognizant of where what you eat comes from and what resources might be used producing it)

If we're driving, this all goes into coolers and a box or two, if we're flying, obviously we don't take as much as we have to fit it into luggage, which takes space away from the number of shoes I can take! With these basic items, we can go to the store at our destination and cook pretty much anything we decide to buy.

Happy traveling! Which reminds me, we are going to New Orleans in May. I've never been to The Big Easy and am very excited, so if anyone can suggest some really great things to do, drop me a note...