Airport closed so plane can’t land

by Jamie Rhein on

Yesterday there were two stories out there about rest stop closings. This story is about an airport, an airplane and a more problematic situation than a rest stop being closed when one is desperate to stop. If a rest stop is closed there are options. The side of the road works in a pinch. In the case of the airplane in a decent towards an airport, but the airport turns out to be closed, there’s a bit more involved.

The pilot needs to quit descending asap and head somewhere else, in an ideal case, somewhere close by. Thankfully, that is what happened when US Airways flight 3203 was about to land at the Charleston, South Carolina airport but found the airport closed. The pilot turned the plane around to head back to where it came–Charlotte, North Carolina.

The airport isn’t closed all the time, but just some of the time–after midnight and only until August 9. Usually, it’s open 24-7. Two runways are getting fixed. A lightning strike had delayed the plane from take off after taxing out to the runway and the pilot knew he wouldn’t have enough time to make it to the airport before the witching hour, but thought the tower would stay open a tad longer. Nope.

Once back in Charlotte after state hopping the Carolinas, the passengers were given rooms, meal vouchers and status as being on a flight with an issue that almost never, if ever, happens. [The Post and Courier]

Gadlinks for Wednesday 6.10.09

by Brenda Yun on

Here’s a sampling of the best of the rest from around the travel world:

  • Planet Eye brings us a great list of eco-travel mistakes. After a month of traveling back and forth between the mainland and Hawaii I’m feeling like I should memorize this list.
  • This summer could be the year of traveling by hobby, and the Independent Traveler has a cool list of outfitters and online resources to get you started.
  • MSNBC breaks down the world wide web’s newest online travel sites.
  • Why do you need to write a good travel story when you can write a bad one? World Hum brings us a humorous list of suggestions on how to write crappy travel tales.
  • Do you like dim sum — or just staring at the meat hanging in Chinatown store windows? BootsNAll brings us a great list of the world’s best Chinatowns.

‘Til tomorrow, have a great evening.

For past Gadlinks, click HERE.

A travel story when the traveler doesn’t have a clue

by Jamie Rhein on

My mother told me this traveler-doesn’t-have-a-clue story yesterday morning after I picked her up at the Greyhound bus station in Columbus, Ohio.

I posted about this yesterday, but I’m still shaking my head and wondering where the woman is today and what she has found to eat. Perhaps she’s in Missouri?

It has reminded me of other travel stories when there is nothing else to do but keep on keeping on–and hopefully, eventually, you’ll get to where you want to go. It’s also to make you feel better if you’ve ever made a travel mistake. I’ve made mistakes, but not quite like this.

Here is the recap:

“Where are you going?” My mother asked the woman who got on the bus in Newark, New Jersey.

“Los Angeles,” the woman said.

“My!” said my mother. “That’s far. When will you get there?”

“Tomorrow.” The woman, according to my mother, sounded confident.

“Tomorrow?!” my mother exclaimed.

Mind you, they are on the bus on the east coast. The U.S. hasn’t shrunk.

The woman nodded, still sure.

In Pittsburgh, the woman discovered the truth. She won’t arrive in Los Angeles until Saturday, I think sometime tomorrow night. It is a looooonnnnnng ride.

My mother said that the woman spoke with an accent , so perhaps she misunderstood the details, or she never asked for the details. I wonder if her ticket gave her an inkling that something was amiss? Regardless, she’s somewhere the middle of the U.S. by now and by tomorrow night she’ll be in L.A.

This reminds me a little bit of the problem when planning international travel that involves crossing the International Date Line. When we lived in Asia I always double checked to make sure I understood exactly what day it would be when I would arrive somewhere. Missing a day can wreck havoc on plans if you’re not careful.

Or there are the mistakes where you head east instead of west or the other way around. I know someone who was driving to Washington, D.C., from Columbus, but didn’t discover he had gone the wrong way until he hit Indiana or thereabouts. He had recently immigrated to the U.S. which added to his sign reading difficulties and reluctance to ask for directions.

Seven Kinds of Travel Stories You Should Be Able to Tell Before You Die

by Adrienne Wilson on

Here’s a cutesy travel piece out of the San Francisco Chronicle. I missed the first installation, but the author John Flinn sets the premise that it’s not enough to just go, do, and see all the wonderful places found in the New York Times best seller 1,000 Places to See Before You Die. In order for your travels to have some type of street cred, you’ve got to come back with some cold hard traveler’s tales. I’m almost certain Mister Flinn isn’t suggesting you go out searching for tales to tell or to create them. They should just sort of happen. In last’s week edition he talked about the first two which were Third World bus stories and bathroom stories. This week he adds scary air and animal stories while sharing two of his own. I have to admit the scary air tale he told tops many that I’ve heard and I don’t know where he got the balls to get in a plane with a pilot like that.

What do I know? If you’ve got to be some place bad enough I suppose you’d take chances with any pilot. Go take a peek and see if you’ve got some real travel stories of your own to tell. If not, maybe it’s time to take a ride on the wild side and look out for next week when he goes over a hotel story, a food story and a guide story.

P.S. The sheep in the bag in the back of the jeep is from an animal tale of my own, but really, it wasn’t that eventful.