It's hard to get there from here

I made my semi-annual trip to Arkansas last week to see my boys and quickly found out it's not easy to get there from here if you're flying. I quit driving last year because 10½ hours on the road is no fun at all; not even in a Thunderbird. So I decided from then on that I would fly.

It's possible to get there fairly quickly in the air if you choose the all-coach direct flight on United from Denver to Bentonville. It's only an hour and a half flight but, in addition to deciding to fly, I also decided to fly first class. If you're going to be in the air, you might as well be pampered and taken care of instead of being crammed into coach which, in these days, is much more like riding a bus than flying.

Last Christmas, I flew first class on American Airlines out of Denver with a layover in Dallas before flying on to Bentonville. So this time I chose Delta which has always been my favorite airline. Not trusting the air service out of McCook which is improbable at best and impossible at worst, I drove to Denver last Monday, knowing they had had a six-inch snowfall that morning. But the bad weather had moved out by the time I left McCook and I was hoping that by the time I got to Denver the snow would be gone. Fortunately it was. I had made reservations at Embassy Suites, always my hotel of choice, for Monday night because my plane would leave Tuesday morning at 11 am. When I checked in, I gave the desk clerk my confirmation page I had copied from the Internet and was told I was at the wrong hotel. I had made reservations at the Stapleton Embassy Suites and I was at the DIA hotel.

I told her I didn't want to get back in the car to try and find the Stapleton hotel and asked if she had any rooms available there. She told me they only had one room and it was a hundred dollars more per night than my room at Stapleton would cost. I had already driven four hours and didn't want to drive any farther so I took it. I enjoyed the manager's free two-hour cocktail service, ordered room service, had a steak and baked potato that was OK and went to bed.

I made arrangements to leave my car at the hotel at no charge for the week I was to be gone so I got up the next morning, had the free hot breakfast all Embassy Suites hotels provide, and then took the hotel shuttle to the airport. I knew I would be flying direct to Atlanta with a four hour layover before flying on to Bentonville but that didn't concern me. I've always been a people watcher and because Atlanta is one of the busiest airports in America, I was looking forward to sipping on a cocktail or two and just watching the folks. What I hadn't really thought about until I got on the plane was that I would be flying through three time zones to get to Bentonville. Bentonville is only six hours south of McCook and three hours east but I started out in the Central time zone, drove to Denver which is on Mountain time, flew to Atlanta which is in the Eastern time zone, and then back to Bentonville which returned me to the same time zone I had started in.

On the two legs to Arkansas and the two legs back, the planes were completely full and I sat next to four different men and didn't have a conversation with any of them. I was hoping to sit next to an attractive woman on at least one of the legs but luck was not on my side. I used to engage people in conversation when I would fly but I suppose I've passed on to another stage in my life because that wasn't attractive to me on this trip. I sipped on my cocktails, ate the meals that were provided and spent most of my time looking out the window.

The week I spent in Arkansas was good as it always is. I spent three and a half days in Russellville with my son Michael and his family and three and a half days in Bentonville with my son Will and his wife Erica. I'm always thrilled to spend time with my two boys and this trip was no different. We ate out, went to movies and watched television together, along with their mom, and thoroughly enjoyed each other's company.

These days when I take trips, I want them to be as pleasurable and as stress-free as possible and this one was. I figure after 30 years in the classroom I've earned it and I don't mind spending the extra money to ensure that my trip is as pleasurable as possible.

On the way down, I left at 11 in the morning, arrived in Bentonville at 9:30 at night and then we drove two more hours to Russellville. So four hours from McCook to Denver the day before, a three-hour flight to Atlanta, a four-hour layover, a two-hour flight to Bentonville and another two hours in the car to Russellville turned a ten-and-a-half hour car ride into a thirteen hour drive and fly odyssey but that was OK.

The worst part of the trip was the four-hour drive back to McCook. As everyone knows who drives to Denver, there are long stretches of highway where there are no towns to go through and nothing to look at, so the drive back home seemed to take forever. The best way to fly is to fly out of McCook to Denver, make your connecting flight at the airport and then do the same thing on the return trip home. My apartment is only two blocks from the McCook airport.

But I'm afraid that's a thing of the past. If you can't count on being able to fly home from Denver, it's a risk that's not worth taking. On top of that, with Sen. Nelson retiring from the Senate, there's no guarantee that Deb Fisher or Ben Sasse will work nearly as hard to keep the subsidy that allows McCook to have airline service as Senator Nelson always did.

If we lose the airline permanently, we're hours away from an airport and stuck in the hinterland. I hope that doesn't happen but I'm afraid it will.