Happy New Year

Best wishes for happy, healthy, safe, enlightening and enjoyable travels in 2008.

Spare Lithium Batteries Banned from Checked Baggage

The Transportation Security Agency is at it again. Here's the latest rule that makes no sense: If you are flying today, you are allowed to have a spare lithium battery or two in your checked baggage. Starting tomorrow (January 1, 2008), you won't be. Cameras, DVD players or laptop computers containing lithium batteries will continue to be permitted in checked luggage, though I can't imagine who in their right mind would place such items in their checked bags, which not only official TSA meddlers but random baggage handlers can riffle through.

Additionally, you still will be permitted to have carry up to two spare extended-life rechargeable lithium batteries in your carry-on bag, but (and there's always a but) they must be either in their original packaging or in a plastic zipper bag. As far as I know, there is no requirement as to the size of the zipper bag, though most travelers probably have a supply of the one-quart version in which they display their small quantities of toothpaste, contact lens solution, lip balm, moisturizing lotion and other liquids or gels.

Why the new rule? The potential of fire in the cargo hold, claims the ever-on-the-ball STA. Here's the backstory: In February 2006, a fire of still-unknown origin (as far as I can tell) damaged a UPS DC-8 cargo plane that made an emergency landing. The crew evacuated. The National Transportation Safety Board investigating conducted hearings about the incident that focused on a container holding lithium batteries but reportedly did not find any proof that the fire was caused by lithium batteries in the cargo. However, perhaps to justify that there was some legitimate concern, concluded batteries, common in high-tech devices, leave cargo crews "at risk from in-flight fires."

So now, nearly two years after an inflight fire on a cargo plane that was not traced to lithium batteries, passengers may longer have spare batteries in their checked luggage. Makes a lot of sense, doesn't it!

In Snow Country, Life Is Good

Skiers in Colorado and elsewhere have put up with long holiday liftlines, cold, wind and crowded on-mountain restaurants. But snow conditions are great, and that's all that matters. Each resort posts its own snow conditions, but here are links to some statewide and regional US snow reports. In each case, click on "snow consitions," "ski conditions" or "ski reports":

Colorado
Lake Tahoe (CA/NV)
New Hampshire
New Mexico
Utah
Vermont

Also, Better Ski Report, On the Snow, Ski Report and SnoCountry are among the services that issue click-to reports on all desintations in a state.

Plunging Dollar Makes US a Bargain Destination for Others

When any country's balance of payments is so out of balance that one end of the economic seesaw seems mired in the muck, imports are expensive and makes travel to other countries expensive. The plunging dollar has put all but the most well-off American travelers in the unaccustomed situation of having fewer affordable options. On the other hand, the US is now a very, very attractive travel destination for many foreigners -- except, of course, for the visa hassles they have to endure just to be allowed to come and spend their money here.

Yet visiting the US is such a fantastic bargain for Canadians, South Americans, Brits, Germans and other western Europeans and the growing class of wealthy Russians, Poles and assorted others from once-Communist eastern Europe that they are putting up with US red tape and coming here in record droves. People from some of the places have traditionally visited the US, but some are new.

My observation is not statistical but empirical. We are at Snowmass near Aspen now (which we can only afford at the highest of high seasons because we have friends who had the foresight to build a house here in the 1970s). On chairlifts and in liftlines, on the street and in stores, we hear a variety of languages. We stopped to chat with a veteran Aspen Realtor (a longtime friend of our host) who told us that real estate sales in the Roaring Fork Valley -- a high-rent district if ever there was one -- have finally tapered off, except for foreign buyers.

I love the internationalism. I like it when others can come here and see our beautiful land and get to know Americans other than through newspaper headlines and television news reports. But I regret the fact that many middle-class Americans, financially squeezed now in so many ways, will no longer find foreign travel affordable or even feasible.

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime," wrote Mark Twain in Innocents Abroad. It is gratifying that thousands of others are able to experience our little corner of the earth but sad that due to the declining dollar, many Americans are stuck in it.

TSA Views Pie as Security Threat

What would be do without the Transportation Security Agency to kick around? Laugh at FEMA? No that would be cruel, because FEMA deals with real crises (or is supposed to), while the TSA seems to have been created only to annoy travelers. Consider the situation Jessica Bruder found herself in when flying out of Portland, OR. " She wrote in a piece called "At airport screening pie in the sky might be overly optimistic" in the San Francisco Chronicle. She wrote: "I already knew my baking was hazardous. I'm good at burning crusts, mangling fillings and setting off smoke detectors. But I never thought of it as a threat. At least not in the national security sense."

Her tale went on to describe her exchanges with the TSA screener, "If my pie made the no-fly list, my boyfriend and I would arrive in Illinois empty-handed. This was my first visit to his family. We had no other offerings for the Thanksgiving table. And what would we tell them, anyway? 'The TSA ate my pie?'"

As bone-headed as agents have veen since 9/11, they're getting worse, but this one takes the cake -- or should I say, pie.

Walking the Walk -- or Driving the Drive

My last pre-Christmas post was a review of winter driving tips. Today, we are taking off for the Snowmass-Aspen area. Right now, the sky is blue, the sun is out, there is no wind and the fresh-fallen snow is beautiful, even on Colorado's Front Range. We expect good road conditions and excellent visibility today, but who knows what will happen in the next few days. I'll report on our drive (if it's worth mentioning) and about our ski escape.

Merry, Happy and All That