Just another Non-Rev

6/21/08 Jackson Wy to Dallas-Ft Worth

On our final day of this segment, all we had to do was get to the airport and get on the airplane. Neither of which was a sure thing. Getting to the airport was going to be hampered by finite funds due to an inoperative ATM card. It seems (from information gained later) that when I replaced my 'soon to expire' card with a new one in preparation for this trip, it had somehow become attached to my wife's house account, rather than the checking account (somewhat larger), and so with an initial withdrawal and gas money along the way I had drawn it down to Zero! The cab driver was understanding, but not amused that I had enough for fare (30$) but only a 10% tip. As noted, the cost of living has skyrocketed here. But we did get to the airport.

I'm getting just a tad ahead of myself, though. Again, the time change made getting up fairly easy, and packing the night before allowed me to shower, dress, and vacate the room to allow my (say it with me) 16 year old daughter to shower, dress and prep in peace. I wandered into the office to coffee-up with Josh, the clerk, and a couple of guys who'd been climbing on the Tetons for the past 3 days. Pretty typical Americans: one from Brussels originally, one from India, both living in Cincinnati OH and working for Proctor and Gamble. Accents? You bet. Neat guys though. Josh was from OH as well, which is another social point of the area. As the locals have been forced out, the business owners (most corporate) bring in labor from around and outside the country for basically room and board and a little folding money each day. When my ATM card failed, I went to a store to ask for the nearest bank. In an accent I can't duplicate (but sounded like Andy Kaufman's 'Latka'), I was told by 2 separate clerk's that they'd only been in town two days and didn't know where anything was. So much for local color and lore.

Despite my best efforts, I did wind up with one minor crisis on departure day: a pocket knife. Oh, no big deal, really - but you cannot take it with you on the plane (duh), I didn't want to check a bag (15$), and I'm kinda partial to the things I carry in my pocket and the thought of just throwing/giving it away hurt a little. So I entrusted it to Josh for a month, and hope it will be there when I return. Option B was to hide it atop a wall, in a chink, or bury it in a plastic bag 10 paces due north of the old clock. I mention this because if someone were to follow my example of ride, stash, fly vacationing this accounting of valuable but unflyable items becomes important; particularly if the are of the 'special licensing required' kind. Forget something in that category and you'll have some serious improvisation to accomplish before the metal detector.

The flight leaves at 11:50. The flight - SINGULAR. There is one non-stop a day on American between JAC and DFW. Miss that and you have a 30$ cab ride back to town to hunt for another 100$ room. Or make other plans. There is a Chicago flight leaving at 11:30, so if it looks like the DFW flight is full you can go through ORD and then cue up with the other 1,000 non-rev's to get to Dallas. Fortunately for us, not so for the other passengers, the ORD flight was delayed until after DFW, so if we didn't get on the preferred we could still make the other. We got to the airport about 3 hours prior, and had time to smile and converse with the agent before the crush, and search through our pockets for change enough to get pancakes, coffee, and milk for breakfast.



Departure time came and we had seats across the aisle from one another, and nice nap on the way home.



Now all we have to do is work out JAC to YYC (Jackson WY to Calgary AB Canada)!!