White Belt Chronicles # 3 · Monday September 10, 2007
The days of carefree air travel are long gone, another reason that RV travel is a safe, cost-effective and enjoyable way to get from A to B. In the course of producing the show and running my business, I am forced to travel by commercial airlines several times a year. Each experience is different and there seems to be no way to accurately gauge how long the trip will take. There are a lot of factors that come into play…..volume of passenger traffic, weather delays, airline delays and security. Last year I flew back to Toronto from Presqille, Maine. With two plane changes and several delays, the door-to-door journey was over 14 hours. For grins, I MapQuested it when I got home only to discover that the driving time was just over 13 hours!
On a flight last year from New York to Buffalo, they had just enacted a 3 oz. limit on liquids, so I went out and bought travel sized toiletries so as not to pose a toothpaste or shampoo threat. I was just heading down for the weekend for my cousin’s 50th birthday party, so I was traveling light with just a carry on. Well the TSA screening team zeroed in on my bag and asked me to open it. They went right for my toiletry bag and started pulling out my under three ounce liquids. “These need to be in a plastic bag!” the burly, surly woman loudly scolded. Proclaiming sincere ignorance, I asked if they had such a high tech security device available. “We used to” she said “but too many people wanted them.” Ah yes, the logic that only an underpaid government regulated agent could follow. Not being one to let go of my newly acquired travel sized stuff so easily, I asked the TSA agent to hang on for a second…….I spied a store just beyond security and scurried over in search of a plastic bag. Eureka! A plastic bag was cheerfully furnished and I strode triumphantly back to reclaim what was rightfully mine. Much to my chagrin, I was then informed by Ilsa, She wolf of the TSA that it couldn’t be any old plastic bag…….it had to be a transparent Zip-Lock bag. Now my choices were to go back to the gate and check my bag (clearly shampoo and toothpaste is much less dangerous in the cargo hold than in the cabin) and risk missing my flight OR admit defeat, surrender my personal hygiene products and scamper off with my tail between my legs……… Well, once arriving in New York, I found the nearest CVS and restocked my travel bag. One would think that after this ordeal, I would have also bought Zip-Lock bags; being naturally blonde and, some would argue, pre-maturely senile the thought never entered my mind…….at least not until I was in the security line to come back home three days later. The sheer terror of loosing yet another set of cute little 3oz. travel toiletries drove me to distraction. Then it hit me…..everyone was emptying their pockets of all metal objects…….Hmmm metal……none of my 3oz. travel toiletries were metal! I quickly and discretely opened my carry on and stuffed my shampoo, toothpaste and aftershave in my pants pocket. The carryon went onto the belt and I walked through the metal detector without incident. I felt a little guilt at having breached the sophisticated security at one of the Nation’s busiest airports, but knew in my heart that I would be a cleaner and better smelling man for the effort.
I just want to clarify that I believe we need to have the highest level of security at our airports. It’s a shame that we have to, but we do. I support every initiative that will make the skies safer, just not the dumb ones. You can have your shampoo confiscated and then go straight to the duty free store and buy a bottle of highly flammable over proof rum……makes no sense to me.
I could regale you with many more airline stories that would prove the point that RV travel is a better way to go, but if you’re reading this, you are probably an RVer and you already know that.
Travel Safe and Have Fun!
— Rob Engman
