RETURNING HOME
Today, after an oatmeal breakfast and a long talk with Maria and Dick, I was driven by Jackie Benjamin from Estes Park to the Denver Airport. Jackie was coming to Denver to visit her sister, anyway, so bringing me to the airport wasn‘t much out of her way.
The first half of the trip, down Route 36 through the canyon of Little Thompson River, was beautiful with high rock walls beside a swiftly flowing river.
The Denver International Airport seems to be out in the middle of nowhere, miles and miles from Denver. It is a very spacious and modern airport, easy to find your way through, but with the same restaurants found in all US airports. I had a quick McDonalds quarter pounder to get me through my 2 1/2 hour Allegiant flight where even potato chips would be an extra expense.
In an odd coincidence I was seated by the same man, a native of Cherokee, NC, whom I was seated by when coming from Asheville on Friday. He heads a construction firm, now working in Murphy on a highway project, that has been a family business for five generations. His wife lives a couple of hours from the Denver airport on a 600 acre ranch where her family has ranched for five generations and where they have a herd of 400 cattle and 200 yearlings. Every Friday he flies home from Asheville to Denver and every Monday he flies back to Asheville. He was the person who was talking mushrooms with the woman across the aisle on the way to Denver. On that flight I thought I heard him say that he had been given the heart of a 64 year old man. I asked him about it now. He is 43 now and a few years ago he had a heart transplant from a 64 year old man. The man had the same blood type so for that reason and the whole handful of pills he takes each morning his body doesn‘t reject his new heart but because the medicines suppress his immune system he is susceptible to getting sick, with the greatest danger being strep throat.
Since I had paid about $300 to fly round trip from Asheville to Denver I asked if making the same trip every weekend wasn‘t extremely expensive. It wasn‘t, he assured me, because he has a $1000 voucher, fly anywhere Allegiant flies except on weekends and holidays. So I calculate that if he made the flight even 40 times a year each round trip would cost only $25.
That got me to thinking, and I am still thinking and thinking. If I buy a $1000 year long Allegiant pass I could spend a few days in Seattle, a few days in San Francisco, a few days in New York, a few days in Boston, as well as being able to fly cheaply to hub cities with much cheaper flights overseas than I can get from Asheville. If I would make 10 trips on Allegiant a year I would be paying $100 per trip. Not having much legroom and having to pay for potato chips wouldn‘t deter me. It seems like a great deal. I can‘t get it out of my head.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 