A few weeks ago we went to visit family up in Buckeye Country, Columbus, Ohio. It was a cool little trip that we saved a good chunk of change on by flying on Skybus. Never heard of it? Well apparently its a growing airline company that is based out of Columbus, OH that initially only flew to a handful of destinations but have rapidly expanded. So what's so special about Skybus that is worth blogging about? Well, its their10 - $10 seats that are available for each flight they offer. YES 10 BUCKS! How it works is apparently they save a lot of doe on not offering all the frills and pretty much give you what you want; a ride somewhere. So they go cheap-o on you by
1) Not having a booking department - all internet based sales.
2) Flying into obscure/small airports.
3) Having you pay five bucks a bag you check
4) Not feeding you - though they do offer you food to buy off a overpriced menu (but apparently of food that is locally prepared in Columbus)
5) Hiring young and cheap labor and outfitting them like so and
6) Going cheap on the gas.
Yeah, the gas thing is a little sketchy to me, but hey you choose your own adventure...
What ever happened to those books anyway?! Remember library time as a kid? Those books were my favorite to go and find during library time because it totally looked like you were being all studious when really you were reading like a paragraph a page and after each page you'd flip to another and so forth, jumping all over a 200+ page book that could be over in like 3 flips. Back then, something about leaving the library and knowing you read 5 books, albiet C.Y.O.A. books was satisfying to me. Considering the rate at which I now finish books, I'd give my young padawan self props, but I guess finishing 5 CYOA books in an hours time isn't so noteworthy considering the conclusion that you can draw that I must've not been a good decision maker. So on decision making I don't think Skybus was such a bad decision finanically considering I've opted to take Fung Wah and Lucky Star, (the infamous China Town Express buses) to NYC, in the past.
So anyway, back to Skybus and Ohio. They announce their flight plans and if you are any type of an advance vacation planner, you could be lucky and snag a seat for a price less than two McDonalds value meals. I know, both sound good right? Yes, nuff said...don't hate. So we flew to Ohio on $10 tickets! We get herded on the plane like cattle because their is no assigned seating, which could be a thing to throw down over for most, but being that Melissa knew the tricks of the trade from serving in Taiwan and the fact that we got to pre-board because we had Louis it was all good. We get on the plane and get settled and these obnoxious women decide to sit in front of us. They noticed after getting settled in that we had a baby in tow and made all sorts of comments about how worried they were because they were sitting in front of a baby and tried to get a few people to change with them...basically making a scene. Long story short Louis didn't say a peep and slept for most of the flight and those ladies were louder, ruder, more oblivious than any persons I have ever flown with. It was these same women that kept many of us from relaxing/slumbering and even woke Louis up in the end because of their shrills and flirts they were carrying on with the Male flight attendant...gag.
We had a lot of fun in Ohio and got churchified out there as our trip consisted of visiting LDS church sites in Kirtland, taking a RLDS (now the Community of Christ) tour of the Kirtland Temple and taking a trip to peep on the Amish. It was all very entertaining and fun. Visiting the Amish was pretty cool, but I must say you'd think we were visiting a zoo with the kind of spectators that we were, taking pictures, pointing at the different outfits, and being amazed with their horse drawn buggies. We found ourselves saying things like "oh look there's a little Amish baby" or "there's another one, look" as if they were a rare specimen in a zoo. My favorite was an Amish guy working in the cheese factory that was not only wearing a hairnet but a beard net which was obviously specifically customized to fit over the uniquely shaped Amish tailored beards. The funny thing is that the Amish totally capitalize out of zooing themselves out. They advertise their craft and themselves out with signs like "Come spend a day with the Amish" or "Enjoy a home cooked Amish meal..." etc. I won't go into what comes to my mind if I was to spend a day with the Amish, but maybe one day I'll find out if my preconceived opinions are true.
I guess in some weird way, I can relate to the Amish about being zoo'ed out. I remember as a kid growing up in my small town in Hawaii, many tourists looking, pointing, and snapping pictures of us "hawaiians" while we were doing our day to day things. I can recall tourists either gazing in amusement or asking me or others to pose while simply raking the leaves, walking home from school, playing in the rain, or playing outside or at the beach. I always thought it was kinda strange but also pretty cool, imagining that maybe one day the photo would end up on an ad or something. I admit now, having been exposed to a more mainstream lifestyle, going to school shoeless, running around shirtless, having a year round full body tan and not just those slipper and shirt line tans, or surfing/boogie boarding at the age of 8 could be unique, but it wasn't to me then. Maybe it's good that my pictures never ended up on any ads as they probaby would've been on sanitation campaigns. I guess one other thing that I am grateful for is that the Amish kids weren't like how we were as kids because I can remember on a few occassions throwing rocks at the toursits cars. Okay, before you judge me I have to make a disclaimer; we weren't trying to hit the tourists, just their cars which are mostly rental cars anyway and most of the time the points came from hitting their hubcaps.
Back to ads and pictures, we were treated to family photo shoot by our sister in law who is quite the photographer. Thanks guys for everything!! Here's a sampling:
1) Not having a booking department - all internet based sales.
2) Flying into obscure/small airports.
3) Having you pay five bucks a bag you check
4) Not feeding you - though they do offer you food to buy off a overpriced menu (but apparently of food that is locally prepared in Columbus)
5) Hiring young and cheap labor and outfitting them like so and
6) Going cheap on the gas.
Yeah, the gas thing is a little sketchy to me, but hey you choose your own adventure...
What ever happened to those books anyway?! Remember library time as a kid? Those books were my favorite to go and find during library time because it totally looked like you were being all studious when really you were reading like a paragraph a page and after each page you'd flip to another and so forth, jumping all over a 200+ page book that could be over in like 3 flips. Back then, something about leaving the library and knowing you read 5 books, albiet C.Y.O.A. books was satisfying to me. Considering the rate at which I now finish books, I'd give my young padawan self props, but I guess finishing 5 CYOA books in an hours time isn't so noteworthy considering the conclusion that you can draw that I must've not been a good decision maker. So on decision making I don't think Skybus was such a bad decision finanically considering I've opted to take Fung Wah and Lucky Star, (the infamous China Town Express buses) to NYC, in the past.
So anyway, back to Skybus and Ohio. They announce their flight plans and if you are any type of an advance vacation planner, you could be lucky and snag a seat for a price less than two McDonalds value meals. I know, both sound good right? Yes, nuff said...don't hate. So we flew to Ohio on $10 tickets! We get herded on the plane like cattle because their is no assigned seating, which could be a thing to throw down over for most, but being that Melissa knew the tricks of the trade from serving in Taiwan and the fact that we got to pre-board because we had Louis it was all good. We get on the plane and get settled and these obnoxious women decide to sit in front of us. They noticed after getting settled in that we had a baby in tow and made all sorts of comments about how worried they were because they were sitting in front of a baby and tried to get a few people to change with them...basically making a scene. Long story short Louis didn't say a peep and slept for most of the flight and those ladies were louder, ruder, more oblivious than any persons I have ever flown with. It was these same women that kept many of us from relaxing/slumbering and even woke Louis up in the end because of their shrills and flirts they were carrying on with the Male flight attendant...gag.
We had a lot of fun in Ohio and got churchified out there as our trip consisted of visiting LDS church sites in Kirtland, taking a RLDS (now the Community of Christ) tour of the Kirtland Temple and taking a trip to peep on the Amish. It was all very entertaining and fun. Visiting the Amish was pretty cool, but I must say you'd think we were visiting a zoo with the kind of spectators that we were, taking pictures, pointing at the different outfits, and being amazed with their horse drawn buggies. We found ourselves saying things like "oh look there's a little Amish baby" or "there's another one, look" as if they were a rare specimen in a zoo. My favorite was an Amish guy working in the cheese factory that was not only wearing a hairnet but a beard net which was obviously specifically customized to fit over the uniquely shaped Amish tailored beards. The funny thing is that the Amish totally capitalize out of zooing themselves out. They advertise their craft and themselves out with signs like "Come spend a day with the Amish" or "Enjoy a home cooked Amish meal..." etc. I won't go into what comes to my mind if I was to spend a day with the Amish, but maybe one day I'll find out if my preconceived opinions are true.
I guess in some weird way, I can relate to the Amish about being zoo'ed out. I remember as a kid growing up in my small town in Hawaii, many tourists looking, pointing, and snapping pictures of us "hawaiians" while we were doing our day to day things. I can recall tourists either gazing in amusement or asking me or others to pose while simply raking the leaves, walking home from school, playing in the rain, or playing outside or at the beach. I always thought it was kinda strange but also pretty cool, imagining that maybe one day the photo would end up on an ad or something. I admit now, having been exposed to a more mainstream lifestyle, going to school shoeless, running around shirtless, having a year round full body tan and not just those slipper and shirt line tans, or surfing/boogie boarding at the age of 8 could be unique, but it wasn't to me then. Maybe it's good that my pictures never ended up on any ads as they probaby would've been on sanitation campaigns. I guess one other thing that I am grateful for is that the Amish kids weren't like how we were as kids because I can remember on a few occassions throwing rocks at the toursits cars. Okay, before you judge me I have to make a disclaimer; we weren't trying to hit the tourists, just their cars which are mostly rental cars anyway and most of the time the points came from hitting their hubcaps.
Back to ads and pictures, we were treated to family photo shoot by our sister in law who is quite the photographer. Thanks guys for everything!! Here's a sampling:
Full family pics to come.
2 comments:
I was just wondering about those "Choose Your Own Adventure" books the other day! Here's the great idea of the week: Choose Your Own Adventure MOVIES! Think about it. You could pick your own ending to the movie, and with DVDs I would say it's totally possible.
Mel's gonna be a millionaire, with those million dollar ideas.
I think it's funny that people took pictures of you as a "local" when they're only in Hawaii. I mean, come on, it's still part of the US. I took pics of Nepali kids and Tibetan kids, but those kids were living in third-world countries and they didn't even speak my language.
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