Open house...

Yesterday marked the grand Open House to the new Medford International Airport. And laugh as you may, but a whopping 1,000 people showed up for the unveiling. Unfortunately my parents forgot to attend. No really. They wanted to go. Sad.

So the old airport was your standard, small regional airport. I believe there's 3, maybe 4, carriers into Medford. United, SkyWest, Delta, and maybe even Horizon. I don't know. We usually fly United outta MFR as a family, and occasionally I've taken the Delta to SLC to hop across the States. And the waiting room in the old airport is roughly the size of a volleyball court. The 3 "gates" are actually doors spaced about 30 feet apart. Pimpin', I know.

Well the new airport has 6 gates and apparently 2 waiting rooms. Alright, nice upgrade. And there's an observation deck on the second floor so people can watch the planes come in. The aerial dance of all 12 flights that make it into Medford on any given day. Okay, so I don't know how many flights there are a day really, but I don't find it that impressive.

What is impressive is that my latest round of flying for the holidays, there was a $20 price difference between Medford and Portland. Seriously? What is the world coming to when that happens? Whatever it is, I like it. Keep it up. Now while I don't mind driving to Portland so save a couple hundred bucks. When it's only $50 or $75 bucks, I'm not at all tempted. The drive north sucks. At least when you pop out of the mountains in Cottage Grove. I don't like driving straight lines. They bore me (unless it's going Medford to La Pine - then that's exciting). So I'll pay the extra chump change in return of painlessly being dropped off by some family member at an airport 12 minutes from my bedroom.

The new airport opens for travel on my brother's birthday (January 11th) so that means I'll be able to strut my way through on my next leg back East. Yay. My day will be made for when each gate has one of those tube-y extensions to board directly on the plan. Until then, I'll make the frozen march to the plane 50 yards away. Baby steps, people, baby steps.