What We Loved This Week: Winter Carnival, El Cajon and ‘Bags Fly Free’

Douglas Mack
The Saint Paul Winter Carnival, which is one of my favorite things about living in the Twin Cities and a brilliantly counterintuitive celebration of one of Minnesota’s most infamous attributes. It supposedly began as a rebuttal to a New York reporter’s claim that Minnesota was “another Siberia, unfit for human habitation in the winter”—a view still held by plenty of people from warmer climes. But as I walked through Rice Park, marveling at the intricate ice sculptures and watching bundled-up kids (and adults) toss snowballs at each other, I couldn’t imagine why I’d want to be in some warmer, more boring place.

Eric Lucas
“Bags Fly Free.” Southwest Airlines staked its market identity on that simple proposition last fall, deliberately deciding to row upstream in the river of add-on fees that most airlines are adopting. I don’t fly Southwest, and I don’t own any airline stocks, but I was pleasantly surprised to see last week that the strategy worked: The carrier made a $116 million profit in the 4th quarter of 2009, says it is gaining market share with its aggressive differentiation from other airlines, and intends to continue swimming against the tide. Even better, a couple of the mainstream airlines made money, too, such as my hometown-hub carrier, Alaska, which clocked in at $24 million in earnings; and JetBlue, at $11 million. Maybe the airline industry isn’t about to collapse after all.

Eva Holland
I loved picking up a set of shiny new Yukon Territory license plates for my car. Feels like commitment.

Michael Yessis
My wife delivered our new son, and I spent several days in the hospital. I wasn’t thinking much about travel—except when out the window I could see planes flying overhead on the way to National Airport. I pictured all the places we’ll soon fly with our boys. This is the view from our room early one morning:

Jim Benning
I wound up driving through the small city of El Cajon near San Diego last weekend, on the way to the local mountains to play in the snow. It’s home to a decent size Iraqi-American population, and part of downtown feels like a little Baghdad, with markets and restaurants. I loved that.

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