Visitors returning to Alaska will notice some major changes at several airports across the state. Terminals in Juneau, Anchorage and Fairbanks have undergone some dramatic changes recently that should make traveling through the major ports of entry go more smoothly.

The Juneau International Airport in the state capital has a newly renovated terminal with higher ceilings, more windows, better lights, a larger baggage terminal and more exit options. A light refracting awning was also installed to improve energy efficiency, and other weatherproofing measures such as new siding and the installation of heating coils in pedestrian walkways are now finished. The booth for the Juneau Convention and Visitors Bureau was also relocated to be more accessible to travelers.

In Anchorage, the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport finished up the final touches on more than a decade of work last month. Recent renovations include adding more space for dining options (including local restaurants) and some other aesthetic touches. The airport also just welcomed service between Long Beach and Anchorage on JetBlue, the first new domestic passenger carrier to Anchorage in six years.

The Fairbanks International Airport (pictured above) also recently opened a brand new terminal. Improvements include new boarding gates, higher ceilings, more windows, a larger baggage terminal and curbside improvements. The old terminal was demolished to make way for the new one, which follows modern security standards and has six jet-bridges (up from the former five).

If you could nominate any airport in the U.S. for an upgrade, which one would it be? My personal choice would be Newark Liberty International Aiport, but I'm sure there are some airports in need of attention that I haven't touched down at yet.

[Photo courtesy the Fairbanks Convention & Visitors Bureau]

If we weren't traveling and writing about it for a living, we think it would be pretty cool to be a spirits writer. I mean, we get paid to travel and they get paid to drink.

Now, you can put your amateur mixologist skills to the test with Sandeman Port's newest contest, where the winner will snag a five night trip for two to Oporto, Portugal.

A team of British archaeologists working in Jordan is tracing the military campaign of Lawrence of Arabia, and they need your help.

T.E. Lawrence was an English archaeologist turned soldier who capture the public imagination during World War One when he helped the Arabs rebel against the Ottoman Empire. After its disastrous defeat at Gallipoli at the hands of the Ottomans, the British Empire needed some good news from the Middle Eastern front.

The ten-year project started in 2006 and has already studied Ottoman fortifications, the Hijaz Railway (a favorite target of the Arab rebels), and an Arab army base. Besides traditional archaeology, the team is also recording oral histories of communities living near the battlefields. While all veterans of the campaign are dead, Arab culture is very much an oral one and many war stories have been passed down.

The project, run by the University of Bristol, is looking for volunteers for this year. Volunteers will work from November 14-28 in southern Jordan. The cost for participating is a hefty £2,450 ($4,017) but that includes airfare, food, and a three-star hotel.

For more information, check out the project's website and blog.


[Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons]

Michael O'Leary – loved, presumably, by his mother and probably not many else – truly wants passengers to pay less to fly. Of course, that's the point of a low-cost carrier like Ryanair, right? Well, O'Leary, the airline's CEO, loves his passengers so much that he doesn't want them to pay taxes. At least, not the UK's Air Passenger Duty.

Someone has to get slammed, though. If one tax goes away, there needs to be another to take its place.

Always thinking ahead, O'Leary has suggested that the burden be shifted to the hospitality industry, which could replace most of the revenue from the Air Passenger Duty with a modest levy of £1 per night on hotel rooms.

In fairness, O'Leary notes that the APD is the highest flight tax in the world, and it's keeping people off planes. Since 2007, he told the Daily Telegraph, "Visitor numbers to Britain have fallen from 33 million to 29.5 million." Now, the fact that the global financial crisis and subsequent recession happened during this period may (or may not) have something to do with the drop in visits to Britain, but doubtless, there's a role in it for the tax, too.

I guess this is a case of passing the buck in the most literal of senses.

Don't cry for Michael O'Leary ... he has a rockin' cheering section:

Gallery: The Girls of Ryanair Calendar 2008

I had never milked a goat before the time I wrapped my fingers around Apple's teet and squeezed, inside a barn on a one-acre plot next to a public school in Woodbridge, Detroit. Two volunteers at the farm, Doug Reith and Leeann Drees, offered to bring me along for their turn at tending the animals at the Catherine Ferguson Academy, a school that's also home to one of the city's best known urban farms, made so by its appearance in the much-lauded documentary Grown in Detroit and a profile in Oprah Magazine.

Urban farms have become sort of cliche in Detroit, cast as a gardener's pipe dream that will save the city, one batch of arugula at a time. There's no question that many stories on the subject have been done. But at the Catherine Ferguson Academy, a school for pregnant teens and young mothers, four in five girls participate in free and reduced-price meal programs. Cliche or not, this is a city that needs cheap, nutrient-dense food -- the kind that comes out of the sun and soil of a farm, urban or otherwise.

But the pastures at CFA, as its known, are facing a crisis.

Gallery: Catherine Ferguson Academy Urban Farm in Detroit

We're now looking back on a full year of limited tarmac delays. In April 2010, the airline industry seemed like it was begging and pleading with the American public not to accept the insanity that the government was forcing upon them. Mayhem would rule, the industry claimed, as standards for performance would prevent everyone from getting anywhere. It would be ugly ... far uglier than the service the airlines had provided so far.

Throughout the year, Gadling has checked in to let you know that the airline industry did not fall apart as a result of shorter tarmac delays. With airlines only able to sit out there for three hours before facing hefty fines, the result has been noticeable – and positive.

"On the one-year anniversary of the tarmac delay rule, it's clear that we've accomplished our goal of virtually eliminating the number of aircraft leaving travelers stranded without access to food, water, or working lavatories for hours on end," says U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood in a statement. "This is a giant step forward for the rights of air travelers."

Last autumn, after having tracked the Airbnb buzz for a while, I finally took the plunge and reserved rooms through the site in Panama City and Bogotá for my two-stop December jaunt.

About a half-hour into my first pit stop, it was already clear to me that the service was a perfect fit for budget-conscious travelers. (For the record, I'm not the only Airbnb fan at Gadling. Check out my colleague Elizabeth Seward's Airbnb post published earlier this year.)

For those unfamiliar with it, Airbnb is a rental service. House or apartment owners list their spare beds, rooms, or entire living spaces for rent on the site.

What makes Airbnb distinct? First of all, owners are paid 24 hours after the reservation begins, a delay that helps weed out dishonest landlords. Another important detail: if there is a problem with a rental, guests can contact Airbnb to void payment. I was comfortable with Airbnb from the outset in light of these consumer protection safeguards, and the fact that everyone is encouraged to evaluate one another following a stay was icing on the cake. Landlords can't get away with false advertising, and poor behavior on the part of a guest or host will also be exposed through reviews. Good hosts and guests can both build up positive profiles via strong reviews.

Overall, Airbnb is pretty scamproof if used as directed. In a review of comments and criticisms of Airbnb online, it appears that some people have been scammed after making a payment on a rental outside of the Airbnb payment system. Payment via the Airbnb payment system, it should go without saying, is a much safer bet. Here's a tiny piece of advice: If any property owner you contact through Airbnb urges you to bypass the Airbnb payment system and directly wire them money, cut off contact and report them.

Overnight, I became a fan of Airbnb. Seldom had I found such cheap accommodations in such comfortable surroundings, and with the added benefit of an instant social network of locals taking an interest in my welfare. I've experienced just two annoyances of the most minor sort: a host in Panama City who never messaged me back and a hostess in Tel Aviv whose room was not available despite being advertised as such.

But where did I stay? What were my accommodations like? And what did they cost?

What has ten water slides, a wave pool and a children's museum dedicated to teaching students about the power of water? Its Evergreen Wings and Waves, the nations newest water park at the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum in McMinnville, Oregon and that 747 is there to stay.

Called "the only water park that comes with an aviation and space museum" Wings and Waves opened this week with rides like the Nose Dive inner tube ride and the Mach 1 slide that descends 60 vertical feet.

That Boeing 747 mounted on the roof of that 60 foot-tall building? Four different water slides start inside including the Sonic Boom offering an "outdoor water park" feel with a view of most of the park. Above the roof, the top section of the slide is transparent to allow glimpses of the shape of the plane and building. Inside the park the top section of the slide is removed and the top is open.

Gallery: Evergreen Wings and Waves

Before I left Chicago for points east, I had a chance to tour Ford's Chicago Assembly Plant, a complex that finishes about 1160 vehicles a day. A great majority of those are Ford Explorers, pieced together by line workers wearing safety glasses and headphones, working pneumatic tools in a hypnotizing ballet of endless repetition. Whir, whir, whir.

Walking the floor, following pedestrian pathways marked by bright yellow paint, I watched linemen and women raise engine assemblies into vehicle bodies, hang doors and bolt wheels, as conveyor belts ceaselessly inched the unfinished machines ever forward. (A tip: When touring the plant, one steps over the drive-chains running through channels in the floor.)

My tour guide Larry, a dead ringer for Jesse Ventura, even let me jump in a just-finished Explorer the moment it rolled off the line. Videographer Stephen Greenwood, who's riding along for this part of my ride, captured the mesmerizing shots after the break.