Attention, world travelers! Kansas City International Airport now offers daily nonstop service to another city bisected by Interstate 70.
Making the dreams of adventurers come true, a Frontier Airlines jet left KCI on Monday evening bound for Columbus, Ohio.
Frontier and KCI officials cut a ribbon at Terminal C before the 99-seat aircraft began accepting passengers. Columbus is not a destination that lends itself to easy prop-mastery (fake palm trees, Mardi Gras beads, Statute of Liberty crowns made of foam). The celebration consisted of a novelty pair of scissors and some chocolate chip cookies.
So what is this land of enchantment like? Lucky for readers of this
blog, a reporter who covered today's festivities happens to be from
Columbus. Here are 10 things to consider about Ohio's capital city:
1. Writer Jonathan Franzen thinks the Midwest begins around Columbus. Sounds about right, although "Gateway to the Midwest" seems unlikely to catch on. Too derivative.
2. Country star Dwight Yoakam grew up in Columbus. Other notable citizens include golfer Jack Nicklaus, rapper Bow Wow, writer James Thurber, former heavyweight champ James "Buster" Douglas and Beverly D'Angelo, the actress best known for playing Clark Griswold's wife in the Vacation series.
3. Columbus is like Kansas City in that it lacks light rail and has expansive city limits.
4. Unlike Kansas City, Columbus has an NHL team, the Blue Jackets. The team's status is somewhat uncertain. A bad lease is largely to blame. The Blue Jackets pay $5 million a year to rent the privately owned Nationwide Arena. When you're trying to operate a hockey team in a smallish Midwestern city, $5 million comes in pretty handy.
5. Residents' No. 1 complaint about Columbus: It's flat. Kansas City feels like San Francisco (or Pittsburgh, at least) in comparison.
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