Wintry mix spreads across Minnesota

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By WARREN LEVINSON and GEOFF MULVIHILL, Associated Press

      NEW YORK (AP) - Fair weather helped make the holiday sojourn a
not-so-painful experience in much of the country Thursday, even
with more people hitting the roads and skies than last year, but
travelers' good luck might be running out.


      A storm was expected to bring a snow and ice to parts of the
heartland Friday, a rare white Christmas to Nashville on Saturday,
and perhaps sock swaths of the Northeast on Sunday.


      "People that are going to Grandma's house," said Bobby Boyd, a
meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Nashville, "need
to get going."

      Eric and Tatiana Chodkowski, of Boston, were driving Thursday
with their kids, ages 2 and 4, to see relatives in New York. They
said forecasts for snow on Sunday made them wonder whether they'd
make it back then, as planned.

      They deemed the roads congested but manageable Thursday, and
most people found the nation's airports to be the same way.

      Planes took off into windy but accommodating skies at New York's
LaGuardia Airport as Steve Kent prepared to fly to Denver for a
family ski trip, scoffing at the puny lines.


      "I don't find it that difficult," he said. "I think
Thanksgiving is harder."

      The spread-out nature of the year-end holidays means things
won't be quite so cramped as holidays, like Thanksgiving, when
practically everyone is on the move the same day.

      "We have a lot of folks who already may have taken off of
work," said Troy Green, a spokesman for AAA. "They may have
arrived at their destination before today."

      Mike Lukosavich, of Harrison Township, Mich., was surprised the
first leg of his trip was moving so smoothly when he stopped at
rest area on the Ohio Turnpike in Elmore, Ohio, near Toledo.


      He, his wife and their 8-month-old daughter were heading to see
family in Parkersburg, W.Va. His only headache came when he saw thegas price of abo ut $3 a gallon.


      "It's something you have to do to see the family," said
Lukosavich, 33.

      The AAA has expected overall travel to rise about 3 percent this
year, with more than 92 million people planning to go more than 50
miles sometime between now and Jan. 2. More than 90 percent said
they would be driving.

      The Air Transport Association was expecting 44.3 million people
on U.S. flights between Dec. 16 and Jan. 5 - up 3 percent over the
same period a year ago but still below pre-recession travel volume.
The average ticket price is $421, up by 5 percent.

      The Vino Volo Wine Room at Detroit Metropolitan Airport is
benefiting from more travelers, manager Mark Del Duco said
Thursday.

      "The Christmas mood is more there this year than last," he
said, estimating that sales are up this 10 percent this season
compared with last year as financially confident travelers spend
more freely.

      Some travelers weren't thrilled about their mode of
transportation. Anthony Lauro joined nearly 100 people lined up
Thursday morning for a Montreal-bound coach at the Port Authority
of New York and New Jersey's bus terminal in midtown Manhattan. He
faced an eight-hour ride to see his fiancee there.

      "Flying to Canada is astronomically overpriced," he said.

      Helping matters is that the most densely populated parts of the
country got a break from the weather Thursday with rain finally
stopping in California and a few days away in the East.

      But the coming storm was a concern Thursday in parts of the
nation's midsection.

      Steve Brown, 50, of Elm Creek, Neb., left Tuesday afternoon and
drove all night to beat the storm as it worked its way east. Brown,
a grain hauler, was taking his two children to see his mother on
the Ohio dairy farm where he grew up.

      "I had orders to come home or she was going to come get me,"
Brown said during at the Elmore rest area, where adults filled up
on coffee while kids, traveling in pajamas, loaded up on Tater
Tots.

      After record-breaking snow falls in the East and a treacherous
Christmas travel season last year, the ways weather can mess up
travel seem to be on plenty of minds.


      At LaGuardia, Mike and Martha Lee Mellis waited to fly to Aspen,
Colo., with their three young sons. They dreaded a repeat of last
winter's ski trip, when a snowstorm hit while they were
transferring in Chicago on their way home.


      "We had to return via Philadelphia, and I had to rent a car and
drive everybody home at 11 at night," Mike Mellis recalled.


      His wife had been trying to forget, saying, "I've blocked it
all out."


      Mulvihill reported from Haddonfield, N.J. Contributing to this
report were Associated Press writers David Goodman in Detroit;
Samantha Bomkamp in Washington; Lucas L. Johnson II in Nashville;
Verena Dobnik in New York City; and John Seewer in Elmore.
      

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As travelers take to road, air and sky in the
sometimes-hectic last days before Christmas, they should keep one
thing in mind: It could be worse.

Going's good for most holiday travelers, for now

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