Photo courtesy Craig Murphy, via Flickr

OK, so Iceland, and pretty much everyplace else in Europe, is out.

But if I could fly anywhere in the United States this weekend, I’d choose Denver.

There’s no volcano erupting there, but this weekend the city is hosting Doors Open Denver – a free event that offers a look inside dozens of buildings around town that are usually closed to the public.  My column on msnbc.com this week, Welcome! The Door is open, includes a run-down of half a dozen cities that host this sort of event, but here’s a preview, along with some photos that didn’t make it into the posted story.

(Photo by Gregory Thow)

Billed as a celebration of the city’s built environment and design, the 6^th annual Doors Open Denver takes place April 17-18 and includes 80 to 90 buildings around town that are usually off-limits to the public. This year’s theme is adaptive re-use so you’ll get to see many old buildings being used in creative new ways.

This year, participating sites include the city’s old main post office, which has been turned into a high-security federal courthouse; a restored mansion that serves as the Colorado Governor’s Residence; a theater in a former mortuary; a Yellow Cab garage that now houses businesses and residential units; and the Historic Sugar Building, which was built in 1906 as the headquarters for the Great Western Sugar Company and now houses office and retail space, and two original Otis cage elevators.

One sure-to-be-popular site is the Daniels & Fisher Tower, which was once the tallest building in Denver. The Italian Renaissance Tower has a restored lobby with marble floors and walls and a 17^th floor boasting a giant clock-face and a balcony that offers great 360-degree views of the city, the surrounding plains and the mountains.

(Courtesy: Gregory Thow)

More doors opened
If you can’t make it to Denver this weekend, don’t worry. Doors at many other usually off-limits locations will soon be opening in cities throughout North America, including Toronto, New York, Chicago, and in Lowell, Mass.

May 13-15 are the dates for the 9^th annual Doors Open Lowell event, which will feature everything from reclaimed and restored mill buildings to a 1920’s classical revival Masonic Temple with curious chambers and meeting rooms, and the subterranean space that once housed giant turbines for a power plant that ran a local mill.

During Doors Open Toronto, held on May 29-30, 150 buildings of architectural, historic, cultural and/or social significance will be open to the public. Highlights include: Toronto’s City Hall, which offers self-guided tours of the Rotunda, the Council Chambers and the Observation Deck, and the five-story red brick Toronto Flatiron Building, which pre-dates New York City’s famous Flatiron building by about ten years. Also open to the public will be the Canada Life building, which has a weather beacon and a 17^th floor tower room offering a panoramic view of downtown Toronto and Lake Ontario, as well as the restored circa-1920 Canon Theater — once the largest and most elegant vaudeville and motion picture palace in Canada.

Mark your calendars: New York hosts Open House New York on Oct. 9-10, with more than 200 sites participating throughout all five city boroughs, including the Woolworth Building, Radio City Music Hall and the Atlantic Avenue Tunnel, which is accessed not by a door, but by a manhole.

(Courtesy Jeffrey Donenfeld)

For a round-up of the airline swine flu change policies as of Friday, May 1st, 2009, see this handy chart put together by the folks at Airfarewatchdog.com.

Keep in mind, though, that policies might be in flux and that many airlines have announced significant cuts in their scheduled flights to and from Mexico even since this list was put together.

So, as always, the advice is – check your airline’s Web site and/or call to get the latest information.  Then – check again.

Source: Airfarewatchdog.com May 1, 2009

For more details about the cuts, see this article in the Chicago Tribune and this article in the Wall St. Journal.

And after you read some of the details about a Northwest Airlines luggage theft ring busted at Oregon’s Portland International Airport, you’ll probably want to figure out how take that next trip with just a carry-on bag.

And – just so this isn’t a post full of bad news – the Miami International Airport officially opened the new South Terminal Art Gallery with a new program called Hand Made, which will feature handcrafts from around the world.

The first exhibition is Siesta, a collection of hand-woven products featuring ceremonial hammocks and bags by the Wayuu people from the region of La Guajira in northern Colombia.

This is getting sort of old. Flights into and out of ANC has been canceled repeatedly over the past week.  In fact, as of Monday, Alaska Airlines had canceled more than 250 flights since March 22, affecting more than 10,000 passengers and leaving folks stuck in airports such as Seattle, Phoenix and, of course, Anchorage.

According to this KTUU.com report, those stranded passengers include the Alaska Aces hockey team, which had been scheduled to fly back from Phoenix but has decided to stay in the Lower 48 rather than risk getting stuck in Anchorage and not be able to play at Utah this weekend

In the meantime, they’re getting some great photos!

Mt. Redoubt- March 30th. Photo by Heather Bleick; courtesy of the Alaska Volcano Observatory / U.S. Geological Survey.

Volcano ash is serious stuff; it can limit visibility and ruin engines.  So the airline is taking no chances: 45 flights were canceled earlier this week due to previous eruptions from Mt. Redoubt, leaving more than 4,000 travelers stuck at the airport, at home, or somewhere they didn’t plan to be.

If you’re scheduled to fly to or from Alaska, check in with alaskaair.com or 1-800-ALASKAAIR.  In the meantime, you might want to follow the mountain’s activities on the Alaska Volcano Observatory Web site.  It has photos, seismic graphs, airport flight status reports, and instructions for collecting ash fall – finally another use for those Ziploc bags!

(Photograph of Mt. Redoubt taken from Diamond Ridge near Homer, by Dennis Anderson. At 9:50 Am  March 26, 2009)

Folks are also ending up stuck at airports all across the country today due to snow in Denver and tornado activity in the south, so if you’re going anywhere, be sure to check in with your airline before you leave the house.

The airline is still operating flights south of Anchorage and throughout Southeast Alaska, but says that may change as all the routes get revaluated.

To find out about refunds and rebooking, be sure to contact the airline as soon as possible. You can also keep track of their updates on Twitter.

Sometimes, when airlines say a delay or cancellation is due to weather, we don’t believe it.  But I don’t think anyone can make a case against this ash-cancellation.

Image courtesy Heather Bleick and Alaska Volcano Observatory / U.S. Geological Survey