Each Friday on msnbc.com’s Overhead Bin, I tackle a reader’s travel-related question. This week’s topic was flying with cremated remains.

Dottie Flanagan, an accounting manager from Falmouth, Mass., will be flying to Knoxville, Tenn., in a few months to bury her mother’s cremated remains.

Flanagan isn’t sure yet which airline she’ll fly on or whether she’ll fly out of the airport in Boston or Providence, R.I., but she wrote to Overhead Bin to ask if there might be a problem taking the urn along as a carry-on item.

“The funeral parlor gave me the urn wrapped in bubble wrap and placed in a bag with handles,” said Flanagan. “It is ceramic with pink roses on it, shaped like a ginger gar and about 11 inches high. The lid is glued to the bottom and it cannot be opened. I’m sure I could obtain a letter from the funeral home certifying what was in the container if that would help.”

To help Flanagan with this task, I first reviewed the “Transporting the deceased” section of Transportation Security Administration website. There we learned that while passengers are allowed to carry a crematory container as carry-on luggage, the container must still pass through the X-ray machine. According to the TSA, “If the container is made of a material that generates an opaque image and prevents the Transportation Security Officer from clearly being able to see what is inside, then the container cannot be allowed through the security checkpoint.”

Paperwork from a funeral home about the contents of a container will not exclude it from screening and the TSA states that “out of respect … under no circumstances will an officer open the container even if the passenger requests this be done.”

As a precaution, TSA urges travelers to get a crematory container made of wood or plastic that can be successfully X-rayed. That still left me wondering about Flanagan’s ceramic container and we asked TSA spokesperson Nico Melendez to take a look at a jar similar to the one Flanagan will be carrying.

“Most urns will go through the X-ray machine with no problem,” said Melendez, “and this looks like porcelain, and should be fine. The problems we have are with containers made of lead that are difficult to see through, which is why we ask people to travel with the simplest container possible.”

If an urn is turned away from the security checkpoint, Melendez points out that the TSA does permit urns to be screened and placed in checked luggage. But some airlines specifically prohibit crematory containers from checked baggage.

The bottom line? For the final word on transporting cremated remains to their final resting spot, check with your carrier.

(Photo courtesy Flickr Commons.)

Categories: Air Travel, family travel, Rules
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Photo courtesy Alliance Chamber of Commerce

Carhenge, a classic and kitschy roadside attraction just outside of Alliance, Neb., is up for sale.

Price tag: $300,000.

Created 24 years ago by Jim Reinders during a family reunion, Carhenge is a sculpture made of 38 gray-spray-painted vintage American cars replicating Stonehenge, a prehistoric monument in Wiltshire, England. Some of the cars stand upright, while others are welded in place to form arches.

“It’s astronomical what Carhenge means to our community,” said Dixie Nelson, executive director of the Alliance Chamber of Commerce. “More than 87,000 people visit it each year. The people in Omaha said they wished they had it, even though they already have so many attractions there.”

Not long after he built it, Reinders gave Carhenge, and the 10 acres of farmland it sits on, to the nonprofit Friends of Carhenge, a group that has maintained the site and improved it over the years with a building, a parking lot and additional sculptures.

But Marcia Buck, president of Friends of Carhenge, says the group no longer has the money or the staffing to do Carhenge justice. “We do what we do and we do it every summer, but we recognize there’s more that can be done out there. Putting in an RV park or a restaurant or expanding the building, for example, would take a lot of cash that we just don’t have.”

Buck said she’s talked with Reinders, who now lives in Arizona and visits Alliance and the sculpture about once year. “He’s always surprised it’s lasted this long,” said Buck. “And he understands.”

This story first appeared on msnbc.com’s Overhead Bin.

Categories: family travel, Fun Stuff
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(From my post on msnbc.com’s Overhead Bin)

Earlier this week, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that children under 13 years old soon will no longer have to remove their shoes at airport security checkpoints.

That’s great news for families, of course, but also for any traveler who has had to wait in line behind a 3-year-old balking at being parted from his Spider-Man sneakers.

I asked Transportation Security Administration spokesperson Lisa Farbstein to explain what families, children and general travelers need to know about the new kid-friendly checkpoint procedures.

Q: What will be different?

A: The modification is that we will allow kids 12 and under to leave their shoes on. We will also permit multiple passes through the metal detector and advanced imaging technology by children to clear any alarms as well as [employ] the greater use of explosives trace detection. The idea is that these changes in protocol will ultimately reduce — though not eliminate — pat-downs of children that would have otherwise been conducted to resolve alarms.

Q: Will there be exceptions?

A: Yes. Children may be required to remove their shoes, and could still undergo a pat-down, if anomalies are detected during security screening that cannot be resolved through other means. These changes will allow officers to better focus their efforts on passengers who are more likely to pose a risk to transportation while expediting the screening process.

Q: When will it start?

A: The changed procedures are already in effect at many airports, with full implementation expected by Sept. 26.

Q: Weren’t some airport already doing this?

A: In August, we tested the new procedures in a pilot at six airports: Boston, Atlanta, Miami, Orlando, Houston (IAH) and Denver. Those pilot sites were selected based on airports that had a higher volume of travelers in the desired age range to allow for a better overall sample during our testing.

Q: What tweaks were done in response to the testing?

A: For security purposes, we can’t get into that. But here’s an interesting factoid: Children in the 12-and-under age range represent about 3 percent of all passengers, although during peak travel seasons at certain airports, children may make up about 8 percent of the passengers.

(Photo courtesy TSA)

Categories: family travel, TSA
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Each Sunday StuckatTheAirport.com takes a look at the souvenirs you can get when you’re stuck at the airport.

This week, the souvenirs come from the sky, courtesy of Fly the Branded Skies, an airline-focused website that has a section devoted to the junior wings just about every airline used to hand out to young passengers.

Delta and a few other airlines still do hand out junior wings, but instead of metal the modern-day wings are plastic or, in some cases, merely a sticker.

Categories: Air Travel, Airlines, family travel, Fun Stuff, Kids, Kids travel, Souvenir Sunday, Souvenirs
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Here’s a sneak peek at the Route 66 slide show I had a little too much fun putting together for Bing travel.

Seat belts on?

The Gemini Giant is the official greeter at the Launching Pad Restaurant in Wilmington, about 60 miles southwest of Chicago. A former fiberglass “muffler man” statue designed to show off an oversized automotive part, the Gemini Giant now wears a pointy space helmet and holds up a rocket ship advertising the restaurant’s name.

The Fanning 66 Outpost is a general store with a taxidermy shop, archery range and wide-range of Route 66 souvenirs. Out front, and impossible to miss at a smidge over 42 feet tall and 20 feet wide, is what the Guinness World Records has declared to be the World’s Largest Rocking Chair.

Hugh Davis built this smiling, 80-foot long blue whale in 1974 as an anniversary present for his wife, Zelta and, not long after, the whale became Catoosa, Oklahoma’s most popular public attraction. The creature fell into disrepair in the 1990s, but it’s been rescued and revived by the Catoosa community.

I’ll circle back with some more kicks from Route 66, but in the meantime, there are lots more photos – and links – back on the Route 66 slide show on Bing.

Categories: family travel, Fun Stuff, Road Trip
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