MKE

MKE brings back coat check service

Airport amenities come and go.

But we’re delighted that Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport (MKE) brings back its coat check service each winter.

Coat check services will be available inside the pre-security Summerfest Marketplace store at MKE starting November 1, which is probably just about the time Wisconsin residents start thinking a vacation in Florida or Hawaii sounds like a really great idea.

The service will be available seven days per week through April 1 for just two dollars per day, with a maximum charge of ten dollars. 

And the coat check service will stay open until the final flight of the day arrives even, MKE promises, if there’s a delay.

We’re nominating this for Airport Amenity of the Week.

Travel Tidbits: airports offer art, history & music

MKE Slalom

“Slalom” at Milwaukee’s General Mitchell Int’l Airport

Milwaukee’s General Mitchell International Airport has a new piece of art – a kinetic work by Tim Prentice called Slalom in the baggage claim area.

The piece includes a gently undulating ribbon of reflective kinetic elements that float overhead and weave through the building’s support columns and will create an “ever-changing sequence of varied and unpredictable effects,” said Prentice.

SFO Museum presents: I Love You, California

SFO SNAKE

Red diamond rattlesnake skeleton. Courtesy of Ray Bandar & SFO Museum

At San Francisco International Airport, the SFO Museum is presenting “I Love You, California,” an exhibit exploring the state’s natural history through the collections of the California Academy of Sciences. Look for “invertebrates from abalone to deep sea squid, birds such as acorn woodpeckers and tufted puffins, plant pressings including the state flower, the California poppy, land and marine mammal skulls, fossils, and a myriad of minerals,” illustrating the diversity of the “Golden State.”

The exhibit is in the Departures Level, pre-security, of SFO’s International Terminal through January, 2016, but if you don’t think you’ll be going that way before then you can see a selection of the items displayed here.

Free concerts

And in the Washington, D.C. area, Washington Dulles International Airport and Reagan National Airport are presenting the fifth season of the Summer Jazz Series of free concerts.

DCA JAZZ

At Dulles, the concerts will take place near the East Security Checkpoint on the ticketing level between 2:30 p.m. and 4 p.m. On Thursday July 30th, Two Smooth Duo will offer R&B tunes; on Thursday August 13, Lennard Jack and Fusion will play Caribbean jazz.

At Reagan National, concerts will be held from 12:30 to 2 p.m. pre-security on the Concourse Level across from Cosi near Terminal C or across from Cibo near Terminal B. The line-up includes the Heart Song Trio on Thursday, July 23, Lennard Jackson and Fusion on Friday, July 31 and the Potomac Jazz Project (classical jazz) on both Thursday, August 6 and Thursday, August 13. More details here.