Mother Nature's Departure Lounge

So you're stuck in the San Diego airport for three hours while they fly in a replacement screw for the paper towel dispenser in the economy lavatory. What would be better: Sitting at the Cinnabon stand for half a day or taking a walk in the wild?

The National Fish and Wildlife Service has come up with a helpful list of places where you can turn your layover into a field trip. Turns out that at least five major airports are within easy-outing distance of National Wildlife Refuges, giving beleaguered passengers an opportunity to breathe something other than airport air for an hour or two.

One of them, San Diego Bay National Wildlife Refuge, is within a trolley ride of the San Diego airport. Click on www.fws.gov/sandiegorefuges/Sweetwater.htm for info on how.

Here are FWS's other promising airport/refuge combos. Check the links for information on how to get from the terminal to the terra.

Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge, just eight miles from Denver's Stapleton Airport (http://rockymountainarsenal.fws.gov).

Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge, two miles from Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport (www.fws.gov/midwest/minnesotavalley).

Patuxent Research Refuge in Laurel, Md., "30 minutes from BWI" (http://patuxent.fws.gov).

John Heinz at Tinicum Refuge, just one mile from Philly's PHI (http://heinz.fws.gov).

By Steve Hendrix |  February 23, 2007; 3:53 PM ET  | Category:  Steve Hendrix
Previous: Three London Airports in Three Days | Next: The Web's Greatest Hits (for January at Least)

View or post comments

Posted by: umm | February 26, 2007 11:38 AM

Posted by: susan Rothchild | February 27, 2007 1:14 PM

The comments to this entry are closed.