Airports Visited - April 2024 Update

Egypt at SMF - June 2023

 All-time list of airports visited: 

Chris - 129

Kellisa - 62

Lisa - 48

Egypt - 44

Chris added three new airports while traveling for work: Juneau, Lewiston, and Missoula.

Kellisa and Lisa remain the same.

Egypt is catching up after adding DFW and LaGuardia.

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Kellisa's 62nd Airport Visited

 

Airports Visited - 2023 Update

Kellisa - October 2018

 All-time list of airports visited: 

Chris- 126
Kellisa- 60
Lisa- 48
Egypt - 42

* March 6, 2023 *

In 2022, Egypt added LAX and Chris added Palm Springs, CA and Kodiak, AK. In early 2023, Lisa added Long Beach, CA, Washington Reagan, and LaGuardia, NY. 

We all flew to St. Louis in January 2023, but no one added a new airport. This was Kellisa's first flight since February 2020, by far the longest stretch of her life.  

____________________________________________________

This is usually one of my favorite posts because I get to reflect on the new places we visited during the year. Kellisa, Egypt, and Lisa didn't fly to or through any new airports in 2021. The girls didn't fly at all due to COVID. In fact, this was the first full calendar year for either girl without a single flight. 

Lisa had one trip and it was back to Chicago.

I had another busy travel year for work,  including 5 trips to Alaska, but I only added 2 new airports- Bozeman, MT and Fairbanks, AK.

I'm hoping we can all add at least 1 new airport in 2022!

Airports Visited - 2020 Update

All-time list of airports visited:

Chris- 122
Kellisa- 60
Lisa- 45
Laurel- 41
Evie- 5

2020 - Chris added Great Falls, MT. Before COVID shut down the world, Egypt flew from Las Vegas to Sacramento (One-Way) and both girls and Lisa flew R/T from Sacramento to Portland, OR, but didn't add any new airports.

2019 was another year where all of our family trips were to Chicago to visit family. Lisa and Evie didn't visit any new airports. Laurel had one father/daughter trip where she added Hollywood/Burbank and Salt Lake City airports to her list. 

Kellisa and Chris added Billings and Kahului while working on their book. Kellisa also added Boise, Oklahoma City, and Salt Lake City while Chris added Redmond/Bend, San Francisco, Vancouver, Victoria, and Saskatoon while working his regular job.

Back to Kellisa's Path Blog

Black Mesa

Memories Revisited:

Kellisa's 8th State Highpoint

Black Mesa, Oklahoma

4,973ft.

Round Trip Hiking Distance: 8.4 Miles

Elevation Gain: 654ft.

April 2008

Our first father/daughter Spring Break trip happened in 2008. The main objective was to reach the Highpoint of Oklahoma. The plan was to fly to Amarillo, TX and have our cousin Matt pick us up, as he was able to join us for this trip. However, we almost did not make it to Amarillo. We had a stopover in Dallas that included a severe seizure that lasted longer than 5 minutes. Paramedics had to be called and airport police also hustled to the scene. Just as everyone was arriving, Kellisa popped out of her seizure.

Since the paramedics were on scene, they had to check Kellisa out. At the same time, a police officer starts questioning me about Kellisa. "Where is her mother? Is she Hispanic? Do you have the mother's approval to be traveling out of state?" I did not let the questions bother me as I figured he was just doing his job in a border state. Kellisa checked out OK and they offered to transport her to the hospital for further evaluations. Did I ever miss Lisa at this point. We are use to making joint decisions in these situations.

If we go on...am I just being selfish? Would I ever forgive myself if something happened in the air?

If we stay...we are entirely stuck in Dallas and for how long? Matt will be waiting in Amarillo for a long time.

Even though Kellisa struggles with communication, we try and give her a say in these situations. Kellisa was looking good as she did not have the usual paralysis that follows even a mild seizure. I'm sweating bullets as I ask her if she is OK and ready for one more airplane ride. She answers "Yes" and that was good enough for me.

We were far from our gate and it was past the departure time. We hurry to the gate and to our good fortune, the gate agent has held the plane because he had seen us at the gate earlier and knew we where around somewhere. He was also listening to the rescue on his radio and assumed it was us. I was very appreciative that he held the entire plane about 15 minutes just for us.

How about one more problem? We fly Southwest and they are well known for not assigning seats. With Kellisa, we are always the first to board. However, being the last on a full flight would mean that we both would get stuck with middle seats and who knows how close together? I think the gate agent saw some fear in my face and correctly assumed why it was there. He told us not to worry because he had the flight attendants hold two seats in the front row. Gotta love Southwest! The flight was uneventful and we met Matt at the airport just as planned.

The following day we made the long drive to Black Mesa as we introduced Matt to Hannah Montana. Almost 4 years later, he can still sing some of the songs he heard that spring day.

Kellisa is all smiles at the start of the hike:

Views along the trail:

Most of the elevation gained on this hike can be seen in the picture below as the rocky trail works it's way up the side of Black Mesa:

The next 8 pictures were taken by Matt as I pushed Kellisa up the trail to the top of Black Mesa:

Looking back over the landscape from the top of Black Mesa:

Even though we made it to the top, we still needed to hike approximately 30 minutes along a relatively flat trail to the granite monument that marks the actual high point:

The top of Oklahoma:

At the edge of Black Mesa before we started our descent:

Kellisa still smiling back at the car:

Beautiful sunset as we leave the highpoint area:

Original Blog Post Date: January 20, 2012

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Airports Visited - 2018 Update

Evie 1st Flight: SAC - MDW

All Time List of Airports Visited:

Chris- 114   Kellisa- 55   Lisa- 45   Laurel- 39   Evie- 5


At the end of last year, we created a post with the number of airports we've visited. 2018 was a slow travel year for us with three trips back to Chicago as our main destination. Kellisa and Chris went on a few hiking trips which added new airports and we flew to Southern California to pick up the newest member of our family, Evie. Since Evie went on all our flights back to Chicago, she was the big winner with 5 new airports visited.

Evie: Sacramento, Oakland, Denver, Chicago- Midway, and Indianapolis. Kellisa's new airports: Spokane, Kansas City, and Little Rock. Laurel: Ontario and Indianapolis. Lisa: Ontario. Chris: Spokane.

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Airports Visited

Airports Visited:

Chris- 113   Kellisa- 52   Lisa- 44   Laurel- 37

Lisa visited Idaho for the first time in 2017 bringing her states visited total to 40 something and it was the first calendar year that Chris, Kellisa, and Laurel didn't have any new states to cross off their "visited/hiked" list. As the year is coming to its end without any trips planned, I felt the need to update some kind of list. While thinking about the possibilities, I realized that I added several new airports visited for my "mostly" Monday-Friday job this year (Calgary, Bismarck, Omaha, Wichita, Tulsa), so I started to think about Lisa and the kids. I pulled out my trusty road atlas and started making lists of airports visited.

Laurel visited four new airports in 2017: Boise, Columbus, New Orleans, and Dallas- Love Field. Lisa added three: New Orleans, Dallas-Love Field, and San Diego. Kellisa only added one to her total- Columbus.

Back to Kellisa's Path Blog

National Parks Visited

With a visit to Biscayne National Park during Spring Break 2015, Laurel has now visited 12 National Parks and Kellisa has 21.

 

Complete Lists (Multiple visits in italics):

 

Laurel- Biscayne, Carlsbad Caverns, Congaree, Cuyahoga Valley, Death Valley, Everglades, Guadalupe Mountains, Lassen Volcanic, Mammoth Cave, Redwoods, Rocky Mountain, Voyageurs

 

Kellisa- Arches, Big Bend, Biscayne, Canyonlands, Carlsbad Caverns, Congaree, Crater Lake, Cuyahoga Valley, Death Valley, Everglades, Grand Canyon, Great Smoky Mountains, Guadalupe Mountains, Joshua Tree, Lassen Volcanic, Petrified Forest, Redwoods, Rocky Mountains, Shenandoah, Voyageurs, Zion

States Visited- Laurel

With the Carolinas, Laurel has now visited 28 of the 50 United States:

 



States Visited (Laurel)

June 2014

After visiting Connecticut and Rhode Island, Laurel has now visited 23 states before her 5th birthday:

39 States

Kellisa has visited 39 states:

Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin

Last new state(s) in red.

Southernmost Point

Southernmost Point

Continental U.S.A.

Key West, FL

November 8, 2003

Apex to Zenith #96

APEX TO ZENITH

Highpointers Club Newsletter

First Quarter (Spring) 2012 Issue #96

Article summarizing Kellisa's first 21 state highpoints can be found on pages 30 and 31:

Mount Arvon

Kellisa's 21st State Highpoint

Mount Arvon, MI

1,979ft.

September 2011

Elevation Gain on Hike: 160ft.

Round Trip Hiking Distance: 1 mile

I was fortunate to have Matt with us for the Michigan highpoint. You need to follow a confusing network of logging roads to reach the trailhead and I knew I could use his help with navigation. Also, having Matt along provided extra confidence to attempt these roads because it had been raining all day. I was worried about the condition of the roads and the thought of getting stuck far from help might have caused me to skip Mount Arvon on this trip if I was alone with Kellisa. Thankfully, we had Matt to support our trip.

Matt pushing Kellisa in the rain:

I took over as we neared the summit:

Summit photos:

Headed back down through the mud after a short summit visit:

Kellisa receiving water by g-tube back at the car:

Next on our list of goals was a backpack trip on Grand Island. I was not looking forward to the long drive ahead as we would have to backtrack along the log roads before a long drive around the Huron Mountains to the Grand Island area of the Upper Peninsula. Shortly after leaving the trailhead parking area, we noticed a homemade sign pointing deeper into the North Woods with the simple words: Big Bay. I knew Big Bay was a small town on the other side of the Huron Mountains. I also knew from studying maps that Big Bay could not be reached from the Mount Arvon area on marked roads. The weather was getting worse as the afternoon was slipping away. Matt and I looked at each other and we decided to "go for it"! 

Without any planning or real thought, I followed the sign towards Big Bay and blindly headed deep into the Huron Mountains. I can say that I would have never tried this uncertain route, especially in the wet conditions that we were facing without Matt. We did have plenty of food, water and camping gear, so I knew we would be OK for a few days if we got stuck. 

Old logging roads crisscrossed the woods and most junctions were marked with a version of the homemade Big Bay sign. Whenever we had to make a decision without the benefit of a sign, we would select the road that looked right. We were trusting the signs to be accurate. There were many spots where the road was near impassable. When in doubt, I would speed through the deep mud hoping to make it to the other side before getting stuck. We were slipping, sliding and even went airborne more than a few times. Of course, Kellisa was laughing from excitement as it felt like we were riding a rollercoaster. At the time, it was hard for me to enjoy the ride because I knew there was a good chance of something bad happening on this road.

Fortunately, we made it through the roughest stretches of road in a couple of hours. As we neared Big Bay, the road improved a little and we were able to stop to take the following photos to document what would be a true highlight of our trip: