20260610 ACL Encore Columbia-Snake River Cruise - Day 9/10 Lewiston, Idaho to The Villages

American Cruise Lines Encore - Columbia and Snake River Cruise Day 9/10 – Clarkston to Lewiston to Salt Lake City to Orlando to Home - The Joy of Modern Air Travel

Ah, travel. The joy of seeing new places, experiencing wonder and beauty, and enjoying the luxury of modern air travel. Travel is great, except for that last part. We awoke to the notice above, indicating that our first flight of the day was already delayed. Woo hoo. The saving grace was that we had a three-hour layover in Salt Lake City, so the 40-minute delay shouldn't be an issue.

Our shuttle to LWS - Lewiston Nez Perce Airport was scheduled for 8:30 this morning. We set an alarm for 6:45 to allow for time for breakfast, brushing teeth, tossing the last items into the carry-on, and so on. At 6:30 - *bong*bong*bong* - Cruise Director Chelsea came on the overhead speaker shipwide announcing that the early shuttle was now loading. That's what you call a rude awakening.

We got dressed and went down to breakfast. As we were finishing up at 7:30, she announced that all rooms were supposed to be vacated by now. Yikes, again. We got back to the room, took care of the last-minute things, and went down to the River Lounge to wait for our 8:30 shuttle.

One nice touch was that the bags that we put out were loaded directly on the bus, so we didn't touch them again until we were at the airport.

The welcome sign as we walked off the ship

Like Lewiston, there isn't much right here, but a Walmart, Costco, and other shopping were a short walk away

We made the 10-minute bus ride, leaving Washington and returning to Idaho, arriving at the airport right on time.

Looks pretty impressive

It's not - this is the whole place

We were there before 9:00 am - the Delta counter didn't open until 10:30

ACL has a lounge across from the Delta counter - it wasn't much, but it was a seat

ACL delivered box lunches with a turkey cold-cut sandwich, a bag of chips, and a cookie a little after 10:00. Once the Delta counter opened, we checked our bags. We tried to buy a Coke Zero from the vending machine, but it was broken. Rinky-dink is the name that comes to mind when describing LWS, Lewiston - Nez Perce Airport.

TSA finally opened, and we went through security to the gates - two gates. Lucky for us, there was another vending machine so we could get Coke Zeros. Unlucky for us, even though we could see plenty of bottles in there, the machine kept saying, "Sold Out".  Have I mentioned rinky-dink?

Anyway, we all crowded into the small waiting area, awaiting our inbound aircraft. It eventually arrived at 12:15 pm, seriously jeopardizing our 12:41 departure.

There wasn't a jetway, but there was this spiffy mobile ramp

To understand how small this airport is, it only has two gates - the left door is Gate #1, and the right door is Gate #2

One interesting aspect was that the entire ground and gate crew were women. The ramp mover, wheelchair pushers, gate agent, luggage team, aircraft hookup crew - all female. 

It's always good when you see your bags getting loaded on your aircraft.

There goes my bag onto the aircraft

Arlona's bag went on next

One interesting thing happened before we boarded. I saw our flight crew, specifically our Captain, in front of the aircraft, frantically waving his hands to get the pilot's attention. A disembarking passenger's straw hat blew off his head when he stepped onto the mobile ramp. The hat landed on the front of the jet, directly over the pilot's window. Once our pilot got the incoming pilot's attention, that pilot opened his side window, reached up, and retrieved the hat. I wish I had figured out what was happening, as it would have been a great photo.

Our scheduled 12:16 departure time, which was revised to 12:56, and then revised again to 12:41, turned into 1:03 in reality. It was bumpy much of the way, but we must have gotten a good wind boost, as the planned 1:45-minute flight time only took about 1:15.

Launching out of Lewiston

Catching a little snow on the mountains as we headed southeast

Seeing more mountains as we approached SLC

You can just make out the south tip of the Great Salt Lake in the distance

We made a leisurely stroll from our arrival gate, A18, to our departure gate, A45 - the same gate used for the flight from Salt Lake City to Portland.

Our incoming plane arrived on time, so we had no worries about an on-time departure. We have also received a text confirming that our driver would be there at the airport when we get into Orlando later tonight. That's one more thing we don't have to worry about.

Since everything looks good, I will wrap today's blog here. We should be home tonight, probably around 1:30 am. I will put together a trip wrap-up blog entry tomorrow with a trip summary and our thoughts on the trip and American Cruise Lines.