The Joys of FedEx

A short time ago, a FedEx delivery guy dropped off the last of my gear from the trip out West. What a great service.

Since I was going to use both skis and a board, I had a lot of stuff to transport out there: a briefcase (with computer), a large suitcase, skis, ski boots, a board, and boarding boots.

Thanks to my boarding bag, all my boarding stuff fit into one package. A second package was my ski tube. At that point, I would have been over the airline limit, meaning my suitcase would cost me another $50 each way ($100 round trip). That’s assuming that I used my briefcase as a “personal item” and lugged the 15 pound bag of ski boots with me. But I was not going to repeat that painful trek of last year.

So I took checked my snowboarding bag and suitcase on the airplane, and used my briefcase as my carry-on. All manageable. I used FedEx to ship my ski boots (boxed up) and skis (in a hard-shell travel tube) to and from Aspen. Total cost for both items, round trip: $50.

Upside: I got to try out both sports at a minimal transportation cost. I also saved my shoulders from lugging a heavy boot bag around the airport.

Downside: I had to take my ski stuff to a FedEx office on both ends of the trip. Given the value of my time, I might have done just as well to pay the excess baggage fee to the airline. On the other hand, it was nice to not have to deal with so many pieces of luggage at one time.