S5, E19: Feel-Good Fridays | Pottery, a History-Making Pilot, and a Salmon Race Worth Following

Every Friday through the end of June, Unpacked is popping into your feed with a brand-new series designed to carry you into the weekend a little lighter. In each episode, host Aislyn Greene and producer Nikki Galteland are joined by a different Afar staffer to share three travel stories that made them smile, tear up (in a good way), or rethink what’s possible. Funny, inspiring, heartwarming—the only rule is no downers.

Transcript

Nikki Galteland: This is Unpacked by Afar. I’m Nikki Galteland.

Aislyn Greene: And I’m Aislyn Greene, and today we are joined by the wonderful editorial director, Billie Cohen.

Billie Cohen: Yay! On Feel-Good Friday. We flatter each other, apparently.

Aislyn: Yes. And you’re here because it is feel good Friday. We’re so happy you’re here.

Billie: We’ve been waiting all week for it.

Aislyn: Yes, it’s really Friday, too.

Nikki: We’re not even lying about it. We have gathered today to share some stories that are making us feel good this week. So on today’s episode, we have 250 million reasons to look in a river.

Billie: Wow. Oh my gosh. A great reason to take your mom to rural Minnesota for Mother’s Day.

Aislyn: Can’t wait to hear about that. And speaking of women, the first woman to be named United’s most senior pilot.

Nikki: That’s all coming up after the break.

Aislyn: All right, so we’re back to Feel Good Friday. Nikki, let’s start with you. Because you’re dancing today. You’re making us all feel good. So what feel good story do you have for us today?

Nikki: Yes. So basically this week I’m really feeling the changing of the seasons. And it’s like it’s spring, it’s baby season. So I’m feeling good about that. Obviously I love the chicks and goats and lambs and all of them, but I’m a Pacific Northwest born and raised person. And so I’m particularly excited about the salmon. Ooh.

Billie: What other animals are you excited about that are Pacific Northwest? Are there others?

Nikki: Okay, so there’s a steelhead which are in the same family. They’re actually a type of trout, but they’re making their swim as well. And then obviously the orcas are very exciting. There’s a new baby in the L pod, which is one of the the local pods up in the Seattle area in Puget Sound. Um, and they’re, you know, their life is hard. They need these salmon. So I’m very excited about the salmon. It’s the time of year where they like they’ve hatched. They’re in the rivers. They’ve got to like make their way down through the Puget Sound and try to get to the Pacific Ocean. And it is this like epic quest of a journey that they have to go on. So they’ve got to avoid the seals and the sea lions that are trying to eat them, got to avoid the pollution, got to get around the dams. And to celebrate this journey that they’re going on, there’s a nonprofit called Long Live the Kings, as in like King Salmon. And they made a game out of it. So you can go online and you can pick a fish to like be your little fish champion. And it has local artists that have like made cool art and they all have cute little names. And so you can pick your fish. And then they use the scientific tracking data that they’re using for research about salmon habitat and migration patterns to like, see what your salmon does and if it makes it to the ocean or not.

Billie: That’s the cutest thing.

Aislyn: That is amazing. But how do they get those trackers into the salmon? Like, how does that part of it all work? Is there somebody out there just stuffing trackers into?

Nikki: Pretty much. Pretty much. So technically they’re using the steelhead apparently because they’re like a little bit bigger, but they, they catch them and they put a little tracker in their belly. And then it’s like an acoustic tag. So that part isn’t maybe like quite as feel good, but the research is very important. They need this data and then they repurpose the data into a little game slash competition. That’s especially sweet for school kids to do and like, get excited about conservation and the environment.

Billie: That is really cool. Can you watch this happen in real life or you’re not? Are you supposed to stay, you know, far away from wildlife and let them do their thing?

Nikki: No, you can absolutely like this would be a great time if you’re near a Pacific Northwest river, like take a peak and you might see some baby salmon or other fish like making their way downstream. It’s it’s the perfect time. There’s literally millions of them. So no promises. But if you are in the right place, like get up on a bridge, wear your polarized sunglasses and look down into the water, like you might see some young salmon heading off for their great adventure.

Billie: That is so cool.

Aislyn: You could maybe try to find your salmon and and name it.

Nikki: Exactly. And all the names are so cute. They’re like fishy fish face and like Pier 57, they’re like all punny, cute little things. And it reminds me too. It’s so sweet. I think part of the reason I have such a soft spot for this program is that when I was a kid in elementary school, our librarian would set up a fish tank every spring full of salmon eggs, and we would, like, observe them hatch basically like you could like see the little embryo forming and like they start to get the tail with the like egg sac still attached. And then once they were big enough, they would release them at a hatchery. So I legitimately do think they’re cute and I’m definitely rooting for them to survive.

Aislyn: Oh my gosh, one of my favorite things to do when I was a kid was go to the Ballard Locks, you know, and then you can actually see the salmon jumping there. There’s a really cool exhibit and such a fun, fun way to engage.

Nikki: So yes, I truly believe everyone should spend some time admiring fish this season. But first, Aislinn, I’m excited about your story because I believe you are taking us from the sea to the sky.

Aislyn: Yes. Oh, I love this one. Because today we’re going to be talking about Chresten Wilson. She’s the captain who just became United’s most senior pilot, and she is the first woman to ever hold that title.

Nikki: That’s incredible. Tell us more. Who is Chresten?

Aislyn: Yes, Kristen. Well, there’s this great Instagram video that we’ll link to in the show notes where you can meet Kristen. It’s very sweet, but she’s 64 years old and she knew she wanted to be a pilot when she was 9 years old. She went up on some kind of like scenic photo shoot with her dad, and she was like, this is where I want to be. I want to be in the skies. And then when she was 12, I guess they were living in Denver and they passed some kind of United training facility. And she told her, mom, I’m going to be there some some day. And she made it happen.

Billie: Oh my gosh. Wait, what does it mean to be the most senior pilot?

Aislyn: Yeah. So I wondered that too, because I was like, does she have a big role? Like, is she going to be in a parade? You know, like what?

Billie: She should be.

Aislyn: She should be. Yes. She’ll be in a parade that we start. But it basically means that she has been flying with United the longest. But that is out of 18,000 pilots. So to raise to that level is very difficult. And that’s why, you know, it hasn’t been a woman before because typically it’s been men. But what I really love about her story is that when she was a kid dreaming about being a pilot, there were no female pilots at all in the commercial airspace. So there was nothing out there that showed her the way.

Billie: She made the way. Yeah, that is so great. Speaking of tracking salmon, there should be a tracking of crescent so we can, like, see what flight she’s going to be on, because now I want to fly with her.

Aislyn: Yes, yes, we can link to some of that stuff in the, in the show notes, because she does have set international routes and she flies a certain plane like she’s the captain of a certain plane. So you probably could try to get on a Chresten plane and then shake her hand on the way out.

Nikki: So her fan club, right?

Billie: Will be like groupies.

Aislyn: What should our name be?

Nikki: The Crazy Chrestens.

Aislyn: The Chresten Waves.

Nikki: The Chresten Waves. Yeah. I feel like this is part of this beautiful wave. Speaking of waves of women in the travel industry, like breaking new ground, it’s making me think of, um, Julia Cooke’s book about women who became flight attendants in, like, the sixties and 70s.

Aislyn: Yeah, it is amazing. You know, that it’s only been such a short time that women have been in these roles, you know, in our lifetimes or in our mothers lifetimes. And she did acknowledge that there were some female pilots that came of age when she was like, in her late teens that paved the way for her at United. So there’s a woman named Gail Gorski who was the first female pilot. And then there’s Captain Teresa Claiborne, who was the airline’s first black female pilot. So, you know, I’m going to be googling all of them this weekend and finding out how I can fly with them.

Nikki: Yes.

Aislyn: Speaking of the weekend, Billy, what do you have for us on this glorious Friday?

Billie: So I’ve actually just occurred to me that we had water. We had sky. And now I’m talking about the land. All right, cover all the elements here on Feel Good Friday. But the thing that’s making me happy is also because it is spring and almost summer. It is time for quirky local trail season. And that’s like, yay! It’s like it’s the start of this fun part of the travel season where you can experience places by basically driving through pretty areas around the world where real people live and seeing them do something themed and specific.

Nikki: Amazing. Like what? Give us the details.

Billie: So there’s this great thing that happens every Mother’s Day weekend in Minnesota. It’s called the Saint Croix Valley Pottery Tour. And it’s not too far outside of Minneapolis. And so there are 7 pottery studios out in this beautiful part of the state that host just like open studio sales, meet the artist days. So you can go to these seven studios And me, like hundreds of potters from around the state and around the country, and they’re all close together. So you could hit them in a day. And you follow these cute, like red and yellow signs that tell you where to go. And one of them I remember was like this sprawling like a country. I don’t know, it was a beautiful yard, you know, like very big with a nice, a nice house in the back. But then just the whole area was filled with different potters and there were tables and you could talk to them about what they were creating. And it’s not like I’m a big pottery person, but I was with a friend who was, and it just introduced me to this cool art scene in Minnesota that people like every year get really excited about. Right. But also a newbie like me could get something out of it. And I have some stuff I bought and I got to meet artists and it just, it introduced me to a different part of the Minnesota experience. And there’s a lot of that kind of stuff that happens in the summer. There’s another pottery one that happens in Maine.

Aislyn: It’s reminding me, Billy, of that story, that travel tale that you did a couple of years ago about Estonia and how all of these different people open up their homes and serve meals. So number one, like you seem very drawn to that type of experience. And number two, can you tell us more about, I don’t know, eating in Estonia? Because that episode made me fall in love with Estonia, which who knew.

Billie: Absolutely everybody should go to Estonia. One of the best places I’ve ever been. And yes, I love I love a travel experience. Any opportunity I have to like have an excuse to talk to people and they don’t think I’m a crazy person, is is very welcome. So in Estonia, this super cool thing that they do, which also begins pretty much in May and runs through the summer, almost every weekend through the summer, they call them open cafeteria days or open cafe days. You might see them either way. And people either in a town or in a region, open their homes and they all will cook something, and you can go to their house and eat with them. And if it’s a beautiful day, then you’re eating outside, right? They might set up like a little campfire and you can everybody sits around the fire and eat some sort of fish stew or, I met a family the grandma had like, woken up at 4 a.m. in the morning to bake this current cake that I love and still dream about. And you just drive from place to place and you can go to people’s houses and eat the thing they make. And, you know, for a small fee, it’s super cheap. But it’s like this entry point into meeting real people who were there. And they’re not doing it for tourism. Like I was the only American person. And I went to three over the course of a weekend, and I was the only American person that those people had had at their event, you know, that that weekend. So it’s not like it’s a thing people are traveling for. And I realize by saying this, I’m ruining it.

Nikki: Um, maybe not yet. Right.

Billie: But they do it for like their own local communities.

Nikki: It’s amazing.

Billie: Really, really cool. And it’s easy, like a lot. Some of them will post online and you can like download a map or, or follow it from Facebook or something. And some of them have like full blown web pages. It’s very easy to get around Estonia. The roads are it’s all super modern and like most people speak English.

Aislyn: Amazing.

Billie: Great way to travel. So go to Minnesota and go to Estonia.

Aislyn: You know, they’re both food related. You know, you can buy the plates in Minnesota and eat off of them in Estonia. So I don’t know about you guys, but I’m feeling very good at the end of this Feel Good Friday. Yes.

Nikki: Yay for spring. Let’s go. This was a Feel Good Friday episode of Unpacked by Afar.

Billie: Make sure to tune in every Friday for a dose of good news from Afar’s favorite travel writers.

Aislyn: You can subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and follow @AfarMedia on social.

Nikki: And don’t forget to subscribe to our Behind the Mic newsletter at Afar.com.

Billie: This show is part of the Airwave Media Podcast Network. Music from Chris Colin and Epidemic Sound.

Aislyn: We’ll see you next Friday.