Sigh.

The day I’ve been fearing for months has finally arrived. Independence Air has announced it is ceasing operations effective Thursday night, Jan. 5.

This might not mean much to most of you readers, but Independence’s hub was at Washington Dulles airport (IAD for you travel geeks) and quickly became a favorite of mine because it offered cheap flights to a good number of places where Division III schools are located. I took six flights on Indepdence in the past 15 months, and sent Keith McMillan places via Independence on a few other occasions.

We’ve enjoyed the convenience, the service and the price, which enabled us to be at games like Capital/Wittenberg and the Cortaca Jug last year and Wheaton/North Central, UW-Eau Claire/UW-Whitewater, Amherst/Trinity (Conn.) and UW-Whitewater/St. John’s this year (as well as three basketball games last season). But we also had to figure that such bargains couldn’t last. We’ll have to work harder for bargains in 2006.

Is it too late to start collecting Wendy’s cups?