Spirit Airlines is an upstart discount carrier that often offers crazy fares. "Can you believe it?" says its current fare sale. "Spirit has (fares) from only $19 each way."

So can we believe it? Is it possible to get a $19 fare? And where do these fares get you?

From Washington Reagan, there is no $19 fare, just a $74 one-way fare to Fort Lauderdale. The two $19 fares are from Fort Lauderdale to both Nassau and Freeport in the Bahamas. I put the sale through a test to see whether I could get the cheapest fares to Fort Lauderdale, combine them with the cheap seats to the Bahamas, and come out way ahead. Let's just say, you need to be very flexible to have a chance of getting everything to line up. Quick disclaimer: I tried this out on May 8 and the sale had started May 6, so availability was probably better early on. The sale ends at midnight tonight (Friday).

While the sale is good for travel from May 14-Aug. 19, the cheapest seats are available for Monday-Thursday travel between May 14 and June 18. I tried many different combinations of flight dates before coming up with $74 availability from DCA to FLL departing May 19 and returning May 28. (Hint: You're much more likely to get the fares in each direction if you stay longer. I had little problem getting them if I was willing to be away for 10 days or longer.)

Once I got that fare, I then plugged in the same dates from FLL to Freeport: No trouble getting the $19 fare each way, but the connection times wouldn't work unless I opted for a return flight from Fort Lauderdale to Washington that would cost $70 more.

I then got a brainstorm: Why not see if I could get a cheap flight on another carrier to Fort Lauderdale with better connections? I found a $186 round-trip fare on US Airways that worked: It cost $17 more than the cheap Spirit fare, but I could then make the $19 Spirit flights from FLL to Freeport. Ouch: Once taxes and fuel surcharges were added, those $19 fares ballooned to $136 round trip. But for $322 total, I could get to the Bahamas: Priced directly from Washington, the flights would cost at least $401, so I'd save $79.

But there are downsides. I'd have to either do carry-on only, or lug my bags between carriers. And if my first flight was canceled or late, I could be in trouble since US Airways and Spirit don't have a recipricol agreement.

Personally, I'd rather just pay the extra $79, but if I were traveling with my family, that type of thinking could change. What would you do?

Oh, and one more tip: When you're booking on Spirit, make sure you unclick the boxes that want to add an extra $21 to your fare for travel protection and to become a member of their club.

Monday's chat with the Travel section Flight Crew (most Mondays at 2 p.m.) was a busy one, with readers weighing in on such varied topics as Hawaiian B&Bs, Charlottesville dining, honeymoon planning and pickpockets in Italy. We asked for ideas about how to save $$ on summer travel, and we got some great suggestions. Here's a sampling:

Well, we're saving money on our summer vacation this year by not taking one. Perhaps an extreme approach, but it works.
But seriously, sometimes it's fun to play tourist in your own back yard. Make a list of things in your area that you've never seen, set a week aside, and go do them. Bonus points for using public transportation to get to them. Extra bonus points for stopping the mail that week as if you really were on vacation.

One creative daughter has another plan:
My parents have found a way to cut their summer travel costs: me! They will be going to Atlantic City for a few days, where I will meet them and drive them to New York. We'll spend a few days in New York, then I'll drive them back to the Philadelphia airport on my way back to DC. Meanwhile, I'm saving money by sharing their New York hotel room, so I suppose it all works out.

More staycation methods:
Due to both gas prices and the economic concerns, actually I am planning to stay in town, take time off, and do all those things I always wanted to do: bike to Alexandria, see Mt. Vernon, go on top of Washington Monument, visit Library of Congress, Dumbarton Oaks, etc. (couple weeks ago Weekend section had a great list). The best way to do is when you do not stay at home, so if you can afford a hotel B and B in town that is great, otherwise, I'd suggest doing a house swap with one of your friends so you get to be "on vacation". If you stay at home, you get pulled in the regular stuff and errands... I do this quite often when I do housesitting for my friends, it gives me an opportunity to "go on vacation" and see other parts of the city I've never seen. I recommend you swap houses with someone totally from another part of town, for example I live in MD and had a house in Reston last week. I biked to Town Center, went to Wegman's, went to the Dulles Space Museum, Leesburg... you get the idea.

Here's a plug for in-town vacationing:
Vacationing at home: Did this one year and had a great time. One plus: If you like chatting with new people, you have a chance to meet a lot of retirees during the days while everyone else is working. Had a great conversation at a tiny county museum with one man who'd been in the Merchant Marine immediately after WWII; another one at a pie shop counter about the air conditioning business (not so historical, but useful.) Pie is a good vacation experience too, by the way.

Doubling up on family reunions is one idea:
We are going to S.D. for vacation this summer... combining a family wedding with a week in the Black Hills. We have rented a house there for a mini family reunion. Invited a brother in law and sister in law who are financially strapped to come from the West Coast. So for us, it will be a chance to see them and for them... a very cheap vacation... all they have to do is get there!

Another chatter broke it all down by the numbers:
Gas prices shouldn't make that big a difference in most people's plans. Let's say you're planning to take two weeks and drive to Miami and back. If you're on a budget and are planning $150 a day for hotel, meals, and entertainment, that's $2100 over 14 days. Miami is 1100 miles from here, so round trip, getting 25 mpg, you'll need 88 gallons of gas. Last summer, at $3 a gallon, that would have been $264, bringing your total cost to $2364. Now, if you end up paying $4 of gallon. Your total trip cost has increased by about 4 percent, from $2364 to $2452. That's equivalent to an extra $6.28 a day. For a family of 4, you can make up the cost by spending 52 cents less per person on each meal.

Any more hints? We're running a round-up of ideas this coming Sunday, so if you have your own money-saving vacation tips for your fellow readers, speak up!

Don't hold your breath for improvements in the air traffic control system -- or for a time when business jets will pay their fair share of the cost of the air traffic control system. Legislation including those provisions -- to say nothing of reauthorizing the FAA for another five years -- has gotten bogged down in partisan bickering over unrelated matters. Congress might simply temporarily reauthorize the FAA as it is now and put the important bill in hiberation until next year.

Among the things in the bill that won't likely get done in timely fashion:

* A provision requiring airlines to provide food, drinking water, cabin ventilation, toilet facilities and access to medical treatment when planes are stuck on the ground for hours.

* Funds for a satellite-based air traffic control system that could help clear the congestion that makes so many planes so late.

* A provision to raise the fuel tax on business jets from 21.8 cents a gallon to 36 cents a gallon, which proponents say would make the system more fair to the slugs in commercial planes who pay for the bulk of the air traffic control system.

Republicans objected to the tax increase and wanted less allocated to roads and highways, and there was some complicated mess about pensions. But much of the verbiage was about a fight involving rules for offering amendments to the bill. The Democrats failed in an effort to cut off debate.

This kind of thing happens so often it must seem perfectly natural on the Hill. From my desk, it's ridiculous. Do you tear down your house when your family members can't agree on new curtain colors?

Then again, the bill might have gotten vetoed anyway: The White House doesn't like a provision that would strengthen collective bargaining power for air traffic controllers, and one about requirements for FAA inspections of foreign maintenance centers.

To paraphrase Rodney King: Can't you people just get along, or at least get moving with the important things you do agree on? Am I missing something here?

The beetles have arrived, but it's nothing to yeah-yeah-yeah about.

An invasion of the destructive bark beetle has caused a number of parks and forests in Colorado and Wyoming to close or delay openings of several camp and picnic sites.

It's hard to imagine that a bug the size of a raisin can cause so much damage. But then you don't know the bark beetle.

The culprit: A Mountain Pine beetle or bark beetle. (AP File Photo/Ed Andrieski)

The black, hard-shelled villains burrow deep into pines, feeding and laying their eggs inside the trunk. Eventually, the trees can no longer receive water or nutrients, causing them to starve to death. To make matters worse, the beetles act like generous hosts who invite their whole extended family, plus friends, to come visit. One tree is not enough for these buggers, when they can inhabit the whole grove or mountainside. (Indeed, in Colorado alone, the beetles have infested about 44 percent of the state's 1.5 million acres of lodgepole pine.)

Besides the ecologic crisis, the infested trees also pose a threat to hikers and campers. Officials fear that the sick or dead trees will topple onto unsuspecting park visitors. Therefore, they must close specific areas to clear the trees (and hopefully Raid those evil bugs to extinction).

According to an Associated Press report, the U.S. Forest Service will close 21 campgrounds and recreation sites in Colorado and Wyoming for the summer; 17 additional sites will have delayed openings. Affected places in Colorado include the White River National Forest (six campground delays, three closures) and Rocky Mountain National Park (July opening of Timber Creek Campground, partial closures at campgrounds on the eastern side and in the backcountry). In Wyoming, officials at the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest will close the Hog Park campground and picnic site to clear an estimated 9,000 trees.

For more information on closures, check the Web site of the U.S. Forest Service. And to see what the tree-killer looks like, check out its mug shot at the University of Arizona's School of Renewable Sources.

Shopping for summer airfares, shocked at the prices, and wondering if you should wait for a sale?

You could do that, and maybe you'd get lucky, but the experts aren't betting on it.

Big reason: jet fuel prices. You may be thinking, "But they've already added some hefty fuel surcharges, so won't that take care of that cost, and maybe even discourage some people from flying, so the the airlines will have empty seats they have to dump?"

Actually, even with fuel surcharges of $10 to $50 even for a short-haul flight, airlines aren't coming close to passing along the increases in jet fuel prices. "The surcharges so far don't come close to covering the increased [jet fuel] costs," says Wake Forest economics professor Rick Harris, who specializes in airline pricing and capacity issues. "Airlines are eating at least half of the increased costs, easily," he adds.

His prediction: "I expect these surcharges will be substantially higher before all this is done. I see higher prices by the middle of summer throughout the heavy travel season into mid-fall. Maybe substantially higher."

Here we go again.

In pigeon advocacy circles, these are perilous times indeed. For one thing, the birds have been targeted by local governments around the world, many of them tourist hot spots like New York, London, Los Angeles and now ... Venice.

Buying a bag of bread crumbs and feeding the winged residents of the Piazza San Marco was, for generations, a tourist's rite of passage. Even after a ban was imposed on pigeon-feeding in other parts of Venice, the area around St. Mark's was given special dispensation for a time. But starting today, May 7, it is illegal legal for tourists or locals to feed pigeons in St. Mark's or anywhere else in the floating city, and violators risk incurring a 50 euro fine ($78).

The anti-pigeon movement is now nothing short of an international phenomenon, it seems, and one that appears to be picking up speed. Feeding the birds in London's Trafalgar Square can now get you a fine of up to $1,000, Los Angeles is experimenting with a form of pigeon birth control, and anti-pigeon legislation is pending in New York and several other cities.

Much of the anti-pigeon rhetoric centers on the contention that the birds are diseased (although in Venice's case, their pecking has been blamed for damage to monuments). Hence the "rats with wings" adage. But while pigeons are indeed nuisances (one bird produces 100 pounds of droppings over its 4-year lifespan), pigeon advocates claim that the birds are more victim than perpetrator.

Victims, that is, of an unfair public relations campaign.

"Contrary to popular belief, cases of pigeon diseases spread to humans are extremely rare," says a statement on the blog People for Pigeons. "Why then do we read horror stories in the media every day about the 60 or 70 fatal diseases that pigeons are supposedly capable of transmitting to human beings?," says a statement on the Save the Pigeons Web site. "Because the pest control industry and those that have a vested commercial interest in controlling pigeons have a very efficient propaganda machine constantly churning out scare stories designed to sell their products."

And so, even as the anti-pigeon stalwarts are mobilizing against the birds, a group of equally stalwart pro-pigeon types is mobilizing too. New York's Central Park is poised to host a happening of sorts on June 13, National Pigeon Day having been declared. (The date if you're wondering, was chosen because it's on June 13, 1919, that Cher Ami, one of World War I's most celebrated carrier pigeons, died as a result of war wounds.) Among the day's sponsors are groups like In Defense of Animals, not to mention United Poultry Concerns.

In short, what we have here is an issue poised for a showdown, and the feathers may well fly. Pigeon advocates claim that the birds are a critical element of urban culture, often the only living things in a sea of concrete. Pigeon-haters think it's long past time that these Hitchcockian flocks be brought under control.

Well, what do you think?

I recently wrote about the state of Atlantic City in this space (it ain't pretty), but now comes word that an entire chain of casinos is in trouble: Tropicana Entertainment LLC has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

The company says it will keep its properties open and staffing will remain level.

Troubles began for Tropicana when the New Jersey Casino Control Commission stripped the AC property of its license. According to the Associated Press report, "That touched off a funding crisis that the company desperately struggled to fend off until filing for protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware, listing assets of $2.8 billion and liabilities of $3.3 billion." The filing covers nine properties, including its Las Vegas casino; the AC property is in the process of being sold and is not part of the filing.

This comes on the heels of layoffs at MGM Mirage and lower earnings at Strip casinos, including Vegas's Wynn resort, which reported a 20 percent dip in profit earlier this month.

So what's going on? Clearly, we're wising up. With prices generally higher for everything, it makes perfect sense that casinos -- still a huge draw for travelers, don't get me wrong -- would feel the pinch. Add in the fact that a few airlines with a lot of service to Vegas have disappeared (Aloha and ATA among them), and you can almost see the money fleeing the city.

Newsweek has an interesting story on the fact that Vegas isn't recession-proof anymore. It makes an interesting point: One reason gaming revenues are down because there's so much more stuff to do. According to the piece, "Roughly 60 percent of the Las Vegas Strip's revenues now come from nongaming activities. By contrast, in 1991 and 1992, when the last comparable slowdown occurred, nongaming activities provided just 42 percent of overall revenue. 'This is different from prior downturns,' says Bill Lerner, a Deutsche Bank gaming-sector analyst. 'Now that there are a lot more nongaming amenities, the visitation mix is leaning toward nongamblers, and the consumer coming to Vegas is different now than it was.'"

So what does this mean in the general scheme of things? It could mean some great hotel deals this summer in Sin City -- and if you don't plan to sit in front of a slot machine, all the better. (Sites like Vegas.com are a good spot to look for bargains.) Heck, I love Vegas, just because it's a fun, easy place to chill (give me a buffet and a pool bar and I'm happy).

Now, if I can just get a good airfare . . .