If you follow the news, then you know that last week a pilot died mid-flight. Luckily, the plane landed without incident. The pilot was 60 years old, and apparently died of natural causes, which brings up a topic that we’ve touched on here before on The Window Seat: how old is too old to fly?

Back in December of 2007, then-president Bush approved fast-tracked legislation to raise the pilot age from 60 to 65. The thinking was that if a pilot could pass the same rigorous, standardized medical tests as the younger set, then there’s no reason to bar them from the yoke of the plane. Many people, myself included, applauded this decision, seeing it as an end to age discrimination.

The sky was nearly cloudless, the air was cool, and the early-summer evening sunshine streamed over Iceland’s Blue Lagoon, a giant, natural geothermal pool just 45 minutes from Reykjavik. At a toasty but comfortable 102 degrees, the sometimes-florescent, milky-blue waters contain minerals from the nearby lava rock that are said to have healing powers.

There is no chlorine here. The waters are completely natural, which is why all visitors must go through a rigorous cleansing regimen before and after using the baths. After you pay, you’ll be given a locker key and sent to the communal showers, where you must soap up completely from head to toe before you are allowed access to the baths. There is even a shower attendant on hand to make sure everyone is completely lathered. It’s not for the shy, but the natives are so nonchalant about this routine that it’s hard to get embarrassed.

I'm taking a flight to San Diego tonight, and already I've had several people look at me aghast. "But flying!" they say. "The germs! What if someone coughs next to you on the plane? What about the swine flu?"

Of course, Joe Biden's comments yesterday about "a confined aircraft where one person sneezes....that goes all the way through the aircraft" haven't helped my case, but I'm certainly not panicking. Not in the least, in fact. Here's what I plan to do:

1. Give Lady Macbeth a run for her money with my handwashing.

This week's question comes from Tamyra in Baton Rouge, La., home of the giant Frostop roadside root-beer mug:

With so many teary Oscar acceptance speeches this week, I thought I’d examine another emotional spectacle: Crying at 30,000 feet. For some people, it just comes easier. It’s even an expected part of the sounds of take-off: engines roar, wheels retract, bins shuffle, and babies cry. And cry and cry and cry. It’s the ear pressure, the strange environment, and probably a little of mommy or daddy’s nervousness, but, for the most part, when babies cry most passengers accept the noise without too much aggravation.

But, as you might have noticed, babies aren’t the only ones crying on the plane.

With spring break around the corner, upcoming travel plans can be the biggest threat to your waistline.  Even with your best intentions to be health conscious, your eating regime goes on vacation the minute you leave home.  The long wait times at the airport, delays, and solitude (if you're traveling alone) sometimes allows us to submit to the gauntlet of grease, cinnamon, sugar, and buttery goodness at the airport terminals or train stations.

I've learned several helpful tips to stay healthy and fight the battle of the buldge while traveling:

Keep Hydrated

Buy a bottle of water once you've cleared security.  Water will keep you hydrated while you're on the plane and help fight the high-calorie soda temptations.

Brown-Bag It

Today is Halloween, I am aware. However, there is something about fall weather in New York that gets people thinking about one thing in particular: The Marathon (We don’t call it the ING New York City Marathon. We’re New Yorkers, there is no need to modify. We live in the City, we eat pizza and cheesecake, and we run in the Marathon). This weekend, I am running the Marathon. A mixture of excitement and fear has been welling up for weeks. This will not be my first marathon, but it will be my first marathon in my hometown. To help with my training, I was recently given the opportunity to take a running tour around my fair city with City Running Tours, which popped up in a post this time last year

Is there anything more depressing than the trip home from the airport when you’ve just arrived back from a vacation? Besides the likelihood that I’m jet-lagged—and the fact that my homecomings always seem to coincide with midnight and rainstorms—for me, this leg of a trip marks the beginning of what friends have termed my “post-trip depression” period: two weeks of grouchiness characterized by statements like, “I think I want to move to [insert most recent destination here].”

Food. It’s all the rage lately. And as a lifelong devotee of its joys (and even its disappointments), I’ve been enthralled by the resurgence of conscious cooking and eating over the past few years: the (slow) death of squeamishness, the booming of farmers’ markets across the US (who would have expected it in the nation that spawned the Big Mac?), and the resurgence of local, farm-to-table eating across the country. Call it what you like—becoming a “locavore,” joining the “slow food” movement, practicing responsible eating—but it all rests on the simple concept of eating what’s in season and grown or raised nearby using natural, sustainable methods. It’s a concept that I wholeheartedly buy into—especially when I travel.

Through the windows of Ottawa’s Parliament building, senators are likely to see something that you wouldn’t expect on Parliament Hill: a Cobra; a Cat; and a Downward Facing Dog.

If you’re a follower of the ancient tradition of yoga, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Keep in mind, I am no yoga expert, but you don’t have to be an Ashtanga master to know there’s something special about Yoga on Parliament Hill, one of Travelocity.ca's Local Secrets, Big Finds. This free yoga class, sponsored by Lululemon Athletica, lures locals to the lawn of Parliament Hill, just along the banks of the beautiful Ottawa River.