Flying with your Nook - and your Book

Just returned from a mini-vacation which involved a three hour flight each way. I do fly fairly often, but this was the first time with my brand new Nook Color.

I was excited! I loaded it up with a bunch of a books for the trip. Some I purchased, and some I downloaded from the library. I was so ready!!

Here's what I learned:

• Make sure you fully charge your Nook, or Kindle, or eReader before your trip. Turn your wireless settings off, so it won't use too much power or interfere with the pilot, you know, flying the plane.
• When you go through security, you still have to take your laptop out of your bag and place it in a separate tray (so annoying.) But not your Nook! In fact, so many people must have been flying with their new eReaders that the security guards kept announcing "Nooks and Kindles can stay in your bags."
• If you are a nose-in-your-book, introverted reading nerd like I am, take along a paper book, too. I packed a lightweight paperback that I read during take-off and landing. But once you're in the air, you are fine to turn your electronic device on (power up that Nook or Kindle) and read the great story you are into! Or finish a piece of short fiction, because you have so many loaded on your Nook. Or read magazines. Newspapers. You have a whole library to browse through, so pick whatever you are in the mood to read!

Want to know the two books I read (concurrently) on the trip?

On the Nook, I'm reading REVOLUTION, by Jennifer Donnelly, which is a captivating novel weaving together stories of two teenage girls that live 200 years apart, one in present day and one during the French revolution. I felt like a teenager myself when the steward told me to "power off all electronics" as we started our descent, and I read really fast until I finished the chapter I was on.

I also had along a paperback titled THE CALL: A Novel, by Yannick Murphy, an unusually-told book about a veterinarian and his family, which I read during take-off and landing.

One year ago, I was one of those people who insisted that I only liked paper books. Real books, I called them.

Well, I'm here to tell you that I've changed. I love my Nook. I love reading on my Nook (I can turn it sideways and prop it up!) and I'll grab it anytime I have to travel, as long as I have electricity and a place to plug it in. I'm getting too damn old to backpack, but if I do, I'll take a couple of paperbacks. But for me, for now, it's my Nook, my Nook, my Nook!

Have you flown with your eReader yet?