Well, gang, we’ve made it to the mid-point of the summer travel season. For folks who’ve had to scale back or cancel summer plans due to rising gas prices, airline fare hikes, or the deeply dipping dollar, it’s already a miserable summer.

I’ve been there and it stinks. Rising gas prices, and comments such as “Let’s check your temperature, Missy,” have put my planned road trip to the nation’s airports on hold.

But for you glass-half-full folks eyeing the August calendar and still holding out hope for some sort of summer vacation, there’s still time to have fun. You may just need to be more flexible and a bit more creative than usual.

So get out that “souvenir” pen you took home from that last hotel stay. In my Well-Mannered Traveler column today on MSNBC.com – part of the “My Miserable Summer” series – there are some tips for salvaging a summer vacation.

(Column illustration by the very talented Duane Hoffman. Thanks!)

Last week I wrote in Portfolio.com about the unusual ways some airports have found to earn income - such as growing and selling hay planted on airport acreage to signing contracts to allow outside companies to drill for oil and gas underneath airport ground.

That article also noted that, for some time now, Reno-Tahoe International Airport and McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas have been raking in the bucks from slot machines scattered about inside the airport terminals.

According to a report in the Arizona Republic, the mayor in Phoenix, Arizona thinks putting slot machines at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport is a great idea. But Phoenix isn’t Nevada, where gambling is legal pretty much everywhere. So to make this idea work, the city would have to create a profit-sharing agreement with a Native American tribe.

It’s do-able, but not yet a done-deal. The paper reports that the slot-machine scheme is just one of the ideas a revenue-enhancement team is exploring to help solve budget shortfalls for the entire city of Phoenix.

Got some other ideas? Casey Newton at the Arizona Republic (casey.newton@arizonarepublic.com) has offered to gather them up and forward them on to the mayor who, he says, “will give you - at his own expense - a weekend at the downtown Sheraton, complete with tickets to a sporting event or other cultural experience” if the city uses your idea.

750 tons of sand will soon be trucked into the Munich Airport Center forum for a volleyball tournament.

From August 1 through the 17^th, the Munich Airport Center Forum will host “Rio on Tour,” which will feature professionals and amateurs “digging, volleying and smashing on three courts.”

(Photo courtesy Munich Airport)

For the first three days, volleyball professionals from the “smart beach tour” will be showing spectators how it’s done. Then there’s a week-long tournament for company-sponsored teams, followed by a Family Day (August 10^th) when players from the “Rote Raben”, the reigning champions of the German women’s volleyball league will teach visitors the finer points of the art of volleyball.

To close out the Airport Beach Season, from August 15-17, the top volleyball teams in Bavaria will face-off for a three-day tournament for the state championship.

Sounds like a great use for airport facilities. And it’s free! For more information see:www.airport-beach.de.

You may still be recovering from last weekend, but the folks at Germany’s Munich Airport are already planning next weekend’s activities.

On July 19^th and 20^th, the covered, open-air Munich Airport Center Forum is hosting openairport, “the first rock and pop festival ever to be staged at a major European airport.” Admission will be free and the music will include everything from hip-hop and funk to ska and reggae.

Here’s a link for more details and information about the bands.

Maybe this is what US airports can do with all those big open terminal spaces if the airlines keep cutting back on flights.

Photo courtesy Munich Airport

Heard that one before?

On July 4^th, San Diego International Airport (SAN) introduced a new set of videos at the security checkpoints. Starring roles are played by the San Diego Zoo’s Bamboo Bear, Legoland’s Johnny Thunder, the San Diego Padres’ Friar, and Shamu from SeaWorld.

Want to see a whale going through the metal detector? I did - but I didn’t have a trip to SAN planned anytime soon.

So I’m pleased to see that the airport has posted the video on YouTube.

Heading to Milwaukee this weekend for the grand opening of the 20-acre downtown Harley-Davidson Museum or planning to be there later this summer (August 28-31) for the Harley-Davidson 105th Anniversary Celebration?

Keep an eye out for the 1956 Harley-Davidson model Kh that belonged to Elvis Presley. And check out the 13-foot customized motorcycle known as the “King Kong.”

And don’t forget: there’s always free parking for motorcycles at Milwaukee’s General Mitchell International Airport.

And if you can’t make it to Milwaukee this summer - or don’t even have a motorcycle - here’s one you can cut-out and and make at home.

When you’re stuck at the airport, wouldn’t it be great if there was a place where you could take a shower and a nap or just close the door and watch a movie or get some work done?

In some airports there are. A great example is the YOTEL, the short-stay hotel located inside the South Terminal at London’s Gatwick airport.

The brainchild of Simon Woodroffe, a brash British entrepreneur who also created a conveyor belt-style chain of sushi bars called YO! Sushi, the 46-room Gatwick YOTEL offers rooms that are a cross between what you might find in a Japanese pod-hotel and an amenity-rich first-class airplane cabin. But these rooms also include full showers, flat-screen TVs, wireless Internet access and room service.

Travelers can book a YOTEL room for as little as four-hours. So it seems ideal for those times when you’ve just come off a long flight or have a super early departure in the morning. Prices start at about $50 for a standard cabin for the minimum four-hour booking, but during August, to celebrate the GATWICK YOTEL’s first anniversary, overnight stays will go for under $100.

Not traveling through Gatwick? There’s a 32-cabin YOTEL in Terminal 4 at London’s Heathrow airport and another YOTEL scheduled to open at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport later this year.

So sleep tight - but sleep fast!

Flying anywhere this holiday weekend? I volunteered to serve as a courier and will be heading to the Montréal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport (YUL) to pick up Joplin, a retired service dog being adopted by a friend.

While I’m there, I may have just enough time on the ground to do a little shopping for maple products and local handicrafts in the airport shops.

In the meantime, I bet lots of folks will be spending this weekend complaining about the high price of gas. And I bet on Monday, like the people I talked to for this week’s Well Mannered Traveler column on MSNBC.com, some of them are going to do something about it.

Column illustration by MSNBC.com’s Duane Hoffman

I’ve got a long list of services and amenities I’d like to see offered at airports. Speed-dating and remedial classes in packing are on the list.

And so is tattooing.

Which is why I was tickled to see that, along with a jazz trio and an Uncle Sam on stilts, the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) hired an air brush artist to paint tattoos on some of the 1.1 million passengers expected to pass through the airport this holiday weekend.

Photo taken by Sarah McDaniel-Langhorst of DFW International Airport staff.

Marian Anderson, Mario Lanza, John Coltrane and Dizzy Gillespie are just some of the 107 legendary musicians, singers, and entertainers from Philadelphia honored with bronze plaques downtown, on the city’s Avenue of the Arts, on Broad Street between Walnut and Pine.

But not everyone can make it downtown. So now, for folks who are stuck at the airport, there are portraits of 44 Philadelphia-rooted legends on display at Philadelphia International Airport (PHL).

(From the Art & Exhibitions section of the PHL Web site)