Travel letters: Love LAX, but the wait at customs …

I enjoyed the “LAX” story by Chris Erskine (Oct. 2). As a transplant to L.A. (26 years ago) and as someone who travels through that airport, on average, four times a year, I feel it’s one of the best in the country. The horseshoe-shaped Los Angeles International Airport is far easier to navigate than, say, Boston’s Logan or whatever they call it in Minneapolis. The story was colorful and did a nice job highlighting the people who keep it running.

Jay Wilson

Lawndale

The LAX article says that the airport makes more the $100 million in profit annually. Then why does the airport have so few customs agents? At 3 p.m. on Sept. 19, my wife and I had to wait (after an 11-hour flight from London) 1 hour and 45 minutes to get through customs. The line for non-U.S. travelers was three times as long and extended out into the hallway leading back to the arrival gates. Those travelers probably had to wait considerably longer.

John Kuney

Ojai

Rich in wonders

Regarding “Convict Lake Worth a Getaway” by Susan Spano (Oct. 2): U.S. 395 north to Mammoth and Convict Lake is one of the most interesting roads in the world. It is impossible to be bored. All one has to do is obtain a copy of “A Field Guide to Southern California” by Robert Sharp (a longtime Caltech professor of geology) This is a roadside geology book with 44 pages devoted to geological and historical details of every mile from San Fernando to Mammoth. A passenger reads a paragraph keyed to the location of the car and then joins in spotting the relevant geological formations.

Owens Valley is rich in geological variety. Another benefit is the time will pass quickly.

Jim Cliborn

Topanga

Now, listen up

I enjoyed Catharine Hamm’s On the Spot column on airborne screaming infants [“High-Flying Criers,” Oct. 2], except for the advice to use “inexpensive but effective earplugs ... or ... noise-canceling headphones.” Sorry, but this should be junked in the same rubbish bin as other travel-tip cliches such as dressing up to score a free upgrade. In my experience, earplugs, noise-isolating headsets and especially noise-canceling headsets make the problem worse by blocking the white noise (e.g., engine and wind roar), allowing the full spectrum of the baby’s screams unfettered access to one’s ears.

Largely, this is because of how such products work. Noise-canceling headsets cancel out steady and constant sounds within a fairly narrow frequency range (which don’t include screams or even normal conversation). Earplugs, noise-isolating headsets and the earpieces of some noise-canceling or normal headsets reduce the volume of sound also within a certain range of frequencies.

Randall Gellens

San Diego