REDMOND With a two-hour wait Wednesday before her plane left the runway at Redmond Airport, Kris Jett read the preface of a book profiling Osama bin Laden.

Jett, a surgeon who lives in Bend, was on her way to Chicago to visit her daughter, Courtney, a freshman at Northwestern University. The mother and daughter plan to visit theaters, museums and the Sears Tower this Thanksgiving weekend.

”She’d rather have me come out there than her come home,” Jett said.

Though the amount of Thanksgiving travelers in Redmond is down this year since Sept. 11, Jett said her worries have subsided. She noticed more security and a lot more awareness Wednesday morning at the airport.

At the start of the Thanksgiving weekend, airport and bus travelers still had the events of Sept. 11 fresh on their minds. But even a nation at war couldn’t keep family members apart from one another, no matter how far.

”We’ve been so naive for so long,” said Jett, who flew on a plane from Switzerland one week before the Sept. 11 attacks. While on her trip, news reports in Switzerland warned of potential attacks against the United States.

”Nowhere other than America is it as easy to travel. It’s so good to see these guys with berets,” she said, referring to National Guardsmen. ”I’m really assured.”

Based on the number of cars parked overnight Tuesday, airport Manager Carrie Novick said the number of travelers is down about 25 percent from previous years. Last year on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, 325 cars remained in the lot overnight. Tuesday evening, 257 vehicles were scattered throughout the lot. The airport has two fewer flights scheduled since Sept. 11. And unlike in the past, the airlines have not oversold flights, she said.

”We’re pretty busy (during the week) usually,” Novick said. ”But, I don’t know how much of this is from 9/11 or the economy. Obviously, by looking at the parking, we know we’re down.”

”Good or bad, we’re in a new world, and we were just pushed into it.”

Concerns about security over the holiday weekend kept Cindy Tintle’s husband, Don, from joining her on a trip to Orange County, Calif., to spend Thanksgiving with her family. He’ll stay in Bend and watch the dog, and maybe go cut firewood, Tintle said.

”He feels really bad,” she said. ”He doesn’t want the family to think he doesn’t like them. He’s nervous for us, too.

”I have no fear,” she said, holding her son, Max, who will celebrate his first birthday over the weekend. ”We already flew before to Florida (since Sept. 11). It’s kind of different flying out of here. You don’t see all of the hub-bub.”

David Ericcsen and his 6-week-old son, Jacob, didn’t cancel their trip to British Columbia. Their family will meet up at Whistler to ski this week for the fourth year in a row. Ericcsen said he even got tips from Jacob’s doctor about flying with a newborn.

”It’s safer than driving,” he said.

That’s why Heather Bartlett, a senior at Oregon State University in Corvallis, caught the second bus out of the Valley to come home. She didn’t want to risk driving over the mountains in the snow.

Bartlett said she was not avoiding airplanes, and she wasn’t nervous about traveling on the bus, either. Her bus was only about half-full. But on the ride to Eugene, the bus driver kept the front seats empty.

”I felt comfortable,” she said. ”It’s not something I’m worried about.”

Bartlett’s mother, Diane, waited for her daughter’s arrival Wednesday at the Greyhound station on Third Street in Bend. She anticipated spending a quiet Thanksgiving together.

At Redmond Airport’s baggage claim, Bend resident Georgia Anker nervously waited with a camera Wednesday for her daughter and grandchildren to arrive from Las Vegas. It is the first trip to Bend for her daughter’s family. Anker said she bought the grocery store’s largest turkey and some corn bread dressing.

And it was the first flight for her granddaughter, 10-year-old Jaimee Sheffield. Jaimee was nervous at first, said her mother, Brigitte Sheffield, after they landed in Redmond. But excitement overtook any worry soon after takeoff, and the plane ride was even more fun than Disneyland, Jaimee said.

”It was fun,” she said, as she turned to notice two uniformed National Guardsmen. ”Look, Army guys!”