The Northward Contrail

We interrupt "Municipal Roundtable" to bring you this football game

Sorry to interrupt the trip report, but a consulting job landed in my lap a couple days ago.  It's being made well worth my while to take the job, if you catch my drift, but it's required me to delay the next part of the trip report until Monday.

In the meantime...ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Conway Twitty.

Getting there

So I got up Tuesday morning of last week.  The usual "here I go" stuff was already chewing on me, all the angst and a little bit of guilt about leaving the boys at home, being so far away for so long.  I did my morning stuff and took my leave a little before noon.  Traffic was calm, at least until I got near the city.  I drove to the airport, found a place for my car, secured everything, and went on in.

Things went easily enough at first.  I had checked in online and printed my boarding passes from home, so I could just go on through security. The TSA folks were very friendly that day, unlike the last time I went through there so many years ago.  I stopped off at a newsstand for a couple cold drinks and a snack.

That's when the "goofy" started.  The appointed time came and went; no airplane.  I started to get concerned, and could see the itinerary unraveling in a string of missed connections.  Finally, it arrived about half an hour late.  There had been weather problems.  Thankfully, they were able to hustle the turnaround and get us aboard quickly.

This was a weird departure for me.  The last time I'd gone down this runway, it was in an airplane I was piloting.  But that was three years ago.  This time, someone else was driving.  Anyway, we screamed aloft with no hiccups.  Once we were at altitude, I started giving the iPod and the Bose headset a good workout.  They worked very well indeed.  On we flew, over the Gulf of Mexico.  I could see fellow passengers craning their necks, trying to see if they could see oil down below us.  (What I did see at one point was a close-up view of one of JetBlue's more recent color schemes, as an A320 whizzed past just below us.)

Houston looked to be coming out of some weather.  We came on in and toddled to our gate.  We'd only lost about 20 minutes in total.  Be that as it may, I thought it would be wise to hustle on over to my next departure's concourse, so it was up the stairs, onto the shuttle train, and off.  Turns out that was wise.  As I was sprinting to the gate, they'd just commenced boarding.  I rapidly bought a bottle of Diet Coke for the flight (not helped, of course, by a slightly leisurely transaction in front of me) and waited.  Finally, it was time.

Continental's seat selection system threw me a curveball at first; if you want an "extra legroom" or exit row seat, those are held until 24 hours before the flight, and you buy that extra legroom when you check in.  I didn't like the idea, but I remembered the last time I'd been on a 757-300, I'd been crammed into a space for four hours, and hated it.  I popped for the very first row in coach, and it was money well spent.  No stowage in front of me, but that was no hassle, and I liked the lack of claustrophobia.  I had two very nice seatmates, too.  It wasn't a bad way to spend four hours.  I had my tunes, I had a good headset, I had something to drink (and they supplied us with something to eat on the plane), and I'd brought some things to work on.  It's four hours from Houston to Seattle, and last year it felt like a sentence.  This year, it wasn't bad at all.

We landed at Seattle, and the nice thing was, this flight continued on to Anchorage.  We had about an hour's layover, and we had the option of getting off the plane for a bit.  This was my immediate seatmate's destination, but the guy sitting in the aisle seat stayed in his seat and we talked for a minute.  I told him I was going to get out and stretch my legs, and asked him if he wanted anything while I was out. He said he didn't need anything, but thanks.  So I took my bag with me, went landside, used the bathroom and stopped off for a quick bite, and got a quick picture or two.

Then it was time to get back on board.  When I got back, the guy was gone.  I figured he'd gone out to do what I did.  A few minutes later, they closed the door and we were pushing back.  I had no seatmates.  I had the entire side of the plane to myself.  Better than first class!

We soon screamed aloft once again.  Climbout took us directly over Boeing Field and the Museum of Flight.  I looked down and cooed at Queenie, who's still as lovely as ever, as we flew over.

I'd brought a copy of John Henry Faulk's Fear on Trial to read on the flight.  I'd had it forever, but had never had time to read it.  It turned out to be an excellent traveling companion, and I finished it on this leg.  Most of the flight, I just stretched out and let the scenery crawl past, knowing that we were headed to a place I loved but had let lapse.  A couple hours into the flight, though, I started to get those old feelings back.  The wonder of it all started to get to me.  I punched up the song beloved by astronauts, "Southern Cross," on my iPod.  (The line "When you see the Southern Cross for the first time, you'll understand now why you came this way" -- always gets me.)  I could look out at our wing, at the big Rolls-Royce turbofan working away out there, at all the beauty beneath us, at the lovely evening sky, and it was perfect somehow.  The flight was great, the cabin was quiet, and life was indeed good.

Soon I looked out and the scenery was becoming familiar.  Then there was Turnagain Arm out there, the familiar esses of the Seward Highway I've traveled so many times.  The runways at Merrill Field out in the distance.  And then, out on its own corner, Anchorage International.  We descended, turned a dramatic base past Fire Island, and then came on in.  The 757-300 has seriously good brakes, as I was reminded after we landed.

So, there we were.  I was back in Alaska after three years.  I'd been told by my friend to call him once I was there, because the parking situation was goofy.  But, sure enough, there he was, standing in the terminal waiting for me.  There was some comedy as we struggled with a balky parking garage pre-pay unit that tried to eat my friend's ticket and cash, a situation that required the intervention of a couple of people and the completion of some paperwork.  (Isn't automation great at reducing the amount of human intervention and paperwork?  I didn't think so, either.)  Finally, we could depart.

Midnight had passed already, but, with it being summer in Alaska, it was still sort of bright out.  It's a measure of my innate sense for the place that it didn't disturb me any.  The midnight sun let me get a good look at everything I'd missed seeing for so long as we drove out of town.

Adventure was coming tomorrow.  For now, though, it was time to get rest.  This traveler was joyous, but weary, and a comfortable bed with warm blankets awaited.  Adventure could wait.

Executive summary

I'm back from my big adventure.  A more detailed trip report is to come, but there's a lot of memories to parse and a lot of pictures to sort (and I mean a lot, too.  I bought an extra 4 gig SD card while I was up there).  In the meantime, I offer some brief observations from the last week's activities:

-- It's funny how you can absolutely dread having to start a trip like this, but once it's in motion, you lament that it has to end.  (Especially when it involves a location you love so much.)

-- Along with that, right when you get the hang of things and stop acting like a stumblebum is just before the trip ends.

-- Waiting three years between trips to Alaska is a terrible thing to do to yourself, especially if you could have prevented that lapse from happening. 

-- Next time I do this, I'm scheduling at least a night's layover in Seattle on the way home.  Maybe two.  It's good to help one decompress, especially after the kind of adventurous, fun week I ended up having.

-- But if all you have is a brief layover, there are things you can do to catch your breath.  For me, it's making a few moments to have an Alaskan Amber at the KSEA Seattle Tap Room.

-- Houston's B Concourse is an excellent example of a five-pound bag being asked to haul sixty times the material.  Aside from Shipley Do-Nuts and the fact that it's how I get to the plane that takes me to or from home, I don't have much use for it in its current incarnation.  I hope it's replaced very, very soon.

-- On the other hand, Continental's got a pretty good airline going; I've even managed to put certain things about its past behind me, and I've made it my own airline of choice for now.  I sure hope the forthcoming merger doesn't ruin things.

-- Not enough can be said about the importance of a very, very good noise-canceling headset and an MP3 player full of recordings you love.  As far as I'm concerned, the developers of the Bose Quiet Comfort 15 deserve the Nobel Prize plus infinity.  Their device helped me stay sane.

-- Most of all, this trip helped remind me that, no, travel isn't quite the ordeal I'd imagined it was once I fell out of practice.  There are pains to it, yes, but for the most part, it was just fun.  And maybe, I'm saying to myself, I should just go on ahead and take a couple more journeys soon.  Perhaps I will.  I don't know.  Some calculations must be done, but it may be possible on some small scale.

-- And, oddly enough, this year's visit didn't end with teary goodbyes.  It ended with me telling my host, "Make sure this place don't go nowhere.  I'll be right back."

Anyhow, stay tuned.  The whole trip was unbelievable, and the pictures can't even begin to approach the magic. 

This morning: re-entry and recovery

As you read this, I'm in transit.  Stay tuned.  Some wild stories to come, no doubt.

Our neighbors, part 4

When summer comes back, so do the hummingbirds, and one of the daily chores is to keep them stocked with sugar water.  They are marvelous little critters to watch, zipping in and out, some of them drinking and hovering, others perching on the feeder.  Sometimes they squawk at one another and chase each other around.  There'll sometimes be just one or two, and other times, it's a whole mess of them.  We've counted upwards of 18 out there before at the height of summer. 

Sometimes I have to refill the feeders twice a day, but I don't mind, at least as long as they don't buzz me while I'm taking them down or putting them back up.  They're good to have around.