The Northward Contrail

Reward and risk

So the big adventure has been over for a couple weeks now; slowly the ache is melting, and slowly I'm getting accustomed once more to being where I am.  And it's not a bad place to be, really, even if the heat and humidity here have lately been making our digital weather amusement center go haywire and reset itself every couple of days, and have made me long for being in a place where in July it's in the 60s and occasional 70s and things are bright and pleasant, and if you want cooler you can always climb higher.

Even with all this, and even with the healing that's gone on, and even as the sweet little aches recede into the realities of life, I keep coming back to the question: What part does Alaska play in my life?  More to the point, what part should it play?  My friend told me a week or so ago that he half expects me to inform him before too long that I'm coming up for an extended stay that becomes more than just a research trip.  As much as I chuckled with recognition, I know that's not likely to happen.

Oh, there are reasons, and I've gone over the more practical ones: the good job I have here, the family I have here, the home we've built, adjusting to a different climate (which, as much as I sometimes really hate the climate here, it's at least climate I've lived with most all my life, so I know how to deal with it).  There's the turmoil it would cause.  There's the pain of moving.  There's a spouse I have to think about.  There's my feeling that moving to Alaska just to do the same kind of work I do here would be kind of pointless. There's a list of practical reasons as long as your arm against it.

But there's one very good reason I probably won't make the move, and I haven't shared this with anyone.

One of my favorite movies of all time, one I'd put on the proverbial desert island list, is Mister Roberts.  I love it for way too many reasons to list.  But, in this case, I think of it as a cautionary tale.  Roberts wants nothing more than to be transferred from his sleepy duty aboard a cargo ship; he wants to go where the action is, transferred to a combatant vessel.  The end of the war is coming, and he can't get to the action, and it frustrates him.  Finally, he gets his wish and is posted to a destroyer off Okinawa...where he's killed, drinking coffee in the wardroom, in a kamikaze attack.  

That came to mind the other day when I was thinking about how I'm sitting here some days, thinking about those distant mountains and those bush planes, and it's just like Roberts in the opening titles of the movie, standing on the foc's'le and watching the task force slink by in the distance, imagining himself on the bridge of a carrier or a battlewagon headed for the waters off Japan.  Roberts wanted it, and it cost him his life.  And, as much as it kind of freaks me to say it, I can see the fulfillment of my dream of Alaska costing me mine. 

It's because I see Alaska in much the same way I look at an airplane like an MU-2.  The MU-2 is a marvelous airplane.  But get behind the airplane while you're flying it, and it will kill you just like that.  It has happened many times.  You have to know exactly what you're doing, maintain complete awareness of what the airplane is doing, and you need to be trained and proficient and competent.  It takes time and training and skill and good judgment, because inattentiveness, carelessness or other lapses in an MU-2 will kill you a lot faster than in many other aircraft. 

And I can completely see this happening.  Let's say the stars do align somehow and I move to Alaska and I fulfill this wild dream of owning a little airplane, flying out to these remote areas.  I can easily see me getting just a little bit careless one day and smacking into a mountain.  Or say I go out for a nature hike one day and I fail to see that I'm between mama moose and her baby.  Or, just as easily, that I have an encounter with a bear that doesn't end well.  Or I'm driving to work one day on a snowy road and lose control of my vehicle and plunge off something, or swerve to miss a moose and end up losing an argument with gravity.  Or I go hiking and climb on the edge of something, and the ground beneath my feet turns out not to be quite as firm as I originally gauged, and it's two hundred feet down from there.  The list goes on.

Could I survive there?  Yes, as years pass, I would probably build the skills I needed, become wise to my environment, and do other things to mitigate the risks.  I already play it safe, and I'd build on that.  If I did join the ranks of the airplane owners up there, I'd take all the training I could, fly as much as I could, and generally try to stay wise and proficient (and if I couldn't afford to do all that, I just wouldn't fly).  And, I mean, it's not like I haven't learned how to adapt to strange new environments before (South Florida has its own hazards, and yet I survived there and adapted pretty well), and it's not like the place I live now doesn't have its risks -- there's snakes, deer darting in front of your car, angry bees, bobcats and other wild creatures that can get rabid and tear into you, and that's just the wildlife hazards.  But those, at least, I've become savvy about.  I know this because I've lived most all my life knowing certain things.  I know there are certain times of the year I don't go into our woods without watching my step very carefully and keeping my .38 in my back pocket in case I have a rendezvous with a copperhead.  I know the things to avoid.  I know the ways to protect myself here. 

And, over time, I'd learn how there.  I know I would, and I know I'd build a certain level of competence in being out and about.  But I'd have to approach it with a lot of care, and I'd have to give it time.  I would need to give myself time to build the kind of intelligence I'd need to survive.  I know I could do it.  But I'm also aware of how much I don't know, and it's what I don't know that could really bite me, especially early on.  Or, even, what could bite me after I've had years and years of experience, just like what almost happened to me a few months ago.

No matter where you go or what you do, there are risks.  Heck, I could walk out the door of my office tomorrow, cross the street and get hit by a bread truck (or ambulance, since I like the conceptual versions of such things to have elements of farce to them).  But something about being up there this time, and seeing more of it and being reminded of its power, has reminded me that with great beauty comes potential danger.  It's not fear that I have of this wild, strange, wonderful place called Alaska.  No, it's more like respect, and being reminded of just how much respect you need to have to avoid grief there, and that you need to keep your mind in the game when you're out and about. 

Like that MU-2, Alaska offers great reward.  But, if you're not careful and you let yourself fall behind, it'll bite you.

Lessons from Alaska

So, what did I learn from this year's trip?

For one, some of the gloss was taken off the Alaska experience, and that was welcome.  I've always known that no matter where you live, you face the same headaches but just with different surroundings.  This year, I was reminded that real-world chores, like things screwing up at work, will happen no matter how idyllic the place you choose to live.  More than this, though, I really got to appreciate that with great beauty comes the possibility of peril: earthquakes, for instance (and hoping the little jolt you feel isn't a prelude to the next Good Friday quake).  And the respect and care with which you must navigate bear and moose territory.  Maybe we would have gotten away with it had we not seen the sow and her cub the other Sunday.  Maybe we wouldn't, and I'd be typing this on a golden computer right now, hoping the Lord had been kind enough to reassemble my head during my transit to the afterlife. None of this diminishes my love for Alaska -- indeed, it makes me more appreciative of the place -- but it has reminded me that there are perils no matter where you go, be it something as small as an unexpected office chore or as large as a wild bear or as unpredictable as a seismic shift.

Will I ever move there?  It's highly unlikely, for a multitude of reasons.  These range from the practical (I'd walk away from a job I really enjoy and a place that, despite its drawbacks, is home to me; that doesn't even begin to consider the family implications and other issues that would rapidly turn the whole damned thing into a nightmare) to the personal (I like being near my family, and I would also have to learn to adapt to types of weather I seldom see here being a fact of life for several months) to the romantic (would I really want to move all the way to Alaska just to do the same kind of work I do here?  It seems kind of pointless).  The saying "don't go looking for hamburger when you got steak at home" comes to mind.  That's not to say that I wouldn't move there if everything here turned to absolute crap -- I've always looked at Alaska as the place where I plan to start over in the event I lose everything here -- but that's not likely to happen.

On the other hand, even if living there is not in my cards, there's nothing to prevent me from going there as often as time and money and circumstances allow.  When I booked my trip back a few months ago, I was surprised by how inexpensive a good itinerary could be.  Spitballing a few possible dates for later in the year, I found that it's still affordable for me.  It's not cheap, but it's not outrageous.  I'm finding myself saying "I can do that!"  I'm already discussing the very real possibility of a couple more days up there before the year is out.  I'm not moving there, but I can go there enough to make it a part of my life and get to know it as best I can.

In the meantime, I've also discovered it's inexpensive to go other places I enjoy.  Next week I'll be headed back to Seattle to make up for the layover I denied myself.  It'll be a quick trip, only a couple days, but I'll be doing it to unwind a bit before the madness of a new academic year begins.  There are bookstores, shops and museums I want to visit and enjoy.  I want to bring home bags of pasta from Pike Place Market and rare books from the little bookstores I've discovered.  I want to enjoy hours wandering the exhibits at the Museum of Flight and spend a little more time in the airpark with my beloved Queenie.  And maybe I'll get a chance to do it all again before the year's out.  I'm already talking about meeting up with a friend there in October, when I'll have a couple days off.

More than all this, it's opened up a whole new string of worlds to me. Up until now, I haven't appreciated what a fantastic set of circumstances I have.  I've spent so long toiling away to get what I have now that I haven't been able to see what should be obvious.  I have a very good job, and while it doesn't pay a huge amount, one of its benefits is that I get a lot of time off.  And I haven't appreciated what that time could let me do.  I've taken little bites from it, but I haven't used it the way I could.

As I've talked about before, I grew up in a family that didn't travel much.  If it wasn't in one of the adjoining states, we didn't go.  And if we couldn't drive there, we didn't go.  My family shared the same mindset as most folks around us in our little town: if we didn't have any legitimate business there, we didn't go.  When I was in graduate school, I tried to bust out of it, and to some extent I did.  I took some great adventures.  But once I got to working for a living and settled down, I put it aside.

Now, though, I want to get back to it.  I want to travel more.  I want to be able to say "I want to spend a long weekend in Seattle" or "I wanna go up to Boston and see the JFK Library" or "I want to go up to Alaska and see the Northern Lights" and follow through on it instead of just saying "well, someday I will."  Because when I've done it in the past, it's never disappointed.  As I told my friend, I can't think of many things I've bought that have given me a better return on my investment than a few hundred dollars on a plane ticket to somewhere I want to go.

I have a great life here.  But there's no reason I can't add a little adventure to it.  This trip showed me how I could do that.  That's probably why, this year, Alaska didn't leave me sad.  It left me saying, "Wow.  When do I get to do this again?  And where else can I go while I'm at it?"

No one escapes from IAH

When last we'd left off, our intrepid protagonist had just arrived at the big Houston airport and faced her biggest challenge, more terrifying than earthquakes and wild bears, or even being attacked by a wild bear during an earthquake: having to kill four hours at the Houston airport.

My original plan had been to follow last year's model, and that was to find the little joint I had breakfast at.  Sure enough, I found it.  The lights were on, there were people there getting ready.  The "Hostess Will Seat You" sign was up and the menu boards were out front.  So I stood by the entrance, and eventually the waitress saw me waiting.  At 5:56 a.m. local time, this actual conversation took place:

Waitress: "We're closed now, ma'am."
Nerd Girl: "Okay.  What time do you open?"
Waitress: "Six."
Nerd Girl: "Okay, thank you."
(Nerd Girl's internal voice: "Screw that!")

Instead I went to a Starbucks booth for some juice and a muffin, parked it in an empty seat at a vacant gate, and tried to rest for a bit. This, of course, was hard to do.  As the airport started to awaken, it became harder to find a quiet place to sit and wait.  The corridors were already starting to become congested, and if that wasn't enough, you risked getting run down by those electric shuttle carts, which sometimes run two-abreast down the corridors and are driven in a way that would send veteran New York cabbies screaming in fright.

The best prospect for quiet space was down a corridor to some empty gates.  Nothing was open, no planes were in, and it was quiet except for those infernal television monitors tuned to the morning news drip.  I tried to block them out as best I could.  To the east, I could see the sun start to peek out over the clouds; it was a beautiful sunrise, with the Texas sky all orange and everything.  A 767-200 got towed over to the nearest gate, and workers started fussing over it.

After a while I shifted to the other side of the concourse, where there was less glare and a little more room to spread out.  I finished up some paperwork and did some crossword puzzles.  While I was sitting there alone, a white-haired gentleman in a uniform shirt and slacks came over to me.  For a second I thought he was going to ask me to leave.  But he greeted me, told me his name, and said very kindly, "I want to thank you for flying Continental.  I hope you're having a pleasant trip."  I wasn't prepared for this, and for a second I was speechless.  But I thanked him and told him I had really enjoyed it.  In all the years I've been traveling, I've never had anyone go out of their way to thank me like that, not even when I was a loyal and frequent customer of a certain airline whose once-renowned hospitality was excised during a series of corporate moves over the last decade.

A little while later, this area of the concourse started to get a little too noisy.  A Newark flight came in, and there was the usual arrival commotion.  Then a couple of flight attendants got into a very lively conversation nearby.  I couldn't work or relax.  I figured it was time to cut my losses and do the inevitable, and catch the train to the dreaded B Concourse.

Concourse B is the part of the airport that handles the bulk of regional airliner traffic at Houston.  The good news is, it's scheduled to be seriously renovated before too much longer.  But future plans can't help the present-day traveler, who must contend with the fact that B is much too small for all the flights.  Not only have there been gates added to gates (more on that in a moment), but the facility is just too small. To get to the gates, you travel these long corridors; they seem like a quarter-mile or more.  At the end are cramped little waiting areas that serve seven or eight gates.  It's not a place for the claustrophobic or agoraphobic.

At least Concourse B has the Shipley Do-Nuts stand, and the Liz Lemon in me had been waiting for this the whole trip.  So I treated myself to one plain glazed and one white cream, all of $1.60. Then I had to find a place to sit and enjoy them.  This was easier said than done.  My search led me down one of those long corridors, to a vacant row of seats.  There's no windows, and you're right up against the flow of traffic, but it's by yourself, at least.

Unfortunately, a string of events started to unfold.  The first was that as I traveled the corridor, I happened to be right behind someone with serious, serious personal hygiene issues.  I'll spare you the details, but the effect of this wake turbulence on my olfactory nerves would have been enough in itself to ruin the experience.

Then, right as I took my first couple bites of the creme-filled doughnut, the bag on my lap started to shift.  It fell to the floor. The other of my prized doughnuts lay face-down on filthy carpet.

In sorrow and disgust, I put both doughnuts back in the bag, crumpled it up, deposited the bag in a trash can...and went right back for another two doughnuts.  (A real financial tragedy at another $1.60.)  And I found someplace else to sit.  Not much better, but at least it wasn't in that lousy corridor.

Things didn't seem much more promising, and I still had time to kill and hadn't had a decent breakfast.  I wasn't going to get to have a proper lunch, either, so it was probably a good idea to get something.  I remembered there was a little Chili's in the middle of the terminal. Since I'm not (yet) under the Pam Halpert lifetime ban from Chili's, I figured it would be a good place to chill for a bit, so I went there and had the breakfast tacos.  Unfortunately, this wasn't much of an improvement.  The man sitting behind me was having a loud conversation on his cell phone.  And the television monitor was showing the Today Show's cooking segment, in which a poor, innocent, probably very tasty piece of salmon was being massacred in the name of haute cuisine.  Considering what I'd enjoyed a couple nights before, it seemed like a crime.

And then I looked up at the monitor again.  It had suddenly been flipped to Headline News.  That's when I learned Steinbrenner had passed away.

I settled up and still had about an hour and a half to go before my flight boarded.  I went on down to where my gate was, hoping I could find a place to sit for a while.  Unfortunately, my flight was leaving from Gate 84.  Only if you've traveled out of Gate 84 can you appreciate what kind of practical joke that is.  For, you see, Gate 84 is actually made up of about 15 or so additional gates, designated with letters. For all intents and purposes, Gate 84 is a bus terminal.  There must have been 200 or 300 people milling around waiting inside this big box of a room, with nothing to do and nowhere to sit where you're not dealing with humanity.  You look down the steps at what you're getting into, and it's like that hospital scene in Gone With The Wind, of the endless, endless rows of the wounded and dying.

I finally gave up and parked it in a reasonably calm corner, trying to finish up a crossword puzzle.  But, sure enough, someone sitting a row over proceeded to have a series of VERY LOUD cell phone conversations. I gave up, hauled out my Bose headset and my iPod, and listened to some things, trying the best I could to shut everything out.

The glorious call finally came for my flight home, and as boarding progressed, my spirits rose.  I was two people away from having my boarding pass scanned when the call came to the gate agent over the walkie-talkie: "Don't board this flight."  She informed them, "I've already sent them."  Apparently, a prior crew had done some NA$CAR-style victory burnouts after a particularly good flight, and our assigned aircraft had a flat tire.  (I don't know if it was just flat-spotted or if it really was flat; I couldn't see from the bus terminal, so all I know is what the gate agent said.)  So we were ordered to take a seat and the other passengers were ordered back into the waiting area.

About 30 minutes later, the glorious call came and we could bound aboard.  This is when I learned just how elaborate the practical joke of Gate 84 is: you walk down this long, long pre-fab sheetmetal structure, hang a left, and walk down more structure until you reach your assigned doorway to walk across the ramp to the aircraft.  By the time you get there, you feel like you've walked halfway to your destination.

There weren't a lot of people on this flight, and one or two passengers decided to take other seats, which was fine by our flight attendant (though, for obvious weight and balance and paperwork issues, all this had to be settled before we left the gate).  And when we finally pushed, it was not a moment too soon.  Getting sprung from B Concourse always makes me feel like I'm out of prison.

The flight home from Houston was uneventful and pleasant.  I had time to do some thinking about some things, and it all went well.  Before much longer, the landscapes below turned familiar, and soon we were over the familiar downtown I know so well from all my years living around here. A few more miles of flying, and we were back home.  Even before I got off the plane, I braced myself for the brutal heat and cloying humidity that awaited.  Yep, there it was, and not even the high-speed air conditioning blowers in the jetway could shut it out.  If nothing else made me want to be back in Alaska, that did.

I had no baggage to claim, and nothing else to do, so I pre-paid my parking (thankfully, without the same troubles we faced in Anchorage), went out to the parking lot and reclaimed Baby, and I was off for home.  I stopped at the supermarket on the way home to get something special for dinner and then drove on back to the house.

It was over.  But just for now.

Going Outside

So the long journey began.  I'd checked in from my friend's house, so I could go on through security.  I cleared security okay (though not without a slightly embarrassing moment due to my own rusty travel skills when I paused in the magnetometer, waiting for direction, and the guy said "keep coming!  don't stop!").  And then the long wait began.  I killed some time looking around the trinket shops in the concourse, and bought a little something to eat.  And I took pictures, too.  Here a couple of 747 freighters takes a little breather:

And a busy day at the Alaska Airlines gates.  Note the 737-400 Combi in the middle. 

Aside from that, it was waiting and watching.  And it was being in a sensory overload, too.  Not only from the piped-in '60s music, sort of making you feel like you're listening to Armed Forces Radio Saigon (and what's with playing "The End of the World" by Skeeter Davis in an airport terminal, anyway?), but from the omnipresent television monitors.

All tuned to CNN.

I can't begin to describe how jarring this was.  This is going to sound like the damnedest thing for me to say, especially given my professional background and the things I've said about how important it is to know what's going on in the world.  But, for the last week, I'd existed in a world where the basics mattered.  All that mattered was the nature around me and the fundamentals of not getting myself hurt or eaten.  My world had been blissfully free of concepts such as Barack Obama, BP, Mel Gibson, Glenn Beck, Lindsay Lohan, Harry Reid, Michael Steele, anyone named Kardashian, anything involving tea parties, anything having to do with poll numbers, anything having to do with the stock market.  (And -- this may surprise some of you, but not me -- through this trip, and even with passing a few times through Wasilla, very little exposure to anything involving anyone named Palin.)

That had been my week.  But now, as I sat in the concourse with nothing else to do but wait for my flight, the television monitors drilled into me.  And being brought back to the crap that fills the modern 24-hour news cycle, where public policy is hyperactively monitored like the stock market and poll numbers are treated like the Dow Jones Industrial Average, where there's a relentless focus on what's hot and who's up or down right now and no thought about anything of any long-term significance, really turned my innards.  I'd spent the last week in paradise, but what I was seeing on the monitors was like I'd just bitten down on a mouthful of beach sand.  It made me feel like I wasn't in control any longer.  I hated it.

Soon it was time to get on the plane.  I'd popped for the bulkhead seat again, and ended up being in the last row to be called to board.  (I joked with someone else leaving with us that I wondered if the airplane had been built with my row.)  I was alone on my side of the airplane again, which was nice.  It took a little while for me to get seated because someone wanted to use the lavatory right in front of my seat, and had ducked into my seating area for people to pass.  I ended up having to crawl over the seats to get in.  She got into the lav right when the call was made to take our seats so we could leave, and some drama ensued.  Everyone else was ready to go, but this lady was still in the lav.  The flight attendants kept knocking on the door and politely but firmly telling her to get out so we could go.  This happened two or three times.  Finally she got out and huffed back to her seat, complaining to her seatmate about how she'd never been treated that way before.  (Yeah, I feel really sorry for you, ma'am.)

We took off from 32 and cruised along.  As we began a slow climbing turn to the south, I looked down and saw a China Airlines Cargo 747 on a long final to 7L.  I was able to follow it all the way down to touchdown, and that was cool. I always have mixed feelings about leaving Alaska, and while there was a little sadness and a little regret, I found myself more interested in watching that 747 than in mourning what was slipping beneath me.  The sadness wasn't as strong this time.  I felt more like I was just commuting instead.  And maybe I am.

It was a pleasant flight to Seattle, and I got some work done along the way.  (Note to anyone reading this at my place of employment: I did get actual work done while on this trip, so even if I don't get a per diem or anything, I'd like to count this as a business trip.  Yeah, I know they won't buy it in the head offices, but it's worth a shot.)  There were interesting sights, such as the brief period we flew formation with a UPS MD-11 about a mile below and to our left.  At another point I could see a couple of cruise ships tooling along off the Canadian coast.  Final approach took us low over Boeing Field and the Museum of Flight.  Hello again, Queenie.  (I'm coming to see you soon.  I promise.)

Once in Seattle I had a couple hours to burn off.  For several reasons, I began to regret not including a night's layover in Seattle.  The airport Doubletree, where I'd stayed last year, stood over across the way and seemed to be calling me.  I resolved to do something about it sooner rather than later.

In the meantime, there was nothing I could do at the moment but kill a couple hours.  I went up to the Seattle Tap Room and relaxed with an Alaskan Amber and a plate of fries, thought about how good my life is that I get to do this, and started thinking about doing more travel before the year was out.  Then it was off for some trinket shopping, and finally sitting and watching some airplanes and taking a few pictures at other gates.

A little before midnight, it was time to get on the airplane to Houston.  Our 737-900 was oversold, and tasty offers were being made for volunteers to take a later flight.  I thought for a moment about taking them up on it, but for obvious reasons they wanted people whose final stop was Houston.  At any rate, it got sorted, and they started to board the flight.  I waited and waited for Row 8 to be called.  Finally, right when I thought it was going to happen, the gate agent called for "Rows 10 and higher."  Problem was, she'd already called for that, and there were only a few of us left.  We notified her of her error.  She corrected herself and called for "all rows."  So, with great gratitude, I dragged myself aboard and took my seat.

With the flight being full, I didn't think I was going to get the half of the row to myself, and I didn't.  The good thing was that my seatmates were nice.  Right next to me was a tall young lady who was very pleasant.  And in the aisle seat was a guy from Texas, probably in his 80s, very long and lean, almost like a guy out of a movie.  He wore jeans and a cowboy hat and a sport coat with a Wrangell, Alaska pin on the lapel.  And he was a hoot.  He told us about how he'd put his oldest boy on an airplane that morning for Ketchikan, Alaska and now he was flying back home to meet his youngest boy at the airport, and he was all airplaned out.

We pushed from the gate and the airplane started to spark it up for the flight to Houston.  The airplane sort of didn't want to get started, so the ground crew brought out a '59 Edsel to jump-start the airplane.  We lost cabin power for a second and the DirecTV system rebooted, but soon everything was fine again.  Both engines were vacuuming along just fine.  And, slowly, we taxied.  The cowboy in the aisle seat made a comment about how slow we were moving, and I told him, "They're just gonna drive us a few miles back up to Renton so Boeing can work on the airplane."

And we took off.  Houston was four hours away.  I tried to get some sleep, but couldn't.  I think I got all of about three minutes' worth on the flight.  As we got closer to Houston, the cowboy made conversation with me about which landmarks we were probably getting near.  I worried a little bit that he was waking half the plane, but it was still nice, and he was very charming.  He kept calling me "girl," and there was something endearing about having a little Texas hospitality there.

Finally, in we came.  The treetops got higher, the buildings got closer, the cars on the highways got bigger.  Then perimeter fence, grassy area, runway threshold, and we were on the ground again.  And soon we were at our gate, a few minutes ahead of schedule too.

Of course, now there was a new problem: four hours in the Houston airport.  Oh, blergh.

That's all there is

I'd dreaded this day, not just because I'd be going home, but also because I was worried about how I would handle it.  Three years ago, when it was time to say goodbye, I was distraught.  My friend and I still joke about how I was inconsolable at the thought of leaving, how I burst into tears as we drove around Anchorage that morning, and all that.

But this year, it didn't happen.  There's a reason, and I'll get to that in due course.  Anyway, I took my bath and packed my bags, made sure everything was accounted for, and waited for the day to begin.  There had been talk of a meet-up with my friend's wife at lunchtime, and I was hoping that would come to pass.

But then the phone rang about 8 a.m.  That wasn't good.  I could hear my friend having a rather detailed discussion about a technical problem. Yep, the real world had intruded.  My friend was not very happy about it, not only because he'd had plans for that day, but also because he was officially on vacation.  When he was done on the phone, he told me we'd be heading into Anchorage a little early because he had to go by the office and deal with this issue.

The lunch plans got scrapped, and instead we went by my friend's place of employment.  I took a seat in his office and minded my own beeswax while he went into the equipment room and installed some new tubes on the UNIVAC or whatever it was he had to do.  When that was done, we went to lunch at a really good Japanese restaurant.  I managed to use chopsticks without looking like a (total) klutz.  Your victories are where you can get them.

From there, we drove over to the airport.  But not to the terminal just yet; there was still some time.  Instead, we went to the Alaska Aviation Heritage Museum by Lake Hood.  It's not the largest museum or the shiniest, but it's a great museum, not to be missed.  This doesn't begin to scratch the surface, but some pictures:

I used to watch these fly out of Anchorage.  One of my fondest memories is of a morning six years ago when we watched one of these (perhaps this very one) do a post-maintenance four-engine run-up not fifty yards from where we were. Now Northern Air Cargo's DC-6s are history.

Remains of the Douglas World Cruiser "Seattle."  Of obvious interest to anyone who has the old Williams Bros. kit.

I'm seriously thinking of putting this sign over my office door.

Lowell Thomas Jr.'s Helio Courier.  (You probably know of his dad, but Junior's led quite the life of his own.)

Just like a certain 747, not even a DC-6 can escape the tax man. 

The Mudhen.  One of Alaska Airlines' 737-200 Combi aircraft, outfitted with a gravel kit to let her operate from unimproved runways.  She carried cargo up front and people in the rear.  Years ago I had a chance to fly on one, but didn't take up the offer.  Now I wish I had.

You know you've been used a lot when your doublers have doublers.

One rescued PBY.  Just needs a little work.

A couple of Cessnas parked near the PBY.  It's impossible for me to describe the multiple layers of longing that scene makes me feel.  (No, I didn't take that picture thinking "Windows wallpaper for work computer."  Why do you ask such silly questions?)

Next door is Rust's Flying Service.  There's no shortage of interesting hardware there, but when we were walking around the outdoor exhibits, we heard this beast roaring along the adjacent taxiway.  And then we saw it.  The Otter sounds as evil as it looks with turbo power, but, oh, man, what an airplane. When I saw it parked there, I told my friend to stop for a moment because I was having a Moment Of Geek and needed to take a picture.

Unfortunately, soon it was time to head to the terminal.  We took one last look around.  There was an American 777 parked at the end of the International terminal, not something you see often in Anchorage.  We wondered what the story was.  (Later, we found out.)

But the time had come.  And I didn't cry.  Instead, my friend and I laughed, embraced, made jokes.  I told him defiantly, "Make sure this place don't go nowhere.  I'll be back real soon."  And I meant it. That's what made this time different: knowing Alaska is mine, any time I want it.  All I have to do is go online, book a ticket (which is surprisingly affordable), and it's mine.  Last time, I felt grief.  This time, I felt I'd conquered something.

Alaska used to make me cry with longing.  Now, it makes me go, "Hot diggety damn!  When do I get to do it again?"  (If I'm lucky, it'll be sooner than ever.  Stay tuned on that.)

Only half an hour from Alaska

Thursday did not start well.  I had been so tired the night before that I'd left my eyeglasses at the foot of the bed.  So when I woke up and started to stir, they fell in the floor.  I was wandering around and felt something under my right heel.  Next thing I knew, I was holding a flattened pair of eyeglasses.  Great.  Nerd emergency.  Fortunately, I was able to twist and bend them back to shape, but it was a scare I could have done without.

In the morning we hopped in the truck and headed for Anchorage, that famous city only half an hour from Alaska.  This was to be the day we did the bookstores, the hobby shop and a couple other things.  So we did.  Title Wave has remodeled and rearranged quite a bit since my last visit, and though it's not quite the wonder it was when I first encountered it a few years ago, it's still worth the visit.  I dropped surprisingly little cash in there, finding a couple books about bush flying (gotta read up about next career, y'know), a book about the town of Whittier, and a deck of these, which are well worth the purchase.

After a quick lunch, it was off to PANC to do some looking at airplanes.  As we were about to drive beneath the approach to 14, we noticed a 747 on final.  My friend stopped the truck and we grabbed our cameras just in time to catch this monster screaming right over us.  Wow.

So we drove around a little more, and ended up parking and hiking up the hillside to the corner of the cargo ramp and 14-32.  (This is the same place the famous Tupolev incident took place.)  From there, you can get some rather stunning photos.  All I had was my little point-and-shoot, but even with it, I managed to do okay: 

And Everts even obliged us with a DC-6, which did a run-up in front of us, showing all the youngsters in the background how it's really done.

Then it was over to the other side of 14-32 and up on the hillside to catch the afternoon departures...

...and an arrival or two.

We also got another treat when one of Everts' C-46s, "Dumbo," came rumbling out.  There's no mistaking this one when she starts down the runway.

Soon, though, things turned into a parade of big brown airplanes, and when things all started to look the same, we took our leave.  We stopped in one of the local hobby shops for a little while, and then started out for home.  I gave hubby a quick phone call while we were in cell phone range and checked on things back home.  It had been a busy day, but fun.

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. 

Midterm report

It's time to take inventory.  Here's the year's production so far:

I figure if I complete 12 models a year, I'm doing okay.  So far, I'm at nine.  You know these from previous posts.  Back row, from left: the Revell Chevy SSR, the Fujimi Porsche Cayman, the Tamiya Karmann Ghia and the Monogram Monte Carlo SS.  In the center is the little 1:144 Revell-Germany Puma.  Up front, the Revell-Germany R23 and MP4/20.  (Not pictured are the Academy F-8E and the Fujimi SH-3G, which are now on display elsewhere.)

There's still a lot of year to go, and I hope I can keep up the pace.  For now, though, it's not so bad, especially since I've gone many years without being anywhere as productive, and with some of these projects being particularly involved, too.

In the air again

Next week I'll be traveling again, going back to Alaska.  And, again, I'm feeling that strange thing I feel when a trip looms: it's anticipation and excitement, but it's also dread and inertia.

It's not like I hate the place I'm going.  Far from it.  I love it up there.  Every time I go, it's absolute sensory overload.  Everything's bigger, more beautiful, more spectacular, more jaw-dropping.  I love the people up there I spend time with. 

But, oh, I hate the travel to get there.  It's not the flying.  I love flying.  Trips to Alaska, at certain points, are like flying in space, especially when you catch the red-eye and look out the window at the dawn.  It's lovely.  And, thanks to some circumstances in the past, I've been able to fly there first-class, and that's been pretty neat.  But this time, I'll be in the back of the plane.  I got a heck of a deal on a ticket, so there's no way I could pass it up.  Even then, though, the cattle-car nature of modern flying in coach class is what I hate: being crammed into a seat with little leg room for six-plus hours, not really being able to recline, not being able to do much of anything, basically being at the mercy of your seatmates for everything.  It's bad enough, but when you're sort of long-legged and have just a tiny touch of agoraphobia, it gets even more fun.  (I wonder if the yield-management people ever try their own product, especially in the back of the airplane, and especially if they have to go to the toilet.  Getting out of your seat in coach class with two other people sitting beside you?  Just not possible.)

I'll be doing what I can to alleviate the misery.  I've tried two other sets of noise-canceling headphones in the past, but while they're both good, they haven't delivered the shut-out-the-world feeling I've wanted.  So I finally plopped a few weeks ago for a set of them big-time fancy Bose Quiet Comfort 15 headphones.  They cost a lot, but, man alive, those things are eerie-quiet.  With that, an iPod full of favorite music and old-time radio broadcasts, a good book to read and a book of New York Times crossword puzzles for solving, I should be able to make the most of it.

And, if all else fails, I always fall back on what gives me hope each time I take these long trips: knowing that every mile that ticks by is a mile closer to being there, and knowing that before long, I'll be looking out the window at those huge mountains that have become so familiar over the years.

I'll get through it.  And I know it'll happen as it always does: the wonder of being there will outweigh the minor miseries involved in the journey.

(That said, when I finally make that trip to New Zealand -- which is going to happen, because promises have been made to certain parties -- I'm popping for the higher-priced enroute accommodations.  I don't care what I have to mortgage to do it.  It'll be worth it.  Otherwise, I don't see how I'll be able to spend that long on an airplane.)