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.

Welcome to Alaska

The new day dawned.  Actually, the new day had dawned very early; it's that time of year in Alaska.  The room I was in had very good drapes on it that kept out most of the light, so sleeping was easy enough.

Most of this day was spent out exploring nature up around Hatcher Pass and Summit Lake.  My host and his wife do a lot of hiking and exploring around the huge natural paradise in which they live, and part of why he had me up this time of year was to see the difference from my usual mid-May visits.  Believe me, it was different, very lush and green.  We had gorgeous weather that day, too, which made it seem even more otherworldly.  I didn't feel like I was in Alaska; it felt like New Zealand or Ireland.

There were many people out taking advantage of the nice weather (including a lady whose two dogs splashed around Summit Lake, one of them coming over to try to take my water bottle).  But do some careful hiking and you can find a place to sit and think all by yourself.  That's what I did, taking a seat on a rocky ledge, looking out at this paradise you see below, and thinking about how lucky I really am.  Yep, this place is my other home.

The rest of the day was spent on more humdrum tasks.  We went into town for lunch, stopped by a bookstore and looked around, and then hit the grocery store for supplies.  Rainier cherries were on sale, dirt-cheap, and we loaded up on those.  And among the provisions were a couple pounds of fresh salmon fillets.  Although I normally avoid meat, I'd been wanting to try some Alaska salmon for a long time, and my host was going to oblige this visit.

Back at the house, we adjourned to his workshop.  My friend and I share the hobby of these little plastic airplanes, and he also has a fine stock of rare woods and woodworking equipment.  We've known each other coming up on a dozen years, and we share the craftsperson's mindset, so we understand each other on that level.  But it's more than that.  There's a saying about how friends are the family you choose for yourself, and that's why I tell people part of why I'm in Alaska so much is because I have family there.  Yeah, my friend and I share the same interests, have the same sick sense of humor, and all that, but we can have long conversations about life and the universe and all that.  I have a brother and I love him, but my friend's like another brother I should have had (though he's no doubt thankful not to be related to me, but I digress).  That's much of the fun of getting together.  We had a few bottles of locally-brewed product and talked for a few while, and life was great.

After a little while we came back inside.  His wife had come home from work, and I hadn't seen her since my last visit, so we spent some time talking in the den, catching up on things and comparing stories about our cats while my friend made dinner.  It was during this lull that the house suddenly went "whump!" and swayed a little.  The nearest thing I can compare it to is being aboard an airliner that's made a hard landing, that same sort of quick thump that dampens out.  After a second or two, everything was fine.  Just like that, I'd experienced my first Alaskan earthquake, another component of my indoctrination.  It's a fact of life up there, just one of those things that happens, and it's much better to have a bunch of little earthquakes than have 1964 happen all over again. 

After that, the rest of the evening was quiet and uneventful.  Dinner was good.  The day's adventures had tired us out, so we didn't linger too long after dinner.  The next day would bring more adventures, and some memorable photographic opportunities.

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.

Our neighbors, part 3

There's no shortage of wild birds in our part of the world, and I try to keep them stocked with bird seed.  We see a lot of cardinals on the back porch, and they're always fun to watch.  This little guy in particular is a frequent visitor.  There's always plenty of spilled bird feed on the porch from our hanging feeder, since the cardinals who fly up there can be sort of messy.  And when one of them takes a meal on the back porch like this, the cat goes into full sneaky/stalky mode.