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.)

A little too close

I'd been advised to be up bright and early Sunday morning.  There was an expedition planned.  My friend's wife was to meet us at April Bowl near Summit Lake, and she'd have one of her friends with her.  My friend and I were starting out early because we were going to take a very interesting back road there, through the wilderness.  It was a neat journey.

Now, all this would have worked if nature didn't have such a sense of humor.  For one, it was gray that morning, with a lot of low-lying cloud.  There were times we were about on instruments.  But, we overcame that much.

We got to the designated point about half an hour ahead of schedule, and we got out and started to hike up to April Bowl.  It was steep and a little treacherous at points, and there was very little visibility, but nothing I couldn't handle.  And some of the views were still nice. Besides, it was Alaska.  How was I going to pass this up?

My friend and I had hoofed it up most of the way and had paused for a little bit.  I was admiring the scenery and the clouds, taking it all in.

My friend then asked if I saw that black spot over by a white area about a couple hundred yards away.

I told him I did.

"Does it look like it's moving?" he asked.

I replied in the affirmative.   It also appeared to have a second smaller dark spot next to it.

"That's it.  We're done."

Yep, it was the Ursine Menace.  Perhaps we could have pressed on with no ill effect, but we were unarmed and alone, and no match for a sow defending her cub.  Best to get the hell out.  So we did.  (If you don't understand why, read the "Ted" chapter of Peter Jenkins' Looking for Alaska.  I'll leave it at that.)

So our little meet-up didn't happen there.  Instead, when the other half of our party arrived, we had a quick discussion and went back to Summit Lake.  That's where we had a wonderful breakfast, using a big flat boulder as a picnic table.  Homemade muffins, fresh fruit, little Babybel cheeses...it was a blissful way to start a morning.

Then it was off for more adventure, as we came back down and parked at the Gold Mint Trailhead.  We piled out and started to hike.  My friend's wife and her friend took on off, which meant my friend and I were left behind.  But we made the most of it, walking along the trail at our own pace, talking about life, and taking pictures with hearty abandon.  I was glad I'd bought the additional SD card.

 

A couple hours later, while my friend and I were back at the truck, we saw the other half of our foursome emerge from the wild.  They brought with them a craving for pancakes.  So we drove back into Palmer for a late lunch at a favorite little cafe, and sat around the table for a couple hours telling stories.  It was all fun.

You'll recall we'd picked some salmon up at the store on Wednesday. Well, I was to leave the next day, and the fish needed to be cooked or frozen.  So that night, my friend hauled out the salmon, gave it a good seasoning, and broiled it up.  A wonderful spicy orzo dish accompanied it.  And, yes, fresh Alaska salmon was everything I hoped it would be.

That night, I went to bed very happy.  The only bad spot?  Tomorrow, it would be time to come home.

For the love of gold

The weekend was here, and adventure was in store.  We piled into the truck and went back to Hatcher Pass, driving up to Archangel for a nice hike.  It was overcast and cool that morning, but there were already a lot of people out and about.  We got out of the truck and hiked toward the old abandoned mine.  Here's a beaver pond we passed on the way up; one of its custodians was swimming laps when we were near it.  Between the beavers being jealous custodians, and who knows what kind of lingering effects from all the years of mining, you don't want to take a dip there.

Ruins of abandoned equipment below the trail.  Imagine the effort to schlep all this stuff up here long, long ago. 

The entrance of the old mine.  You don't wanna go in there. 

And the view down the valley from the mine.

One of the nearby peaks.  I liked this picture because it reminds me of how it looked the first time I ever saw it. 

After we were done at the mine, we came back down, stopped off at a couple more places to look around and take pictures, and then went back into town for lunch and to get more supplies (in my case, to get another SD card for my camera).  My friend and I spent the evening in the workshop, where I provided some engineering assistance on a model project and helped him deal with his surplus of Alaskan White ale.  (Oh, it's good stuff.  And addicting.  Mommy may order some in.)

41 years ago

I didn't get to add this link yesterday, when I would have liked to, but: My friend Professor Mondo posted this wonderful essay yesterday, looking back at a night 41 years ago.  Nerd Girl says check it out.

Wandering

One of the ideas behind this year's adventure was that we had no set plans.  In the past, my friend has had a given thing he's wanted to do while I was there -- one year we drove to Seward, another year we flew to Homer, and so on.  But this year, he just wanted us to play it by ear.  This ended up working out very well, and was part of why I enjoyed this year's visit so much.

So this morning we just got in the truck and drove, looking at scenery and finding nice places to stop, walk around and take nice photos.  Like this one:

And here's the old Knik River Bridge.  It's long been closed to traffic, but it remains because it carries the power lines across the river.

Then into Palmer for lunch and a stop at another bookstore.  I found a copy of the AP Stylebook for Alaska.  It was the first time I found one.  There was no way I was going to pass that up.

A little later, we drove back to Hatcher Pass.  The first time I saw the place several years ago, it was cloudy and gray, and I was running around catching snowflakes on my tongue.  In the July sunlight, it takes on a whole new personality.

We hiked back around Summit Lake and took more photos.  It was a balmy day.  I rolled my sleeves up and enjoyed the warmth.  (A few days later, I'd find several mosquito bites.)

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.