Ok, I'm back. In Alaska and online. I've got all kinds of stories to tell but I'll just do one at a time. Besides, it's kind of hard to type more than one story at a time anyway.
Way back in December the plan was to leave Chefornak and go back to Illinois for Christmas. Sounds easy enough, doesn't it? My original plan was to leave Chefornak after school on Friday, December 17th, spend Friday night in Bethel, leave Bethel Saturday night, leave Anchorage at 2:30 Sunday morning, land in Seattle, spend a couple hours there and leave for Chicago around 8:30 am. Then Jason was going to pick me up at the airport. What could be easier?
Friday December 17th. Morning. There is excitement in the air; most of us are leaving after school to head back to our home states. Unfortunately, there is something else in the air but we'll get to that later. It's a nice sunny morning but rumor has it that bad weather is on its way. There are 5 of us scheduled to leave at 1:30 and a couple more leaving at about 2:00. Early in the day I call the airline and change my Bethel to Anchorage flight from 8:30 pm Saturday to 9:00 am Saturday. I'd rather spend the day at the Anchorage airport than hanging around Bethel. This was the first change but NOT the last. At 1:30 we are all outside waiting for our plane to come in. The excitement that was once in the air has now been replaced by freezing rain. We get a call at 1:45 that our plane was less than 10 minutes away from landing but had to turn back to Bethel. They may come back later if it clears up. We leave our luggage out by the runway and head back to school. At about 4:00 we're told that no planes will be coming. We call all the airlines, schedule a 10:00 flight for Saturday morning and have a charter planned for noon if we can't get out at 10:00. I call Alaska Air again and change my flight to Anchorage back to the original 8:30 departure.
Saturday, December 18. After spending Friday night looking out the door every few minutes and seeing how much warmer it's getting, I'm ready to go Saturday morning. However, with the warmth comes the fog. No planes Saturday morning. It's still ok; I just have to get to Bethel before 8:00 pm. I have all day. All day comes and goes, unfortunately, no planes do. I briefly think about paying a local to take me to Bethel on a snowmobile but sanity prevails and I change my reservations again. We as a group are now scheduled to leave from Chefornak on the first plane Sunday morning. Assuming we get to Bethel, my new plan has me leaving Bethel at 2:00 pm, spending the night in Anchorage, leaving Anchorage Monday afternoon at 1:30, stopping in Seattle at some point and getting back to Chicago at 11:30.
Sunday the 19th. Phone rings Sunday morning "the plane will be here in about 15 minutes." Everyone throws on clothes, grabs suitcases and runs out to the airport. We're ready but not too optimistic. The plane comes and we go. Hooray! Of course now we're only in Bethel.
Bethel: We get there around 12:00, plane scheduled to leave at 2:30. At 1:30 we're told the plane is at least an hour delayed. Negative- sitting at the Bethel airport for another few hours. Positive- I'm not scheduled to leave Anchorage til tomorrow afternoon; I'm in no hurry. Plane comes-off to Anchorage.
Anchorage- As soon as I get off the plane I call Alaska Air and ask for any earlier flights. There is a seat available on the 1:30 am flight which cuts 12 hours off my trip. It's also a first class seat. "I'll take it!" Now I get to sit at the Anchorage airport for the next 10 hours or so. While there I saw two interesting sights displaying another positive and negative. I saw two girls/women being taken off a plane in handcuffs. Not sure what happened there. I also saw a group of people waiting by the arrival gates. All of a sudden a little girl starts running the wrong way, into the "Do Not Enter" area. Then the whole crowd starts cheering. One by one more kids start running into the Do Not Enter, and one by one soldiers returning home were coming out. People were cheering, waving flags, hugging, crying... I got goose bumps then and am getting them again. Very cool.
While at the airport I start to get tired but don't want to sleep because the plan is to sleep on the plane to Seattle. I get on the plane with sleep in mind, sit down my next door seat neighbor turns to me and says "Hi, I'm Mark. I like to get to know the people I sit next to when I'm on a plane." We talk for a while but I'm thinking "nice to meet you Mark but I want to sleep." I did find out he's an actor (not famous but still an actor). He was in the play of A Christmas Story and he played the bully. He wants to work for NASA and he reminded me of Zach (he didn't tell me the Zach part.)
Monday, Dec. 18th. Get in and out of Seattle with no problems. Of course, this being a Monday afternoon I now have no one available to pick me up at the airport. I get to take the train again. El from O'hare into the city, Metra from the city into Crystal Lake, Jason to pick me up in Crystal Lake. As much as it would be nice to be picked up at the airport, I have to say riding the train is not a bad deal. It's inexpensive and quicker. As long as you don't have a lot of luggage I recommend it. At that point, much like now, I just want to get home. One quick stop at Wal-mart to get some groceries and it's back to good old McHenry.
Coming soon: Keyless in Seattle, or my trip back to Alaska.
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