Alaskan Adventure, August 2005
Day 1: Saturday
We were flying Delta, of course, but our flight wasn’t until 1:00 in the afternoon, so we had a relaxed morning at home. I watered the roof, Robert picked up his shirts from the cleaner, and we started the dishwasher, made the bed, etc. Millie would be watching our plants for us and taking in our mail while we’re away, so we weren’t too worried on those fronts.
When we got to the new Delta terminal at Logan Airport, and Robert overcame his disappointment that there isn’t a separate first-class lounge anymore (there’s a membership lounge, and you need to pay extra frequent-flier miles, or real money, to go in there, so we passed), we curled up on a seat near a power adaptor and watched some DVDs in my laptop until they called us to board the plane.
On the plane, Robert immediately ran through his typical questions of the flight attendants, beginning with, “Do you have any exotic drinks like Frappucinos, Nescafes, etc.? No? Well, what’s the most exotic drink you have?”
This time around, he got a feisty flight attendant who responded quickly with, “Well, our most exotic drink is probably prune juice, mixed with vodka, with some sugar around the rim. No, no, just kidding!”
Our seats were comfortable and didn’t require Robert to scrunch up his knees or hurt his tailbone, and since we were changing planes in Cincinnati (airport code CVG, just like last year to Hawaii), the plane ride wasn’t too terribly long without a break to get up and walk around and stretch. In CVG we had some soft-serve ice cream and wandered around, just in time to get on our next plane which goes straight to Anchorage, with a 55-minute stop, but no change of planes, in Salt Lake City. Salt Lake City brought up more wandering and a green-tea frappucino from Starbucks, which really wasn’t very good.
Upon landing in Anchorage, we could see the most beautiful snow-topped mountains, almost black where the snow wasn’t on them, as well as a muddy, silty coast line of little fijords and arms. It really was lovely, but I had a hard time paying attention to it all, because I was in the most excruciating pain from my ears--I was already congested and partly sick, plus there was the change in altitude and pressure at landing.
We
landed in Anchorage at 9:30, right on schedule (apparently first class flies
in an alternate universe from coach, where flight attendants are friendly
and--perhaps more importantly--flights are never delayed), and picked up our
pre-reserved rental car from Payless: we normally do prefer Thrifty, but Payless
was really cheap, $550 for two weeks, two drivers (just in case), with all
taxes and fees. They upgraded us for free from a Ford Focus to a Ford Taurus,
and we drove straight from the airport to our lodging in Anchorage--the friendly
Hart home (Sarah’s parents). At right, see Robert and our reliable
rental car on Day 2, in the Portage Glaciar parking lot. We often donned our
jackets (water-resistant ski-jacket outer shells, without their down linings),
and we were never without our sweatshirts on the trip.
David Hart had given us directions to their house from the airport that specifically tried to show off the tackiest part of Anchorage. We appreciated their humor, and their accuracy, as we arrived at their door without a wrong turn by 10:45.
After visiting a little with Sarah’s parents and sister, along with various friends of the family who were also visiting, we went to bed around 11:30; after all, with the four-hour time different, we weren’t really up for much.
Introduction
| Day 1 | Day 2
| Day 3 | Day
4 | Day 5 | Day
6 | Day 7
Day 8 | Day
9 | Day 10 | Day
11 | Day 12 | Day
13 | Day 14