The plan was for me to drop Margie off at the Alaska Native Medical Center so that she could pick up the medications she will need for the nearly four weeks that she will be in Arizona.
I would then drive to Camai Printing where I had a little business to take care of, come back, pick her up, we would get together with the kids for coffee or maybe even dinner, should time allow.
I would then take her to the airport.
But, just before we got to the South Birch Creek exit, traffic came to a halt. There had been an accident ahead.
I knew that if I could get to the exit, we could get off the Glenn Highway, switch to the Old Glenn and go around the accident.
Several other drivers had the same idea, so it was a slow process, but, after close to half an hour, I made it onto the ramp, where traffic was moving maybe one mile-an-hour - but it was moving.
See all those cars still on the highway? They are beyond the exit and they will be stuck there for hours.
Furthermore, if we had been perhaps as little as one mile further back, we would also have been stuck. We would not have been able to make it to the exit.
As we crept along, a bulletin came on the radio. A very serious accident had happened and the highway was closed at this exit.
It is a strange thing when you find yourself in this situation. You are annoyed at the slowdown. You think of the inconvenience and trouble that it is going to cause you - in this case, Margie could potentially miss her flight, or have to go without her medications, which we would then need to get and mail to her.
Yet you know that, up ahead, at the source of the slowdown, someone might be badly injured, in terrible pain, perhaps facing a different kind of life from here on out. Or someone might be dead, or dying, their entire life now behind them. Several people might be.
And yet, you still want to get moving.
As we crept further, a new bulletin said that a helicopter was coming. We knew then that someone had been hurt very badly.
And still I wanted to get Margie to the airport, on time, with her medications, and I wanted to get my business taken care of.
Finally, we got to where traffic was moving and then arrived in town right as the rush hour was beginning. I dropped Margie off at ANMC, then headed to Camai and arrived just before closing. I took care of my business and then returned to get her.
But she had got stuck in another long line - at the ANMC Family Medicine pharmacy. Kalib was there, waiting for her with his parents. Margie had entered an area in which only patients picking up medicine are allowed, so I sat down as Lavina helped Kalib learn how to operate an iPhone.
See how red Lavina's fingernails are?
A friend at work had chosen Saturday to be her wedding day and had asked all her lady co-workers who would be participating to paint their nails bright red. She also wanted them all to wear black dresses.
So Lavina painted her nails red, went out shopping on her one free day and bought a black dress.
Then her coworker changed the wedding date to June.
Kalib watches the movie, Cars.
Lavina had heard an update on the accident - it involved a pedestrian. That seemed pretty strange, since it happened on the freeway.
Later, on the radio, we heard that a man was trapped beneath a vehicle. I hoped he was unconscious. How miserable would that be, to be broken, injured, and have a ton or more of steel sitting atop you, jamming you into the cold pavement?
By the time Margie finally got her medications, there was no time to get together for coffee, let alone dinner. So all of the Anchorage part of the family came to the airport, to see her off.
Kalib and his dad led the entourage toward airport security.
Kalib soon dashed into the area where only ticketed passengers are allowed. Thankfully, he turned right around and dashed back out before he could get arrested and thrown into jail.
Traffic was very light in the security area. Kalib gave his grandma a goodbye hug.
As Rex gives his mom a goodbye hug, Kalib reaches out to hug one of his aunties. Kalib hugged everybody, whether they were traveling or not.
Then he got to ride an escalator going down.
He rode a series of escalators.
At the entrance to the parking garage, we discussed the matter of dinner. Melanie suggested Pho Lena, a Vietnamese - Thai restaurant that was more or less on the way out.
At Pho Lena, the waitress brought a toy over for Kalib's amusement.
But Kalib was more amused by the paper and coloring marker that she also brought him.
After I arrived home in the late evening, I sat down right here, at my computer and found a bulletin from the Anchorage Daily News in my inbox. Robert Marvin, 76, had apparently experienced some kind of car trouble on the Glenn and had pulled over to the side of the road - but not all the way out of traffic. He was standing in front of a Volkswagon van when it was rear-ended and pushed 50 - 60 feet down the road with him under it.
Rescuers managed to get him out without help from the helicopter, but he was pronounced dead shortly afterward. Traffic had been stopped for three hours.
Now, as I write these words, Margie is in Seattle, where she has a seven-and-a-half hour layover before catching her 7:25 AM flight to Phoenix.
How miserable she must be!
I am afraid to call her, though - she might be napping.
Saturday, March 27, 2010 at 4:00AM ;)
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