Back online at Fairbanks International Airport, enroute AKP - to ANC

This is Anaktuvuk Pass, this morning about 8:00 AM. I will make a couple of good reports from Anaktuvuk -maybe three or four, perhaps even more, but this post is not one of them. This post has but one purpose - to let you know that I am back online and to get something up at a reasonable hour of this day.

I am online because I am at Gate 1 at the Alaska Airlines Terminal of the Fairbanks International Airport, where my plane is scheduled to board, shortly. The airport has free wireless - as, indeed, all good, full-service, airports should.

This is Nasuġraq Rainey, formerly Higbee, but as of yesterday afternoon, Nasuġraq Rainey Hopson, her cat, Harley and her sister, Angela. Eventually, I will prepare a good report on the wedding of Rainey and B-III, and I will also give Harley a post all of her own, because she certainly deserves, but I will not do so now.

Right now, I just have to get something up, so I can catch my plane.

And here is Payuk, with one of Rainey's puppies. The puppy's dad just might be a wolf, who Rainey spotted one day eyeing a penned dog in heat. Maybe the wolf figured out how to get to the dog.

And here I am, in the plane, wishing that it was my plane, as the pilot prepares to lift off the runway.

And here we all are, the pilot, me, Byron and Alvira, airborne, leaving AKP, headed to Fairbanks.

And here we are, flying through the Brooks Range.

There are wildfires burning and so the air is filled with smoke. Two days ago, enroute from FAI to AKP, the smoke was so thick that we could not even see the Yukon River when we flew over it.

Today, although hazy, we could at least see the Yukon.

And here we are, landing in Fairbanks.

This is all I am going to post for now. My plane is scheduled to begin boarding in 11 minutes. I want to get a treat before it boards.

Update, 2:45 PM:

Well, my flight has been delayed. By an hour-and-a-half.

Damnit.

Guess I will sit here and web surf.

After a long, uncomfortable flight with another delay, I am back in Wasilla, with my wife and cats

Twenty-four hours and about $350 after I had been originally scheduled to board the first leg of my Delta Airlines flight home, I followed these guys onto a plane bound for Salt Lake City from New York's JFK airport.

We filed between the rows of those seated among the elite in first class, where serious business was being conducted, and then entered the cabin.

My first choice is always a window seat, then an aisle and I hate the middle, just like most everyone else does. The worst of all is a middle seat in an emergency exit row, because the seats do not recline and instead of a regular armrest that can be lifted up and down, the armrests are solid from the seat up. This creates the effect of being forced to sit in a rigid box.

I had originally successfully booked non-emergency row window seats all the way from New York to Anchorage but now, I had been assigned to a middle seat in an emergency exit row.

Worse yet, when I sat down, I discovered that there was a big, irritating, bump right in the middle of the seat. I would have to sit on that bump for five-and-a-half hours.

The situation worsened even more when I discovered that I been sat between two people, who, whenever they were awake, from the beginning of the flight to the end, continually and intentionally did all they could to try to push my elbows off the armrests altogether. I did not totally begrudge them, because it is just a plane fact that those three seats are just too squished together. There simply is not room for three adults to sit comfortably side by side in them - although I am usually reasonably comfortable in a window seat, because I can lean against the wall and away from the shared armrest. Yet, it was still incredible. I had been stuck in middle seats plenty of times, but I had never before experienced anything like this.

When my adjacent passengers would nap, they would relax into their most comfortable positions, which meant they would lean away from me toward the window or the aisle and their arms would follow them off the rest, no longer to push against me.

Even so, I managed to read most of what was left of the book, Into the Heart of the Sea, before we reached Salt Lake City, but it was the most uncomfortable ride I have ever had in a jet airplane. I am still sore from it.

Yet, compared to the travels of those who were part of the final voyage of the Whaleship Essex, I rode in comfort and luxury and traveled to my destination with amazing speed. I have nothing to complain about.

In Salt Lake, the flight back to Anchorage had already begun to board. I was hungry, so I bought a not-very-good ham sandwich and a bottle of water at a diner right across from the gate, then got in line.

Just as I was about to board, it was announced that the flight had suddenly been put on a weather hold, due to high winds and snow. Out the window, I could see that the snow had turned to rain and it did not look that bad, but apparently it was.

So, as I took note of a bar and grill just a short distance away where I could have got a hot meal, I sat down and ate my sandwich.

Then Lydia Olympic, who had been in the bar and grill watching basketball, sat down beside me. 

I first met Lydia many years ago when I followed her and several other Alaska Native tribal leaders on to a forum in Washington, DC, where they also did some lobbying among House Representatives and Senators.

Lydia is from the Lake Iliamna village of Igiugig in the Bristol Bay Region. Right now, she is living in Anchorage where she relocated in order to fight against the Pebble Mine, because of the harm she fears it could bring to the salmon and other wildlife resources of her home.

"Do you get back to Igiugig much?" I asked her.

"Yes," she said. "Every summer I go back to cut fish."

Finally, they let us board the plane where, once again, I was seated in an emergency exit row. This time, at least, I had an aisle seat and the middle was empty. I did not have to contend with battling elbows. We seated in the emergency rows all paid strict and rapt attention as the stewardess told us about our duties should the need arise to evacuate the airplane.

After the lecture, we sat on the tarmac for about two more hours as we waited for the plane to get de-iced.

It was strange to let my mind wander outside the plane and into the surrounding community. I let it wander to my sister Mary Ann's house, downtown. I had tried to call her right after we landed, but she did not pick up. It was a bit after 9, but some people go to bed early.

I let it wander to the house up in the Salt Lake suburb of Sandy, where Margie and I used to so dearly love to drop into during our early days of marriage. We visit my parents, eat and watch TV with them and sometimes at night, being as quiet as we could possibly be, make love as the old folks slept. Sometimes, we would drop baby Jacob off so we could go out and do things like go to movies or climb a nearby mountain.

I pictured that house now, with only my older brother Rex in it, he living in a state of declining health.

I pictured the place upon a hill at the foot of the Wasatch Mountains, where lay my Mom and Dad and my brother Ron. Ron never wanted to be buried but cremated but in the end, his wish was overwhelmed by the force of the Mormon faith that he had journeyed away from long before and he got buried, anyway.

I thought of the later years when I would visit my Mom and Dad, and how hard those years became. I thought about Mom and Dad and Mary Ann and Rex had always hoped that, at some point, I would come to my senses, say my Alaska adventure had been good but was now over and that I might settle down nearby in that same valley to one day be buried on that hill with them.

I love Utah, but, damn, I couldn't live there. I just couldn't.

I lived in Utah for one year when I was a baby and for the five years total that I attended BYU.

That was enough. I can't live there anymore.

Sometimes, though, I awake from a dream. In it, I am in the basement of my parents' house where I am at last writing my books.

I am alone in that house. Nobody else lives there. Just me.

I really don't like that dream.

Then the flight was off - five more hours to sit in a box seat with a stiff, non-reclining back, having already sat in it for two on the ground - plus, of course, the New York to Salt Lake ordeal.

After about four of those hours had passed, I headed back to the restroom.

When I came out, I heard a female voice speak out of the near darkness of the cabin, in which all the main lights had been turned out: "Bill? Is that you?"

It was me, and Courtney was the young woman who asked. I first met Courtney when she showed up at the hospital emergency room after a Saturday Wasilla High football game, probably in 1992.

Caleb had been injured in that game and his memory temporarily knocked out of his head.

Courtney, a cheerleader, was right there at his side, hovering adoringly over him, smiling warmly upon him, caressing his hands in hers'.

They were an item for a long time after that, hanging out, going to the prom and such, but in time she went her own way. Now she was on the plane with her daughter, Abby, and a son who was sleeping in such a dark spot that I could not make him out. They had been living in Texas with her husband, who had just becoming qualified to fly a C-130.

Now she was going back to Wasilla. "I can't believe how much I have missed being home," she told me. "You don't realize how good it is until you go away."

"How old is Abby?" I asked Courtney. Abby answered for herself.

Margie picked me up at the airport and we arrived home in Wasilla about 4:15 AM - 25 hours after I had gotten up at the Comfort Inn that I had stayed in by JFK.

It was nearly five by the time we got to bed and I had hoped to sleep until 11:00 AM, ten at the earliest. But I began to wake up at 7:30, perhaps in part because Jim kept going back and forth from beneath the blankets to resting on top of me.

Everyone tells me that Jim has a hard time when I gone. He gets lonely and anxious and a bit desperate. When I come home, he will come to me with the most anxious expression. Then he will dash this way and that way out of sheer joy. Finally, he will settle down wherever I am at and will stick as close to me as possible.

As I have been working on this blog, he has alternated between resting upon my chest and shoulder to my lap.

Anyway, I gave up on sleep shortly after I took this picture at, as the clock says, 8:44 AM.

Pistol-Yero was sleeping there, too, but when I got up, it woke him up. I do not think he was ready to wake up.

Next I went out into the garage, where Royce and Chicago had already begun to dine on food put out the night before.

I then went outside to get the paper. 

According to our tradition, I next took Margie out to breakfast at Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant, just as I always do when I return home from a trip, whether I can afford to or not.

I ordered my hash browns to be cooked "very light." They came back cooked dark, hard and crispy on the outside, mush on the inside.

Oh, well. The ham and eggs were very tasty, the coffee just right, the multi-grain toast and jam quite excellent.

Overall, breakfast was a good and pleasant experience - as long as I did not think to much about what we now face.

Although I am back in Wasilla, I will return to New York and then Nantucket very shortly - at least in this blog. I will begin by showing readers how my search for a New York City pretzel turned out, and most definitely I will bring you along on the tour of Cloisters and the very northern tip of Manhattan that Chie Sakakibara took me on. I will tell you a bit about the unlikely story of how she, a girl in Japan who originally believed Native Americans to be Caucasian because that's how she saw them in the movies and Aaron Fox became bonded to the Iñupiat of the Arctic Slope and brought a treasure that had been lost back to them.

As to Nantucket, I am now completely fascinated with the place and want to learn all I can about it.

Stranded at JFK: Two scenarios that caused it, plus one that should have saved me but didn't

My Delta Flight out of JFK was scheduled to leave at 5:05 PM, so I reasoned that if I set out from the Alaska House guest house at 2:00, I would be in good shape. I think I would have been, too, had it not been for two setbacks - the first a miscalculation on my part and the second a bit of faulty information given to me by one of those guys who sits in little booths in the subway stations to sell tickets and answer questions.

First, my miscalculation: the guest house is very near to the subway station at Christopher Street and Seventh Avenue and so it was my plan to walk there, get on the train and go. Just before I set out, I decided I wanted to know of any train changes I might have to make along the way and so I pulled up HopStop.com. Hopstop allows one to enter his starting and ending points and then it gives directions as to what subway station to go to and what trains to take.

It instructed me to go to a different station, one in the opposite direction than Christopher, but in the actual direction of travel. So I set out for that station, thinking that it might take about 5 minutes to walk, certainly no more than ten. It took closer to 20. Even so, I should have been in decent shape.

Once I got to the station, I went to the booth, manned by an ornery man who likes to make people who do not know as much about the New York subway system as he does feel stupid.

From Hopstop, I knew that I had to take the A train, but I asked him about it and where I should go to most quickly access it. "You go down those stairs and you take the A train - the A train to Far Rockaway," he emphasized authoritatively.  "Only that A train. Not the other."

I went down the stairs and found myself on an island between two tracks. To my right, an A train was arriving at that very moment. I looked at the sign above it and it said "A local." I looked to my left, where there was no train at the moment and it said, "A, Far Rockaway."

So I let the A train to the right go without me and waited for one to come in at the left, the A to Far Rockaway, just like the man said.

As I waited, a B and then a C train came in on the track to the right, but no trains on the A to Far Rockaway track. Then another A local came, but still no A Far Rockaway.

Still, the man had said to take the "Far Rockaway" only and, as ornery as he had been, I figured that he knew what he was talking about. That faith would wind up costing me over $350 that I simply cannot afford. I would put it all on a credit card, of course. While at the moment I do not have one concrete paying job set to go in April or anytime in the future and I begin the month with barely enough money to support Margie and I for about one week - as long as we delay paying a few bills that long - there are always prospects out there and perhaps enough good things will happen in the future to allow me to get that credit card bill paid off and make a living, too.

I have been a freelance photographer/writer now for 25 years and I love it - but sometimes I hate it, too.

And to those who have bought into the cynical rumor, started by one who knows better, NO, NO, NO! I am not retired.

I will retire on the day that I die, or become too incapacitated to keep working.

That is the only way that I will retire.

But I grow angry and digress. This does me no good, so I will return to the story:

The cycle of A local and non-A trains on the left track continued unabated, but not a single train showed up on the Far Rockaway track. I began to grow very nervous that I was going to miss my plane if I waited much longer. So, finally, I jumped on an "A local" and asked a savvy looking man if this would get me to Far Rockaway and JFK.

Yes, he said, but I would have to change to a different A at a certain station about 40 minutes away. As to the Far Rockaway train that I had been waiting for - it was shut down for the weekend and that damned, ornery, smart-ass, authority in the booth whose instructions cost me all this lost time and money should have known that.

Suffice it to say, though, that I eventually made it and then found myself on the Airtrain, the last leg to JFK, where I took this image of all the many happy travelers traveling with me. While I knew I was cutting it close, I thought I was still in good shape and would be fine.

When the A Train dropped me off at Terminal 2, where Delta is based, I was a little surprised by the distance still ahead to walk. It was just about 4:00 PM. I was a little worried about what it might be like to go through JFK security, but still figured I would be okay.

So I made the walk, crossed the road, found the elevator, took it up and worked my way through the bustling crowd to the check-in kiosk. I used the "swipe your credit card" card method to check in. At first, the computer did not recognize me, so it asked me a string of questions before it finally figured out who I was and where I was going.

It then asked for the number of bags I would check in. I selected one. It then told me that all bags for this flight had been checked in and no more would be allowed. Did I want to continue? Yes, I did, but when I tried, the computer would not issue me a boarding pass. It told me to go to the "assist kiosk." I checked the time at that moment. 4:10 PM. My flight was scheduled for 5:05. I I had missed the baggage deadline by three, maybe four minutes at most.

Flying out of Anchorage it is never this tight. 4:10 for 5:05 departure would still easily get your bags on the plane and you would make it through security and you would fly.

Getting to the assist kiosk was a tedious, time-consuming process. It seems that many people coming to JFK arrive too late and so the lines were long and packed with frustrated and angry people, trying to get to clerks who were tried, frustrated and angry from having to deal with them all day.

As frustrated and frazzled as I was, I decided that I would be nothing but polite, friendly, and courteous to the poor, frazzled, frustrated, impatient woman who would deal with me, because it was not her fault and nothing that I could do now would change the situation. Nothing would put me on my scheduled flight home.

Indeed, she was impatient. She did not want to explain anything to me and, once she had determined that there was not a single other flight that I could take out that evening, she made it clear that she resented the fact I now expected her to help me find one the next day.

"There's just nothing," she said. Then she looked at me as that was that was that and we were done.

"I have to get home," I told her. "I can't stay here. If you can't get me out tonight, then you have to help me find a flight for tomorrow."

With an expression of great pain and annoyance, she got back into her computer. "I can put you on the same flight tomorrow, but there will be a $200 penalty."

"I have to get home," I reiterated, "but is there anything earlier tomorrow?"

She sighed wearily and then got back into her computer. After a few minutes, she told me should could put me on an earlier departure that would route me through Minneapolis instead of Salt Lake and put me in Anchorage a bit after 6:00 PM instead of 12:54 AM Tuesday morning. This would cost me another $653.

There was no way. I paid the $200 penalty and got rebooked for a 5:05 PM departure Monday, to arrive in Anchorage at 12:54 AM, Tuesday. I left the assit kiosk and headed back to the Airtrain. As I neared it, my phone rang. It was a recorded courtesy call to let me know that my 5:05 flight - the one I had not been allowed to check in for, not the new one that I had rebooked - had been delayed until 5:30.

So, you see, if Delta gave as much thought to its passengers as it does to their money, they could easily have still checked my bag in and put me on that plane and saved me all this time and money.

There was no way that I wanted to face the prospect of working my way back to JFK from Manhattan again Monday, so I booked myself at a Comfort Inn near JFK. I took the above picture from Federal Circle as I waited for the Comfort Inn Shuttle to come and pick me up.

I never get bored, but I got bored last night - only because I was too tired and weary to blog, write emails, work, or do anything. I took a walk. I ate. I called home and talked to all the Easter celebrants - that eased the boredom for awhile, as did this image of Kalib and Muzzy hunting Easter eggs in the back yard, iPhoned to me by Lavina. Wow! Look at what a huge patch of snow has melted away out of the back yard!

I lay on the bed and then stared, bored and bleary eyed, at my motel-room TV, watching nothing complete but different segments from different programs and movies plus bits of news about an earthquake in Mexico, felt strongly in California, among other happenings.

My flight is schedule to leave in just under 6 hours from now. The Comfort Inn lady has given me a late checkout time of 1:00 PM - one hour and 40 minutes from now.

I will go take a short walk, return here, see how much time I have left before checkout, decide what to do with it, then take the shuttle to the airport, check in early, go through security and then just hang out for awhile. I will buy something to eat and take a few pictures - although I already have far more pictures from this trip than I will possibly ever get around to dealing with at any time in my life.

But I will deal with some. Interested readers will see which ones. In the meantime, here is an iPhone image of Kalib and Jobe sent to me by Lavina:

Boston to Nantucket: I share an airplane with sweet baby Junior

This is sweet baby Junior and, just like me, he is preparing to fly from Boston to Nantucket on a Cape Air Cessna. The breeze catches his mom's hair and hurls it skyward.

Shortly after I get in and buckle myself down, I see sweet baby Junior boarding with his mom.

I can't believe my good fortune! Sweet baby Junior sits down beside me! I see that I will have good, intelligent, company on this trip. I believe we will discuss Socrates, Shakespeare and Persimon Munk.

The pilot gives us the preflight briefing. Sweet baby Junior pays rapt attention. I can tell that he is worried that the pilot does not know what he is doing and might crash. 

"It is okay," I tell him. "I think this pilot knows what he's doing - and if he doesn't, I'm a pilot too, so I will just simply take over. And I've only crashed once, so you know you will be safe if I must fly the plane."

As you can see from his expression, this filled Sweet baby Junior with great relief.

Soon, we left Boston behind us.

Shortly after we flew out over the Atlantic, I turned to sweet baby Junior to start the discussion. "So," I queried, "what is your theory about whatever became of the vanished libraries of Persimon Munk?"

But sweet baby Junior did not answer. He had fallen into dreamland.

Perhaps he would find the answers there.

Soon we were over what is nick-named Fog Island, home of the old yankee whaling town of Nantucket. 

We come down on final, headed towards Runway 24. I wish that I were flying the damned plane instead of this guy. Not that I have anything against him and he did a good job, but I just always like it better when I am doing the flying. I haven't done the flying for too long, now.

Sweet baby Junior and his mom got out and headed for the Cape Air terminal building, but they had left a shoe behind.

I picked it up and hollered at them. They came back and got it.

I have not seen Sweet Baby Junior since.

Wouldn't it be fun if he showed up at my show?

I kind of doubt it, though.

But I hope he does.

Should you see this, Sweet Baby Junior, know that you have a special invitation.

Two PM, Saturday, March 27, at the Nantucket Whaling Museum.

Flying to Nantucket, the first leg: Anchorage to Nantucket

 

On the first leg of my flight to Nantucket, I found myself in a middle "E" seat, enroute from Anchorage to Minneapolis. To my right, in the window seat, sat this very attractive young woman, who engaged herself in the task of photographing the right wing of the airplane.

The fellow directly in front of me laid his head back and listened to whatever was playing on his Bose headset.

The lady to my left read a book.

A young woman behind and to the right took a nap.

And behind me were these people. As you can see, I did not get a chance to get a haircut and beard trim before I left. I will have to find a place in Nantucket and get it done there.

The stewardesses came, pushing a cart with soft drinks, coffee and snacks, but no substantial food.

From time to time, I heard the squeals of a baby. It turned out to be this character. Not once did I hear this baby cry. The sounds of its squeals made me think of Jobe - and even of Kalib, not that long ago.

At one point, the lady reading the book got up and went wandering about the plane. Then I could clearly see the people across the aisle, which included this couple originally from Hyderabad, India. They have a son who lives in Anchorage.

The lavatories were just ahead of the third row in front of me, so I could smell the chemicals all the way. A couple stood, arm in arm, waiting.

"Cookies or peanuts?" the stewardess shouted out to the gentleman in front of me. Then she cupped her ears to listen for his answer.

"Peanuts," he answered.

Here we are, landing in Minneapolis. I believe this is a channel of the Mississippi.

I stepped out of the plane and found this dog, Sampson.

Before boarding the next flight to Boston, I bought myself a burrito. A pilot came in and ate lunch nearby.

I did not get my shoes shined, because they are shoes that were not made to shine.