Hobbit and Wendell Fly from Seattle to Fairbanks
You know you're out in the boondocks when the airport has one paved land and one gravel lane for the departing/arriving passenger area. We couldn't get the camera out quick enough to snap a photo of the gnarly four wheel drive pickup truck, full of chainsaws and firewood, picking up a passenger outside the airport terminal.
We ran into some trouble with packing the bicycles so on Sunday morning we had to take the bikes and the boxes to REI for an emergency packing. Packing bicycles is a *lot* more complicated that we expected. It takes an hour per bicycle and costs 50.00. Fortunately it took half the time and half the cost because Wendell and I had already gotten started and he helped the bike mechanic. But we made it in plenty of time to the airport. Big thanks to my parents for the ride.
The plane was about 2/3 cruise ship people so the mood on the plane was jovial.
For the first time in a LONG time, the TSA people did not subject Wendell to intense questioning and a body cavity search. This meant that we had nearly two hours until our plane departed. Wendell organized a bourbon tasting session at the airport bar, adding additional joviality in our row of seats.
We were seated in the exit row. Since I was in the window seat, when we were advised that we needed to make sure we could fulfill our 'exit row' duties. I take my duties very seriously so I took out the instructional card and attempted to decipher the pictographs. It was pretty comical. I was sort of acting out each step trying to figure it all out so everyone around me got involved. We finally figured out how to take the door off, but then couldn’t figure out where to put the door since coach class in a plane is pretty small. Many suggestions were made and we decided the best one was to throw the door out of the plane. According to the instructions as the person closest to the door it was my responsibility to jump into the water and steady the slider-thing. I’m not so sure I like that part. Everyone else gets to stay on the slider thingy and treat it like a life raft. Finally with the help of the rows fore and aft of me I was able to do a mock run through of an emergency exit. The flight attendant would not let us actually practice the emergency exit, she was no fun at all.
When you land in Hawaii the passengers clap. I think we always should clap no matter where we land. I was happy to see that when we landed in Fairbanks everybody clapped. I enthusiastically joined in.
The Fairbanks airport is a little different than most others in a couple of ways.
First, it is the only airport I have been in where there is a special gathering room just for all the cruise ship passengers. As we walked through the airport there were the little cruise ship employees holding signs saying which line they were with and directing their passengers.
Second, as we were getting our baggage, the baggage carousel area was divided roughly in half. Half for passengers getting their bags, the other half for cruise line employees getting the bags of their customers. They were so cute in their uniforms checking tags of every bag and pulling off theirs into a very large pile. It's the only airport I've ever been to that most of the bags are being collected by somebody other than the person that brought them. I don't know if I should be insulted that none of the cruise line employees checked our expensive luggage to see if it was theirs. (See the picture above.)
Wendell got our bicycles assembled Sunday night in our hotel room so we could go riding the next morning. He did a great job with the bicycle assembly, it is not easy.
We put ourselves on the list to be called for the aurora borealis and I also checked every time I got up in the night. But no aurora borealis tonight.
We each had two panniers, a bike bag and a camelback, plus other assorted bike gear - six pieces of luggage each. In order to reduce the number of pieces of baggage (we're limited to two checked and two carry-on) we packed all our supplies and equipment into cardboard boxes.
After we arrived in Fairbanks, I discovered one flaw in our plan - due to TSA requirements, we had packed all our knives in the cardboard boxes, so we had no way to open the cardboard boxes.
The hotel room had a steak knife in the kitchenette, otherwise we would have had to chew through the strapping tape.
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