Hello everyone and happy new year.
AnnMarie, Harold and I just returned from a wonderful trip to Minnesota to see our families and friends for the holidays. The visiting was great, the travel was not. It takes a lot of flying to get from here to there. The first leg of the journey is on a "bush plane" to Nome. The "bush plane" is normally a 6 to 12 passenger prop driven plane, the Cessna Caravan or the Piper Navajo are popular planes. This part of the trip is actually pretty easy to schedule and is reasonably priced. There are 4 or 5 flights a day from here to Nome flown by 3 different companies.
The real trouble starts when you get to Nome. There are only two ways to get from Nome to the rest of the world. The traditional way is by dogsled down the Iditarod trail, it's about 1100 miles and is only passable in the winter. The other way is to fly with Alaska Airlines. Alaska Airlines flies three combo 727's a day from Nome to Anchorage (a combo 727 is a medium sizes jet that has the back half full of passengers and the front filled with cargo.) Since Alaska Air is the only realistic option you could say they have a monopoly on this route. This allows them to have high prices and low service.
We had a pleasant but chilly (it was 25 below and the little planes don't really have any heat) flight from Brevig to Nome. When checking in with Alaska Air I have heard people say "how late is the plane today?" They automatically assume the plane is going to be late, they just want to know how late. Same thing on this trip, when we checked in for our flight to Anchorage the ticket counter person informed us that the plane was going to be a little late. At this point we didn't worry, we had a long layover scheduled in Anchorage before our next flight. We took a cab into town to get dinner (5 bucks a person for a two mile ride in an old van with a bungee cord to hold the door shut). After having a delicious pizza dinner that cost $110 for four people we took another cab back to the airport to await the arrival of the jet.
The jet eventually arrived a couple of hours late and they let us board. Nome is a small airport and there is no "jetway " to walk down, instead you do it the old fashioned way and walk outside across the tarmac and go up a set of stairs at the tail of the plane. On a normal day this little bit of fresh air is nice to get before being couped up in a plane. On this day it was 25 below and there was a refreshing breeze. Lucky for us we were seated in the last row, right next to the open door, so we were able to enjoy a little more of that refreshing breeze. It took 15 minutes to get everybody loaded on the plane and then they realized that there was a problem with the passenger list. The rules say they can not close the door until they get the problem with the list figured out (lucky us we get a little more fresh air). It only takes them 30 minutes to get the list sorted out and they finally decide to close the door. Now the door won't close (I think it was frozen) After 15 more minutes of messing around they get the door closed.
The plane was two hours late, the passenger list was messed up, and the door was stuck. Finally got all that behind us, should be time to go now but the pilot comes on the intercom and says that he can't seem to get the engines started. He assures us that it will only take a few minutes to get it figured out. After half an hour of waiting the pilot comes on the intercom and tells us that they are going to need a mechanic. They decide that we should stay on the plane because the mechanic will be able to fix it right away. Of course by this time it is midnight and the only guy in Nome that knows how to work on it is home in bed. Eventually the mechanic shows up and after an hour of tinkering manages to get the engines started. Once the engines were started we had a little bit of heat and the plane actually warmed up by the time we got to Anchorage.
All of that messing around put us in Anchorage about 5 hours behind schedule and we missed our connecting flight. They put us on standby for the next available flight out of Anchorage, but it was the holidays and all the planes were overbooked. I'll save you all the details of that part of the adventure, to sum it up our one day trip took three days. Maybe next time I'll tell you about our return trip problems and the Alaska Air fuel spill.
C.O.
3 comments:
I'm so impressed with your good attitude about the whole situation! I would still be foaming at the mouth. I've decided that I need to have a much more patient attitude when it comes to air travel. It does make for a good story, and, I have to admit, it was a good laugh for a dreary day. I read it aloud to Isaiah and he found it entertaining too.
It was so fun to see you and meet Harold over the holidays. I just wish we could have visited longer!
Maybe you could publish a novel in your spare time - "Travel times in Alaska". You wouldn't have to spend time imagining events - you'd have enough of real life situations to write about! We loved visiting with you and meeting Harold. Auntie Joan was tickled to be able to meet Harold.
Wow, it sounds like a longer and more intense version of my trip to Thompson Manitoba. I found it amusing how the planes kept getting smaller as you got further and further away from civilization. My flight from Detroit to Minneapolis was on a 757. Minneapolis to Winnipeg was on a DC-8. The final leg to Thompson was on a Saab 330 (???), which was a good sized plane (can’t really classify it as a bush plane) but still slow and small.
When I made this trip, all my flights were on time and I was traveling by myself. At the end of the day I was exhausted. I cannot even begin to imagine what Brevig to Duluth would be like with the entire family in tow. You are a better man than me! Or at least more brave… ;)
On a closing note, my return trip from Thompson found me sitting next to a guy from the Iron Range (Hibbing) during the Winnipeg to Minneapolis leg. I asked him if he knew any Rudstrom’s from the Hibbing / Chisholm area. He looked at me funny and said: “Yeah, of course I know the Rudstrom’s... who doesn’t?”
Sorry, but I forgot the guys name.
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