Alaska – Day 1 (or Airports Are Really Just Free Hotels)

We have completed the first day of our vacation.  It is now 12:30am Pacific Standard Time and I am still awake because I slept on the plane.  Melissa is conked out across about thee Alaska Airlines gate seats, including mine.  Good news – her feet don’t smell…

Our morning started as it usually does the day we start a vacation – a flurry of packing.  I have good intentions; Melissa is less enthusiastic about packing a week before and it is a contagious condition.  I secretly think she turns it into a competition with herself.  “How many hours does it take to pack for a vacation that will last for X number of days?”  I’m thinking she can be proud of herself for this one – six and a half hours.  Of course, I was a big meanie and made her do a little bit the past couple of nights, so I like to think we saved a few hours of fashion shows that went a little something like this: “This dress (pulling out blue sundress A) or this dress (pulling out blue-green sundress B)?  Uhhh…  “How about this dress?”  Little red dress that I know will send her running back into the cabin the moment she sets foot outside gets nixed.  “What about this dress?”  Out comes the Little House on the Prairie muumuu and I am officially done…

Hoped to leave at noon, really left at 1pm which was pretty much our intention all along.  Got to the Park ‘n Fly we finally remembered to book this morning and got whisked to the airport.  Hope to see my car again, the way they rushed us out of there…

The Fort Lauderdale airport was not what I expected.  It was actually very tiny.  Once we got an issue with our boarding passes sorted, we flew through security (yay for TSA Pre-Check!) and had time for a sit-down meal.  Our flight itself was generally uneventful, except for the medical emergency about an hour away from Seattle.  First time I have ever been on a flight where they asked for a doctor from the cabin.  Fortunately, after about 15-20 minutes, the lady who went down was able to go back to her seat.  We apparently had a nice tailwind, and got to Seattle about an hour early.  Had a post-flight beer, found our next gate, and here we are.

Clearly, we are not the only ones who don’t want to pay for a hotel and deal with security again in the morning.  I am also reminded of my first year swimming in college, when on our way to our training trip to Hawaii, we had a flight delayed out of O’Hare, which caused us to miss our flight out of San Francisco.  Most of us slept in the airport, but a few went to stay in a hotel and sightsee, on the assumption that the next flight we could catch wasn’t until 6pm the next day.  Well, that backfired.  The rest of us found a flight the next morning.  This was before cell phones were in everyone’s purse and pocket.  They made it to Hawaii eventually, but it was a bit of a different situation than trying to catch what is essentially a group tour.

Anyway, I’m ready to nap again.  We’ll be flying to Anchorage first, then a short flight to Fairbanks after that.  Looking forward to our first day in Alaska (and, admittedly, a hotel)!