Day 1/Destination Fairbanks:
The Log Cabin Quilters of Anchorage and the Cabin Fever Quilters of Fairbanks invited me to come teach for them. I had a great trip, and I'm going to share some pictures.
Alaska Airlines has a six and a half hour non-stop from Chicago to Anchorage. I will then fly another hour to Fairbanks. I loved the flight from ORD to ANC.
First off, they had wifi, and it only cost $5 per flight, if you are flying to Alaska. I signed up and posted to Facebook. Then, I realized I could move towards the back of the plane and have my own row. I did that and when I started up the iPad again, there was no internet connection. The screen kept apologizing for not providing an internet connection and urged me to try again in a few minutes. It told me that the connection would not work if we were outside the US
After about 15 minutes, I went to the back of the plane and asked a flight attendant if I had lost wifi because I moved too far back and was out of it's range. No, we were over Canada. And the service was only good over the US. I should have thought about that, the captain did say we were going over Canada. (A glance at the map would have clued me in...) The service, GoGo did send me a coupon for a free session in the future, I didn't use it on the way home.
The one hour flight to Fairbanks rolled back from the gate on time, but then we sat there for a while. Then we rolled back to the gate and the captain announced that there was a maintenance issue with the plane and we were to debark and we could come back on when they had made the repair. On the way out, as part of my effort to be as cheerful as I can on a flight, I thanked the Captain for not flying us over the mountains in a broken plane. The captain said "We couldn't go anyway, the plane wouldn't start." Aha.
I called Betsy in Fairbanks, to tell her I'd be at least 45 minutes late and we agreed that I would just call her when I landed, as she was so close to the airport. Not a problem.
I called Brian to tell him that I was in Anchorage, and leaving eventually for Fairbanks. He thought the airport was probably very small, but I told him he was wrong indeed. And here are some of the pictures I took while at the Anchorage Airport.
One of the several souvenir stores in the terminal. I had a feeling I was going to see a lot of bad puns for business names.
A view out the window of the terminal.
There was a plane hanging from the ceiling at the gate. It's a Cessna 172, which is the most popular private plane. Or maybe the most popular single engine plane. One of those. I "flew" one for my 41st birthday on a discovery flight. The real captain had a second steering wheel and other controls. I loved it, but I am too short to be able to fly this airplane, I can't see over the dashboard and reach the pedals at the same time.
I tried several times to make a scared face and have the stuffed polar bears be in the background.
I checked the departure list and noted that they had several flights to Dutch Harbor. Brian loves "Deadliest Catch".
Finally we flew to Fairbanks, in a very crowded plane, 737. The view outside was amazing. I didn't take pictures though. But the people around me were very generous sharing the information, telling me the names of the rivers we were flying over.
So, that was Day one.
