An Alaskan Trip


© Fred J. Kane
Articles in this Topic    Discussions in this Topic

In the last week of July I had the good fortune of going on vacation to the great state of Alaska. It was a dream fulfilled after 30 years. I flew from my home town, Rochester, New York, to Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Anchorage, Alaska and then on to Juneau.

The day to leave the alarm woke me at 3:30 A.M. The taxi cab picked me up at 4:15 A.M. for the trip to the airport. I checked through security with no problems. In Minneapolis I ate breakfast and then on to Anchorage. Finally I landed In Anchorage and had a long lay over.

Again I was able to stretch my legs and have supper. By now jet lag, something I never experienced before started to affect me. My flight to Juneau has arrived and I leave Anchorage. Finally I landed at Juneau and went to the baggage claim conveyer. What do you mean I have no baggage? I go to the lost and found person and report my missing luggage. This is about 5:00 P.M. Pacific Time. Actually it is 9:00 PM EST. I' been up and traveling 15 hours and my baggage is in NaNa land.

The lost and found man told me to go to my hotel and he would call me when he found my luggage. I go to the desk where I rented a car and spoke with a nice lady who says my car is the parking lot. I had a little car trouble and was corrected.

I drove to my hotel, check in and go to my assigned room. It is not what I ordered or paid for. Back to the front desk and get resettled. By now I starting to think that "Murphy's Law" would affect this once in a lifetime trip.

I decide I need to settle down and get some sleep. At 8:00 PM PST the phone rings and wakes me from my sleep. It is the lost and found man at the airport, saying he located my luggage. He said it would be on the next flight into Juneau and would deliver it to my hotel room. I thanked him and went back to sleep. Midnight and the phone ringing startles me awake and it is a person delivering my luggage to my room.

Forgetting that I am up north in Alaska and the birds start to sing at sun up. Oh, by the way, sun up is at 2:30 AM. The seagulls were squawking, the ravens cawing, the robins and other song birds singing and the eagle were screaming as the flew to their hunting grounds. I'm up again. Fortunately my hotel room had a coffee maker and some reading material.

Go To Page: 1 2 3


Post this Article to facebook Add this Article to del.icio.us! Digg this Article furl this Article Add this Article to Reddit Add this Article to Technorati Add this Article to Newsvine Add this Article to Windows Live Add this Article to Yahoo Add this Article to StumbleUpon Add this Article to BlinkLists Add this Article to Spurl Add this Article to Google Add this Article to Ask Add this Article to Squidoo


Here's the follow-up discussion on this article: View all related messages

1.   Sep 20, 2003 9:08 PM
Fred, I suffered the culture shock of a strange environment when I moved from Syracuse, NY to Anchorage for a year in 2001. The ravens are the size of turkeys, and only in Alaska are bald eagles NOT a ...

-- posted by bici





Join the latest discussions

For a complete listing of article comments, questions, and other discussions related to Fred J. Kane's Arctic Wildlife topic, please visit the Discussions page.