Alaska, 2006
(or Northern Exposure)
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June 25, 2006 (Sunday)
We arrived back in Seattle overnight. Helene and I received our 6:30 a.m. wakeup call and got ready for breakfast. The day promised to be a long day, knowing how much I enjoy the traveling part of travel. At 7:00, I found myself standing in the shower thinking about how it was 9:00 Central Time, and in 24 hours, I'd be back at a desk sorting through a week's worth of back messages, panicked requests, and left-field questions. Can't wait.
We ate with Judi, Steve, and Dan in the Horizon at 7:30, just for old time's sake. Once again, I was treated to grit broth, which pretty much put a capper on the whole cruise buffet experience. After breakfast, we kind of ambled around deck for a few minutes and then went to the room to wait out the disembarkation call. In a nutshell, for those who haven't experienced leaving a cruise ship, you set out your luggage the night before tagged with color-coded labels that designate which grouping you're in. They take your luggage (meaning that you need to keep a change of clothes and toiletries out) the evening before, and you wait with your overstuffed carryables until they call you by your color and number. Then you collect your luggage from the pile in the terminal.
Having said that, the disembarkation wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been. We collected our luggage without a lot of trouble, turned in our customs forms, and found our way to the airport shuttle by 9:15; we arrived at Seattle-Tacoma International by 9:40. Check-in and security was relatively easy on top of that.
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Ironically, the less fortunate impact of all this was that we would have even more time to loiter in the airport. It's 10:10 in the morning, our plane isn't due to leave until 4:25, and we've had to stake out a spot in the food court by appropriating nearly every chair in our immediate vicinity. Six hours to kill. We ate lunch from the various available to us from the food court. I opted for Wendy's, myself. In the meantime, we alternated perusing the nearby shops, reading, and walking. By 3:00, we wound our way toward the "N" terminal to continue the frivolity at the gate. After buying some beef jerky and trail mix to pass as an in-flight dinner, I parked myself with the rest of the family and awaited our boarding call (or, alternately, our pending death by boredom).
9:30 p.m., CDT
We're on final approach into ORD. I couldn't sleep, but I finished 3 Nights in August on the flight. What a great read. The descent down through the cloud layer was really bumpy, but the flight was otherwise uneventful. I can hardly wait to wake up in eight hours. Maybe the building will have burned down over the weekend....
Glenview, IL: 11:30 p.m.
We walked in the door at 11:15 p.m. after riding with Chicago's slowest cabbie and dropping off Dan and June on the way. We pretty much dropped the bags in the living room. I cracked the seal on the Johnnie Walker Blue Label to celebrate coming home, quickly logged into the e-mail system at work to see what kind of forest fires were smoldering, and then got myself to bed. The scenery might not be as grand, but 2,083 nautical miles later, it's good to be home.
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