The morning began at 3:45 when I woke up, beating the alarm by some fifteen minutes. It was pointless to try and steal another fifteen minutes of sleep. I was awake and going to remain so. My first duty, as with every morning, was to feed the dogs. A little earlier than normal but they surely didn’t mind. When it comes to food, they will take it any time, any where; first the two labs, Lady and Lucy, and then Bennett, our version of the energizer bunny. He is a Jack Russell. Need I say more?
I logged onto the computer one last time before departing and wrote down my itinerary that was sent to me a couple weeks ago and updated just a few days ago.
? Greenville-Spartanburg to Detroit
? Detroit to Minneapolis
? Minneapolis to Anchorage
? Anchorage to Barrow with a stop in Prudhoe Bay
My first two stops, Detroit and Minneapolis went off without any hitches. Detroit offered some very interesting sights and sounds in the terminal. They constructed a tunnel between concourses, as many airports do, and filled it with a kaleidoscope of colors that encircle you as you walk or ride the moving walkway through the tunnel. They also include synthesized sounds that may be described as something akin to whale song. I enjoyed the brief interlude from the airport hustle. I had time to spare.
Minneapolis was different in many ways. First there were many more people, I figured in part, due to a more reasonable time of morning. It also had a more "mall” type of feel, with many restaurants and stores lining the path from concourse G to concourse C, which was quite a hike. I stopped for a banana and a slice of pizza, checked messages, left messages, and went to the wrong gate. It’s a bad feeling when you come up to what you think is your gate, only to find it vacated. "Better check my watch!”….”Better check the flight monitor!”….”OH!”....”Whew!”....”it was C-16, not C-18” "Okay…back two.”
Besides writing this journal entry, my time has mostly been spent reading Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer, which is a personal account of the climbing disaster on Mt. Everest in 1996 and claimed the lives of several in his climbing party. Good reading so far. I’m on chapter 10.
"What!...I don’t have a seat?” It was a little scary in Anchorage when I found out that I was not assigned a seat on a full flight but got on anyway due to lots of no-shows. Finally it’s on to Prudhoe Bay and Barrow. Interesting names of their airports.
So that's what a Deadhorse and Will Rogers have in common. They are the names of airports found in Northern Alaska.