From the morning buffet, I knew my time was counting down and it was very sad. I felt that the past 35 days were just such an incredible learning adventure that I didn’t want it to end. Not to mention, I didn’t want to leave Maggie. I wondered what it would be like to not have any daily contact with her and all her enthusiasm.
So I left Dutch Harbor for a very long day and night of travel. I reached Anchorage, AK and then had a large layover but got the best surprise. I bumped into David Hyrenbach who was also waiting for a flight. So just when I thought my time with all the many friends and scientists was about to end, I got to scrape a little bit of time and tea with him. We had a great catch-up on what we had done since departing the Healy and then I watched him head back to Seattle.
Of course, with another three hours left to hang out in the Anchorage airport, what is a girl to do to with all that time? Well, of course, shopping!! I managed to get a little more retail therapy and I made sure I grabbed a recent magazine so I could catch up on all the latest celebrity gossip. With a few extra tokens of Alaska, I was happy with my purchases and settled down to wait for my flight.
The red-eye is usually great because I can sleep during the entire flight back to the lower 48. Not this time, I don’t know how the people in front of me could find things to talk about for the ENTIRE flight, but they did. I mean really. So I arrived in Chicago, dazed, tired, and ready to sleep. Of course with the changing of gates and misunderstandings of what time zone I was even in…I got stuck in Chicago from missing my flight. The next flight leaving for Dayton was about 7 hours later and I would be stuck at yet another airport. I called to let my fiancé know and he thought I was kidding and had simply arrived earlier. It was hard to delay my return but he handled it well and a lot better than me.
I managed to get some sleep and every hour or so I checked on the gate for the flight that leaves for Dayton. I had to change gates another 3 times during my wait. I began to feel like the airport really didn’t want me to make my last flight. I finally asked an agent to personally tell me if there would another change because I did not want to miss my flight. Finally, the time came and I got to board the flight. I was almost home. I quickly fell asleep and woke up as the plane was making its final descent into Dayton.
I don’t think I ever walked so fast to get to baggage claim. When I finally got there, I didn’t see Rusty, my fiancé, anywhere. Then I started to freak but caught a glimpse of him looking at the arrival monitors and snuck up behind him. It was great and he had flowers waiting for me too. I was so glad to be home. My luggage was all there. It had arrived on time and I had to pick it up at the airline office. Then it was off to see the rest of my family and enjoy some time in green pastures.