ArcticArtique

I finally made it home. What a trip this was. After a month of my helicopter in as good condition as I can make it, I hightailed it back to Alaska. Everything should be done and my summer pilots will fly it to Alaska some time next week. I'll meet it them here.

Wait until you hear about my trip home. This one made the last trip home a cakewalk. Check this out. We took the helicopter to a avionic shop to have some work done before it leaves. That was Wednesday. That was the plan. I would leave from Lubbock the next morning. Cool. I was done.

Well, I showed up at the terminal at 0700 for my 8:00am flight. I go to the counter, give the girl my ID, and tell her I'm going home. I was happy! She looked at her screen, looked at her screen again, looked at me and said,”I don't have you on our list.” I was dumbfounded! She asked to see my itinerary and fortunately I'm old so I still print my information to fold up, carry around, and to pull out of my pocket when needed. Hey, I'm doing pretty good being able to work a printer. Well, she looked at my itinerary, looked at me, got her red ink pin out, circled something on the paper, looked at me again and said “This ticket is for yesterday.”

I looked dumbfounded again! The office still wasn't open for another two hours. We sit right on the time zone line so Lubbock is an hour ahead of everybody in Clovis. I called the guys, told them about my predicament, and promptly got laughed at, then told to repeat it for more laughter! If you think about it, it was kind of funny.

I called the avionics shop, told them what happened, got laughed at, and then asked for a ride to come over and hang out with them for a while. After what seemed to be a very long two hours, I got hold of the girl that made my tickets. The early morning apologies were profuse. I finally had to let her know it was okay. Little delay but this can be fixed.

Well, she went to work and I got the text soon after. Got me a ticket. Leaves at 1:00pm. Lubbock to Phoenix to Sacramento to Seattle to Fairbanks. Again she apologized. Here comes the marathon.

So I leave Lubbock on American Airlines. I've got a tight connection in Phoenix. Airplane is late. After stressing only a little, I enjoyed a Frappucino. Yeah, I broke down and stopped at StarBucks.

Moving forward, we landed at Phoenix. We were late, so the captain and flight attendant were yelling out flight info and trying to tell people where their connections were. I had to play OJ Simpson and start running through the terminal to make my flight. Old man don't run anymore. I made it just as they were loading the plane, almost done. This flight was uneventful other that we sat on the runway for nearly an hour as the captains recline broke on his chair. He was a pretty big boy. Oh yeah, somebody didn't show for their flight so questions were being asked to the lady behind me. I tried to drown it out but it didn't work.

I made it to Sacramento with time to spare and airlines to change. I jumped from American to Delta for the rest of my journey. I looked for a sandwich before the flight. The only thing I could find was about 16 bucks. Sorry...I'm not paying that for a sandwich. I figured I'd wait to Seattle to eat. Since this plane was late leaving, it was late arriving. You guessed it...lost my chance to eat because I had to run to my next flight to get home to Fairbanks. I got there, out of breath again, only to find my final leg was now late like the rest of my flights.

This one was weird though. We were told that we were delayed due to an ATC (Air Traffic Control) hold. Now, in 30 years of flying lots of helicopters and lots of commercial, I have never heard of ATC holding a plane at the gate. The weather wasn't bad. The traffic was light. The only thing I can figure is that turned out to be just about the time that we bombed Syria. It wasn't just us being held I would bet.

Didn't have time to find food so figured I'd eat on the plane. Delta's magazine said any flight over 900 miles has food for purchase. Keep in mind it was getting late and I hadn't eaten since Lubbock and I am hypoglycemic. After we got up to altitude the drink cart came out. I asked for one of the snack packs and was told there were none. I think the lady saw my tired, stressed, and hungry body language and said she would try to find a box up front. She was very nice about it.

The flight went on, and I settled in half dozing when I heard something and saw a banana appear before my eyes. I wasn't quite registering what was happening but the flight attendant leaned over and informed me she couldn't find anything up front but she found these things. They are complimentary please take them.

I half nodded and said thank you as she was leaving. I finished my banana and vegi chips and promptly slept for the rest of the flight. After we got home to Fairbanks it dawned on me what had happened. The banana was cold, as in refrigerated. This lady, seeing my frustration, gave me food out of her lunch bag and never said a word. She could have said sorry and went on about her job. But she didn't.

What she did for me was Humanity at its finest.

I don't know your name ma'am but I hope your company finds it way to this post and shows you. There were only two flight attendants from Seattle to Fairbanks on Thursday Aptil 6th and only one was female.

Delta Lady, please accept this post as my thanks for your kindness. After my rough day and then a weather hold of our own, my wife and I made the drive to Wasilla. She had work to do for a few days as we are planning a major change for ourselves this year. On my way home from dropping Kitty off, I took pictures of my Alaska. These pictures are of the mountain area around Denali National Park. Please enjoy.