The first full day of vacation. To be honest, I no longer like travelling very much. I like, nay, LOVE, visiting places such as Jamaica, Alaska, Kansas City, Hershey PA and so on, but for whatever reason, the love of travelling to them has left me. So I was kind of dreading the airport and boarding/unboarding the plane. The actual flight itself, not so bad but I've never really had a bad passenger experience either, so that might alter my opinion...
Anyway, the day started at different times for all of us. Mama Chaos was up first, me second, Caleb third and Rob last. We were at the airport parking ramp around 5:30am'ish. The shuttle to the airport found us before we even had all of the bags out of the car, which may lead to a story in the final post of this vacation! The shuttle was crazy efficient! The driver asked if we were familiar with that service, which we were not, and then asked the driver to identify themselves, and I identified myself as that particular humanoid. He then handed me a business card like thingy that had some stuff scribbled on it that I could not understand and said, "When you return, hand that to your shuttle driver and he'll drop you off right at your vehicle.". Yeah right... that was what I was thinking and again, there may be a story in the last post about this vacation on that subject.
When we got to the airport drop-off location, he provided all of his passengers with a list of do's and don'ts when we return so we can get on the same shuttle service. What my pea-brain heard was, "you're going to have to call an Uber to even get you to the nearest car dealership to buy a new vehicle to get home as you'll never find the one you own again...". I'm holding onto the van key in the hope of the second "Minneapolis Miracle", but the hope is not strong!
We get to the airport and eventually figure out where to check our bags and got thru TSA without Dear ol' Dad (me!) saying something stupid. Most of that went pretty well with maybe only a hiccup or three, but that's pretty good for us!
Anyway, the day started at different times for all of us. Mama Chaos was up first, me second, Caleb third and Rob last. We were at the airport parking ramp around 5:30am'ish. The shuttle to the airport found us before we even had all of the bags out of the car, which may lead to a story in the final post of this vacation! The shuttle was crazy efficient! The driver asked if we were familiar with that service, which we were not, and then asked the driver to identify themselves, and I identified myself as that particular humanoid. He then handed me a business card like thingy that had some stuff scribbled on it that I could not understand and said, "When you return, hand that to your shuttle driver and he'll drop you off right at your vehicle.". Yeah right... that was what I was thinking and again, there may be a story in the last post about this vacation on that subject.
When we got to the airport drop-off location, he provided all of his passengers with a list of do's and don'ts when we return so we can get on the same shuttle service. What my pea-brain heard was, "you're going to have to call an Uber to even get you to the nearest car dealership to buy a new vehicle to get home as you'll never find the one you own again...". I'm holding onto the van key in the hope of the second "Minneapolis Miracle", but the hope is not strong!
We get to the airport and eventually figure out where to check our bags and got thru TSA without Dear ol' Dad (me!) saying something stupid. Most of that went pretty well with maybe only a hiccup or three, but that's pretty good for us!
Next, we find our fearsome foursome sitting on the plane after checking two more bags once the cattle call area lady announced on the mic that they needed about 15 passengers to check bags. I'm backing up a little bit here... She made the announcement twice and both times were right after Mama Chaos had left the cattle call area. She's the one possessing the boarding passes and of course, you need those to check the bags.
Finally, Mama and Caleb get their bags checked and she's heading off again to do whatever she does when she leaves the area. The cattle call area announcer calls her back to the counter, by name, as they got looking at her fancy new (new at Christmas time, 2025) flourescent orange suitcase and they suspect that there's a battery pack to power some of the features of this suitcase. She responds that she has no idea if there's a battery pack and is rifling thru the thing on the floor by the counter. They lady says to her, "Maybe you could get that lovely young man who was just with you back up here to help?". Of course, she's speaking about Caleb. Eventually, it all gets handled to everyone's satifaction and we finally board the stupid plane.
We take off pretty much on time and things were going quite smoothly for the first 2 hours and 45 minutes of the 5 hour 15 minute flight until a flight attendant got on the intercom and asked for any medical professionals that happened to be on the flight to assist with a medical emergency. OH POOP!!!
It didn't look good and it lasted for WAAAAAAAAY longer than was anywhere near comfortable. Finally the guy who appeared to be a doctor, was heading to the back of the plane (the infirm was in 1st class) and he mouthed the words, "We're alright" along with a very quick thumbs up to his wife, who was about 2 rows in front of us. After a few more trips to the front and the back again, he returned to his seat.
After about 15 minutes of no excitement, the flight attendant returned to the doc and said that the infirm requested further assistance. He popped back up and headed to 1st class to assist. They moved him to the rear of the vessel at this time as it was about 10 degrees cooler at the rear of the plane. Then the pilot came over the intercom and announced that they were going to be cooling the plane even further, which is saying something as it was quite chilly in there to begin with! He encouraged passengers to gather sweatshirts and additional clothing out of the overhead storage to keep warm. Me? I'm fat and run pretty hot most of the time anyway so other than the fact that I'm on a plane, I'm a pretty happy boy.
Finally, Mama and Caleb get their bags checked and she's heading off again to do whatever she does when she leaves the area. The cattle call area announcer calls her back to the counter, by name, as they got looking at her fancy new (new at Christmas time, 2025) flourescent orange suitcase and they suspect that there's a battery pack to power some of the features of this suitcase. She responds that she has no idea if there's a battery pack and is rifling thru the thing on the floor by the counter. They lady says to her, "Maybe you could get that lovely young man who was just with you back up here to help?". Of course, she's speaking about Caleb. Eventually, it all gets handled to everyone's satifaction and we finally board the stupid plane.
We take off pretty much on time and things were going quite smoothly for the first 2 hours and 45 minutes of the 5 hour 15 minute flight until a flight attendant got on the intercom and asked for any medical professionals that happened to be on the flight to assist with a medical emergency. OH POOP!!!
It didn't look good and it lasted for WAAAAAAAAY longer than was anywhere near comfortable. Finally the guy who appeared to be a doctor, was heading to the back of the plane (the infirm was in 1st class) and he mouthed the words, "We're alright" along with a very quick thumbs up to his wife, who was about 2 rows in front of us. After a few more trips to the front and the back again, he returned to his seat.
After about 15 minutes of no excitement, the flight attendant returned to the doc and said that the infirm requested further assistance. He popped back up and headed to 1st class to assist. They moved him to the rear of the vessel at this time as it was about 10 degrees cooler at the rear of the plane. Then the pilot came over the intercom and announced that they were going to be cooling the plane even further, which is saying something as it was quite chilly in there to begin with! He encouraged passengers to gather sweatshirts and additional clothing out of the overhead storage to keep warm. Me? I'm fat and run pretty hot most of the time anyway so other than the fact that I'm on a plane, I'm a pretty happy boy.
I was sitting by the window in 2022 when we flew out of Alaska on our first trip and fell in love (technically speaking, I was already in love with the state!) and wanted to move there, badly. When I would mention that once we got back home, Mama would counter with such things like, "yeah, but you've never experienced a winter there. All true. This time, I was on the aisle and she had the window seat and when taking all of the pictures coming up, she looked over to me at some point and said, "Let's move here.". Take a look and you'll see why we were both being courted by God's beauty!
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We finally land and taxi up to the tunnelly thingy to unboard the vessel but we had to remain seated as there were Anchorage medical staff there to escort the infirm off the spaceship first. That's fair. After that, we were then allowed to act like dumb-assed humans and make unboarding the plane much more difficult than need be. And that's exactly what happened... ugh.
Next, we go get our rental vehicle, which wasn't ready as it was reserved on CST, not Alaska time... We had to upgrade to a Nissan Pathfinder, which ended up being a great vehicle! Then I had to drive it down one of the curly-q exits from the ramp that was really tight! Yahtzee!!! Not a fun thing in a vehicle that you're not used to and bigger than what you are used too!
We drove into downtown Anchorage and had lunch at the Glacier Brewhouse, which provided us with one of the overall best meals that we had ever had! If a restaurant has Calamari and we've never been there before, we have to get it; unwritten family law and though I haven't kept track, we've probably had it in all 50 states. This Calamari was up there with the best we've ever had!!!
After lunch, we headed over to Trapper Jacks Trading Post, which was about 2 blocks away. Rob got a sweatshirt and Mama Chaos got a sticker. I got the hell out of there because it was cramped and there was a crap ton of people in there.
We hit the highway headed for Seward but before we were out of Anchorage proper, we noticed that below one of the overpasses, there were quite a few emergency vehicles. They were assisting 3 moose across a 4 lane road! I didn't see them but the others did and said that they were HUGE!!!
Next, we go get our rental vehicle, which wasn't ready as it was reserved on CST, not Alaska time... We had to upgrade to a Nissan Pathfinder, which ended up being a great vehicle! Then I had to drive it down one of the curly-q exits from the ramp that was really tight! Yahtzee!!! Not a fun thing in a vehicle that you're not used to and bigger than what you are used too!
We drove into downtown Anchorage and had lunch at the Glacier Brewhouse, which provided us with one of the overall best meals that we had ever had! If a restaurant has Calamari and we've never been there before, we have to get it; unwritten family law and though I haven't kept track, we've probably had it in all 50 states. This Calamari was up there with the best we've ever had!!!
After lunch, we headed over to Trapper Jacks Trading Post, which was about 2 blocks away. Rob got a sweatshirt and Mama Chaos got a sticker. I got the hell out of there because it was cramped and there was a crap ton of people in there.
We hit the highway headed for Seward but before we were out of Anchorage proper, we noticed that below one of the overpasses, there were quite a few emergency vehicles. They were assisting 3 moose across a 4 lane road! I didn't see them but the others did and said that they were HUGE!!!
Other than that, our drive was uneventful, but beautiful, just how we like it! We eventually pull into Seward and find our hotel, The Breeze Inn, which is close to the port where our cruise ship will depart from. This is where we meet up with our friend Natalie and her dad who are in a different type of room than us but about 20 doors down. We had dinner with them at a restaurant called Chinooks, which was about a 5 minute walk. It was good food but after our lunch at Glacier Brewhouse, all of the food on this vacation will be judged against that very high standard!
After dinner, all 6 of us merry pirates piled into the Pathfinder and drove up to Exit Glacier to give Mama Chaos and Caleb a bit of orientation about their hike in the morning. The skeeters up there were THICK!!! We only did the the smallest hike available, but you still get to see the Glacier. The last time we were here in 2022, the Schmitz Mobile Chao Unit did the intermediate hike, which was more than what we did today, but less than what those two are going to do tomorrow.
We head back 'home' so they can get backpacks, shoes, bear spray and whatever else prepared for tomorrow and then hit the proverbial hay.
Just some random stuff in the hotel. I wrote this journal until about 11pm where I went to bed and proved to the world that I am a crappy sleeper! That's 3 horrible nights of sleep in a row and this cannot last!
That's all for the first full day... please join us for the next!
That's all for the first full day... please join us for the next!
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