Off to Alaska!

Tuesday, June 23, 2009
The adventure has begun. It’s 9:15 am and we’re boarding our flight to Seattle, Washington where we’ll catch our connection to Vancouver, British Columbia – but wait, it’s now 12:00 noon and we haven’t gone anywhere. We’re boarding our second plane here in Detroit. The first plane had a faulty air conditioning system that did get repaired after about one and a-half hours. Thankfully, most of the passengers had been allowed to de-plane by the time the recently repaired air conditioning unit had started to emit smoke! They really didn’t need to make the announcement, “We won’t be taking this plane,” since most of the rest of us still onboard were already preparing to leave!
What’s been good about this trip so far is that we’ve met some wonderful people . One person is a lady that is headed to St. Petersburg to meet her son so that she can be a crew member on his fishing boat. She will be out there fishing until August 8th! It sounds like an exciting adventure for those who love fishing. She said she had been on this same trip with her son two years ago, but only as a non-paid member of the crew. She was really excited to be going again, especially since she will be paid a percentage of the catch.
Our second encounter was a young lady who grew up in the Dearborn area, but is now living in Seattle since last fall having moved there from San Francisco. She had come back to Michigan to visit family.
The third couple we met were on a mis-adventure of their own so far. Wherever they came from, it took 24 hours for them to get to Detroit which wasn’t a positive thing because it reduced there planned two day stay in Seattle to less that than one day. [Now that we've had our flight setback.] Since we are now in the air, as of 1:20 pm, they should be able to enjoy their two days in Vancouver, seven day Alaska cruise and their four days in Denali National Park. What makes this story so interesting to me is the fact that the husband doesn’t travel and had to be coaxed into going on this trip – his wife, who is the travel adventurer, is concerned that he won’t go on another trip!
Wait a minute! I have to update you on the status of the second plane. Luggage is loaded, we’re on board, the food is loaded, then comes this announcement from the Captain, “You’re not going to believe this, but the caterer found a damaged door while loading the food. One of the Pilots has checked it out and it seems okay, but we’re going to have maintenance take a look at it as a safety precaution.”
As I mentioned before, we finally took off at about 1:20 pm Eastern time and are due to arrive in Seattle around 2: 35 pm. I happy to be on my way and I’ll update you later on our Alaskan and Yukon Territory adventure.