Everything in the following story is true. None of the names or places have been changed.
Our trip to Skagway, Alaska, might be the best Brown Family story since the day that Lisa and I ran the Disney Half Marathon in 2018 and Samantha took the boys to Animal Kingdom after Grant threw up the night before. The actual visit to Skagway was wonderful and worthy of separate posts. However, the story of the actual trip there is a testament to the resiliency of our little tribe.The
whole family was traveling. This was our first trip together in a few
years and the first ever that included all five of us taking a plane.
The purpose of our trip was to honor Robert F. Blockus Jr. - son,
brother, uncle, and friend by scattering his ashes in and around
Skagway, AK, a place he loved and loved him back.
The trip to Skagway was supposed to go like this: on Tuesday we would fly from Raleigh, NC, to Phoenix, AZ, to Seattle WA, to Juneau, AK. On Wednesday we would sight-see in Juneau. On Thursday we would visit the Mendenhall Glacier Park and take a whitewater raft trip down the Mendenhall River. That is what was supposed to happen; but this is Alaska, and Alaska gets a vote.
On Monday, the day before we traveled, we received a email that our first flight was delayed. No big deal, we got an extra hour of sleep. When we arrived to RDU we were told to immediately go to the counter...where we stayed for the next hour and fifteen minutes. Over the course of that time the airline did everything in their power to get us to Juneau but it just wasn't meant to be. They tried sending three of us through one airport and two through another. They tried sending us all together on an earlier flight to Seattle - hoping for a little sight-seeing time. Unfortunately, the best they could do was get us to Seattle and comped us meals and a hotel room at the SEATAC Doubletree Inn. Our flight out of RDU would be so late that we went back home for three hours!
Meanwhile, Linda left St. Louis, MO, without incident and made it all the way to Juneau.Our flights were rerouted through Charlotte, NC, to Seattle, WA. We got two rooms at the hotel; Samantha and the boys in one room, Lisa and I in the other. Morning came too soon and we schlepped back over to the airport. While we were waiting, the counter at the gate called us up - uh-oh. Turns out all they did was move the five of us up in the middle of the plane together - whew.
The
flight to Juneau was great. We had a good view of Mt. Rainer for a
while before flying over Puget Sound and into Canadian airspace. Fields
of snow capped mountains and glaciers filled the window. However, we
descended into a cold, wet, rainy Juneau where we paused for our first
pictures from the 49th state. With luggage in tow, we called the hotel
shuttle and rode 2 miles to the hotel and linked up with Linda.
It is about 10:30 AM.
We
asked the hotel if we could get into our room early to drop our gear
and head into Juneau. After a short wait our room became available and
left everything there. We called a cab - which was going to take thirty
minutes to get to the hotel - to take us down to the docks. The hotel
had a Mexican restaurant so we decided to order chips and salsa.
However before anything could arrive at the table, the cab showed up and
in a hasty maneuver, we left the Mexican place and jumped into the cab
with Bill. Bill looked to be about 800 years old. Bill was a retired
school teacher, who taught in at schools deep into Alaska. He was now on
dialysis. He pointed out sights on the 9 mile drive to The Hangar on
the Wharf for lunch. Bill dropped us off and gave us his card in case we
needed another ride. It is now about 11:30.
The Hangar provided some good food, we were all getting a little hangry, and some time to plot out our day. We could go hike Mendenhall Glacier or walk around the cruise ship dock area. Around 12:30 my phone rang. It was the ferry service we were going to take the next day to Skagway. They advised me that there was bad weather coming in and they could not sail under those conditions and that the Thursday trip was cancelled. I asked when the next available sailing would be and they said Sunday. That would not do at all. I asked what else they had and they said later in the day, at 4:00 PM - in three and a half hours.
I hung up the phone, called the waiter for the check, and briefed the family. We had to leave, and leave now in order to make that boat. I called Bill who showed up within ten minutes. We got back to the hotel - the hotel we checked into but had not slept in yet - and checked out. We went up to the rooms. Linda packed her stuff because she had slept there the night before and Lisa took care of the few things in our room. I called the ferry service back to confirm that they wanted us to be at the airport at 4:00 PM to be shuttled down to the dock for a 4:30 PM departure. And that's when the bottom fell out. They apologized but the conditions deteriorated so quickly that the current boat turned around. There would be no sailing today or the next. We. Were. Screwed.
It is now a little after 1:00 PM
I hung up the phone and called Alaska Seaplanes Airlines. This is the company we were using to fly back from Skagway at the end of our trip. Maybe they had something available. If not this whole trip was in serious jeopardy. I reached Linda-from-New-Hampshire. Linda fNH listened to my story and immediately was invested. Linda fNH started looking for flights. At the same time Lisa called Joanne in Skagway, whose house we were renting, to see if we could get into the house a day early. Lisa explained to Joanne our predicament and how we were trying to resolve it with Alaska Seaplanes. At one point Lisa stopped me and asked me who I was speaking to. Lisa spoke into her phone. Lisa's eyes widened. It turned out that Joanne is a manager at Alaska Seaplanes Airline and knows Linda fNH!
Lisa and I put our cellphones on speaker and Jo and Linda fNH spoke to one another. Could this plane be diverted? What about the people on ferry that didn't make it down? What about the people in Haines, AK? Could Joe fly? They finally reached a resolution. Lisa got back on with Joanne - who told us the house would be ready when we got there. I got on the phone Linda fNH who gave us a 30% discount on the tickets because we were flying for bereavement.
Is is now about 1:30 PM.
Linda fNH says that she has a flight for us at 3:00 PM and can we be at the airport in ten minutes. Ten minutes?! Six hundred seconds. With a great deal of confidence and bravado I said something along the lines of, "watch me." I immediately called Linda and Sam and told them to head right down to the lobby; I'd explain do there. Lisa and the boys grabbed all of the stuff in the room we never slept in and headed to the lobby. We all met down stairs and told the hotel manager we needed the shuttle to the airport - immediately!
Within a minute we were all piled into the shuttle van. Eight minutes later we were at the airport. Total time, nine minutes.
It is now 1:50 PM.
At the counter we announced that we were the Brown Family, party of six, flying to Skagway at 3:00 PM. The young woman looked at her computer and said, "we don't have a 3:00 PM flight to...oh, wait, one just popped up, and you're on it." Whew. And so we sat down waiting on the flight and hoping the weather didn't sock us in. It is now 2:50 PM.
They called our flight and led us through the doors on to the tarmac. No screening. No TSA. However, they did ask us our weight so they could calculate how much fuel to use. Never had that happen before. Out on the tarmac Grant came to the full realization that we were not flying on a jet. Not even a turbo prop plane. This was a eight seat, straight propeller plane that had to be counter-wound to start. The pilot called out the kids first and seated them in the last row on opposite sides of one another. Next came Linda and another passenger. Next was Lisa and I. Finally, the pilot looked at Sam and said, "co-pilot seat."
After the only flight safety briefing I ever really paid attention to in years, we taxied down the runway and off into the nastiest weather I have ever flown in. Rain was sheeting over the canopy. The clouds were so thick that it was hard to see the tips of the wings. We never got above the clouds and were in soup all the way to Haines. Every once in a while I would turn to check on Grant, still wide eyed, who responded with a thumbs down each time. Then, just like that, we dropped below the clouds and flew up the inlet to Skagway. We could see the steep mountains and waterfalls along the inlet, and then Skagway in the distance.
It is now 3:40 PM.
The pilot took us over A.B. Mountain, banked hard, and set us down ever so gently on the runway at Skagway, AK.
It is now 3:45 PM.
It was then we realized that we never called the car rental company. Lisa called and the voice on the other end of the phone asked us if we were already at the airport. Yes. The voice instructed Lisa to go out to the parking lot and look for a white Nissan. Since there were only three cars in the parking lot, it was easy. The voice said that the keys were underneath the mat and to just take it. No paperwork. No driver's license check. No nothing. Alaska is a different place.
It was now 3:50 PM.
We did it. The whole family just went with the flow. No one bitched. No one challenged the events that were unfolding with a better solution - or even a different solution - because there was none to be offered. By 4:00 PM we were at the Skagway Brewery still reeling from the events of the last six hours. I was immensely proud and excited because everything seemed to point towards us not getting to our destination yet one possibility/opportunity after another presented itself. Perhaps Bobby was with us. Maybe he kept the rain at bay for just a few hours because after our flight, all the other flights for the day were cancelled. We hadn't even started our adventure in Alaska and we already had one story that is really great.
