Travel Travails

We like to ski to work whenever we can.

 Some people think it's a bummer to get marooned in western Alaska in a mid-winter ice storm.  Toom and I traveled west earlier this week to take a look at a few houses scattered across the landscape. It took us a couple attempts to get to where we wanted to go. Our first flight was cancelled. But it wasn't cancelled while we were in the airport, waiting to go. It was cancelled when we were about a thousand feet above the airstrip at our destination. We were a little late to our destination because, as we approached, we got word that a squall had come through and covered the airstrip in a layer of ice. So we flew laps above the airport while the crew de-iced the landing strip. After a half-hour or so, we got word that everyone was ready and waiting for us on the ground. But just around the time I would have expected to look out the window and see the ground a thousand feet below, the pilot hit the gas, pulled the nose up, and back we went to Anchorage. We were told that visibility had reduced to zero on the ground at just the very last moment.

You can stash your luggage in the forest and it's usually there when you get back to it.

So that day was pretty much spent, and we went back to the Anchorage Int'l airport the following morning for another try. No problems getting to our destination this time. But the word on the mean streets of Dillingham was we'd better get across the bay and out of there before nightfall because more weather was coming at us from across the Bering Sea. So we rounded up a pilot, a Piper Navajo, and a volleyball player from Manakotak trying to get to Anchorage in time for her charter flight to Arctic Winter Games in Alberta, and we flew across the bay, to a big, beautiful paved military runway from from whence we were pretty sure we'd make it back to Anchorage in time for Saturday's interval workout with the Seawolves.

Skiers and volleyball players.

But we were thwarted once again! Another blast of icy rain blew through right around the time we were planning to board a flight out of here. It caused all the cars and houses and trees to become encased in a layer of ice, it dropped traffic speeds from 55mph to 20mph, it caused a guy name Joe to slide his pickup truck into the ditch right outside the airport, and it made it so that the two dead caribou that were being dragged back into town behind a guy on a snowmachine hardly got scuffed up at all, due to the icy sheen covering everything. And it caused our airplane to bail on us, leaving us here for another night.

Bristol Bay

So we're not at practice with the Seawolves this Saturday morning, and it's kind of a bummer. Because I bet todays workout is a good one! 

If you're in a western village overnight, there might be a basketball tournament you can go to.

But the weather and prospects for today's flight are looking much better! If we can just make it back to Anchorage by 6am on Tuesday, then we'll be able to board the plane with the team for our next Skiwolf road trip, to Colorado.

This was was last week on Kodiak Island; not this week in Bristol Bay. Note the sushi platter on the dashboard.