… Later: Anchorage

Friday, 13 August (4:30a Alaska Time)

Senator Ted Stevens died Tuesday in a plane crash here in Alaska. I felt I should mention his passing seeing as how we’re sitting in the airport that is named in his honor. We’re waiting to board our flight to Kodiak. The story of today is for a separate blog post, however. This one is intended to wrap up yesterday.

A distant glimpse of Mount McKinley peeking out from the puffy cloud cover below us was the signal to start our descent into Anchorage. (The pilot said it was Mt Mc, so I'm sticking to his story.) It took a while to get through the cloud deck, but finally we were greeted by the twinkling lights of the city. It was actually dark outside!!! When we were here in June 2001, nightfall was negligible. Looks like we’ll actually have some hours of darkness on this trip.

Lucky is the visitor who gets to see Mount McKinley “out.”
(at least that’s what the locals told us when the mountain was
visible for the duration of our train ride to Denali in 2001.)
[scanned from non-digital photograph]

The cockpit crew had managed to make up the delay and we actually landed five minutes ahead of our scheduled 10:55p ETA. Most airports at that time of the night would be deserted. Not this one. It was a hubbub of activity, with passengers scurrying about. The shops were doing brisk business, and I even saw a guy getting one of those 10-minute neck & shoulder massages. Could have used one of those myself.

A pair of drawers anyone?
(take your pick from the shops at the Anchorage airport)

With no luggage to pick-up, we hustled through the airport, stepping outside to a comfortable temp of 58F (14C) with some light sprinkles. We’d had no luck getting anyone to answer the phone at the Comfort Suites to let them know we needed pick-up service, so we were hoping to find the shuttle at the courtesy van stop instead. After 15 minutes, we gave up and took a cab the short distance to the hotel. The clerk on duty wasn’t pleased when I mentioned that we’d been trying to call for the past half hour; perhaps she was snoozing on the job.

In any event, we were in our room by 11:30p. The room was a bit more than what you’d expect of a 3-star hotel, though I’d be hard-pressed to consider it a suite. Clean and comfortable; more than satisfactory for a 5-hour stay … most of which was spent catching a couple of winks. Sure we could have napped at the airport and saved a hefty couple of bucks, but trust me … after our long travel day, a comfortable mattress was worth its weight in gold. The hiccup with the shuttle service aside, we would stay at the Comfort Suites again.

Comfort Suites Anchorage international airport
the room is a twin of the one we stayed in.
(photos courtesy of the comfort suites website)

Yesterday might not have been the travel day we envisioned, but it could have been worse. At least we got to Alaska!