Well, the title tells the first part. I have one more week in Kenai, in January.
The second part was slightly more interesting. I did sit slack-jawed in the Kenai airport for two hours, and after that, my flight still didn't take off because of wind and snow. I rebooked my flight back home for the following night and finally boarded a plane to Anchorage at about 8:00 pm, and reserved a hotel for the night and most of the next day.
My plane was a Dash 8, which I have come to call "the big one," in contrast to the Beechcraft 1900, which is "the small one." Ravn only flies these two types of aircraft, and both are terrifying in their own right. The boarding and takeoff process was about as normal as possible, except for the flight attendant, who was an older native woman named Diane Ross. She was quite a quipster, that Diane. She said that despite her name, she can't sing and so she has to work doing this job. She slipped in some other bon mots during the safety briefing, such as "There shall be no tampering with the lavatory smoke detector, or we will push the eject button and you'll go out with the toilet. No, that's not true. We have no eject button, plus, we like our toilet."
After the customary twenty minutes that the flight is scheduled, I started looking for the lights of Anchorage, but about all I could see was blowing snow and a darkness as black as Donald Trump's soul. It also occurred to me that the gear wasn't down. Usually, the plane starts descending, the gear is deployed about 2 minutes out, and then we land, but none of this was happening and there was no sign that it would. Finally about 30 minutes in, Diane, no longer her convivial self, gravely announced over the PA, "I've been informed that the landing gear will not go down. The pilots say that they will continue to work on it, and we'll keep you updated." Uh, ok. I ran through several scenarios in my head at that point, most of which ended with "I don't want to die, especially not in FUCKING ALASKA!" If they couldn't get the gear down, I figured they would try a belly landing, which would be dicey at best in this weather and with the giant propellers on either side suddenly turning into sausage grinders if the maneuver was not executed perfectly. I checked my phone for a signal to send at least a text back to my wife, but that particular technology was as operable as whatever was keeping the gear stuck. She would have to take it on faith that I loved her. Fun stuff!
Finally, about 10 minutes later and with no warning, the gear deployed. And I'm here writing this a few weeks later. Also, I spent the day lounging in a king size bed at the Anchorage airport Courtyard Marriott, and I went and got some banana cream pie at the nearby Village Inn. I earned that pie, dammit.
More about Alaska later, Ravn willing.
The second part was slightly more interesting. I did sit slack-jawed in the Kenai airport for two hours, and after that, my flight still didn't take off because of wind and snow. I rebooked my flight back home for the following night and finally boarded a plane to Anchorage at about 8:00 pm, and reserved a hotel for the night and most of the next day.
My plane was a Dash 8, which I have come to call "the big one," in contrast to the Beechcraft 1900, which is "the small one." Ravn only flies these two types of aircraft, and both are terrifying in their own right. The boarding and takeoff process was about as normal as possible, except for the flight attendant, who was an older native woman named Diane Ross. She was quite a quipster, that Diane. She said that despite her name, she can't sing and so she has to work doing this job. She slipped in some other bon mots during the safety briefing, such as "There shall be no tampering with the lavatory smoke detector, or we will push the eject button and you'll go out with the toilet. No, that's not true. We have no eject button, plus, we like our toilet."
After the customary twenty minutes that the flight is scheduled, I started looking for the lights of Anchorage, but about all I could see was blowing snow and a darkness as black as Donald Trump's soul. It also occurred to me that the gear wasn't down. Usually, the plane starts descending, the gear is deployed about 2 minutes out, and then we land, but none of this was happening and there was no sign that it would. Finally about 30 minutes in, Diane, no longer her convivial self, gravely announced over the PA, "I've been informed that the landing gear will not go down. The pilots say that they will continue to work on it, and we'll keep you updated." Uh, ok. I ran through several scenarios in my head at that point, most of which ended with "I don't want to die, especially not in FUCKING ALASKA!" If they couldn't get the gear down, I figured they would try a belly landing, which would be dicey at best in this weather and with the giant propellers on either side suddenly turning into sausage grinders if the maneuver was not executed perfectly. I checked my phone for a signal to send at least a text back to my wife, but that particular technology was as operable as whatever was keeping the gear stuck. She would have to take it on faith that I loved her. Fun stuff!
Finally, about 10 minutes later and with no warning, the gear deployed. And I'm here writing this a few weeks later. Also, I spent the day lounging in a king size bed at the Anchorage airport Courtyard Marriott, and I went and got some banana cream pie at the nearby Village Inn. I earned that pie, dammit.
More about Alaska later, Ravn willing.