Saturday, June 13th - Day 1

After a delightful breakfast at J. Christopher's, my parents dropped me off at the church. The team minus 2 all left for the airport. We got there without any trouble, and were at our gate waiting in no time. The Schneiders met us at the airport, and we all had a snack from Chick fil A. After waiting a while, an announcement came on that they needed to replace the fuel filter or something... Another 45 minute delay... I thought it might be a good idea to walk around the airport since we would be on a plane for eight hours. Camille, Josh, Kelsey and I walked all throughout Terminal A before Josh and Camille rejoined the rest of the group. Kelsey and I decided to keep walking, and we headed toward the tram in the airport that transports you between terminals. Kelsey wanted to get on, but I was thinking what if it broke down or something and we missed our flight? So, I told her we couldn't, but that we could walk down the moving sidewalks if she wanted. We were on a 2nd sidewalk when Camille called Kelsey. The call went something like this:

Kelsey: "Hey guess what! I'm on a moving sidewalk and you're not!"
Camille: "Hey guess what! I'm boarding the plane and you're not!"

HA! HA! HA! Kelsey took off running toward our gate... Once we got there, Josh was no where to be found... I went looking for him, didn't find him, but he beat me back to the gate. We finally all got on board just in time to hear a second announcement about some other fuel-issue. Then another one that the plane was overweight for take-off. So we waited in the plane for another 30 minutes or so. Finally, we were off the ground and on our way to Alaska!

Flying toward Anchorage over mountains and glaciers (view from the plane!).

About 8:30 Alaska time (12:30am here) we landed and were on our way to dinner. I ordered Snapper, and it was really good! I am not a big fan of seafood, but I try to get it fresh when I can. About 2am GA time, 10pm in AK, I was just about losing it. Kelsey, Camille, Mardene and I were sharing a table at dinner and laughing hysterically at anything and everything... but it was such a good time. We stopped by Wal Mart on the way home to get our liquids (so much easier than trying to travel with them) and a few other things. We got to the host home, Pastor Jim's and his wife Brenda's, and got settled in. It was almost 3 in the morning and still quite light outside. Craziness. Saturday was a rough night's sleep: daylight for most the night and a flat air mattress. However, waking up to this (below) sure was easy!!


Stay tuned for more!!