Our flight from Seattle to Anchorage was scheduled to leave at 12:30pm, so we woke up around 8am to get our things together and go. We planned to meet Joseph at the airport at 10:30am so we grabbed some coffee at the Starbucks next door and left the hotel at about 9:45am. Angela wasn't feeling well when she woke up, so she abstained from coffee. When we were grabbing our car, my stint (retainer) for my fake tooth broke in the front. Luckily it still worked, but I was ticked because I had just told the dentist that I wanted a back up for the stint while I was in Alaska. My first stint had broken about 3 days after I first got it, so I was worried. But then the next one was doing well and the dentist said it would be fine. And then the day I was leaving it broke. So it was a great start with my irritation and Angela's sickness.
We got to the departures area with the rental car and Joseph walked out (right on time) to meet us. Joseph and I brought the 12 pieces of luggage into the airport while Angela watched the ones already inside. Then I left them to drop off the rental car.
After dropping off the rental car and signing off on it, I caught a shuttle to the airport and met back up with Joseph and Angela and our luggage. But then I got a call on my cell-phone from the car rental company. They informed me that I left my keys (which I had joined with the rental keys) in the car and that there was a crack in the windshield that I was responsible for. Well, I was pretty upset at this because I paid a bunch of money for full insurance coverage. So I asked why my insurance didn't cover it. They said that I didn't get the insurance, and then asked if I had my receipt. I said I did, but that they needed to take a closer look at their computer. They put me on hold for a couple minutes and then got back on saying that the insurance did cover it. I asked them if they could send my keys with the shuttle to the airport and they agreed so I ran back down to the shuttle area to wait.
After getting my keys, I got back to Joseph, Angela and the pile of luggage. We got in line to check in and went to one of the auto-check-in computers. I put in our ticket information and nothing happened. I repeated this a couple times and then we flagged down a ticketing agent. She grabbed the itinerary we had printed off earlier and started mumbling at the screen as she punched in the info. She seemed puzzled and started saying something about our tickets not being good. At this point (no home, no car, no things, except our mound of luggage) we were a bit distraught at the thought of having to leave the airport, re-rent another car, find a hotel, etc, until we could contact the Bethel relocation people to get new tickets. The agent talked to a couple of her colleagues and after several minutes they found that the tickets were in the system, but because we had switched dates, our ticket numbers were all wrong and the itinerary didn't have the new ones for some reason. So she got us all checked in and we had to pay a crapload of extra money for our extra suitcases ($100/each) over our check-in and carry-on allotment.
Angela and Joseph had a tearful goodbye as we entered the security line. We waded through the security (shoeless of course) and then headed off to our departure gate. Angela still wasn't feeling well and was pretty emotional about leaving, so got her some water and we waited for our flight.
I don't have a lot to say about the flight from Seattle to Anchorage. I looked out the window every now and then to see if we were over mountains or water (mostly it was water). We watched the movie "Martian Child" with John Cusack. It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't great. It somewhat passed the time, however I also watched my Zune a little. One thing I do want to say about the last couple minutes of our flight is that I was glued to the window. The approach to Anchorage is gorgeous. The snow covered mountains, right next to the ocean and inlets was so cool to see. It really made me wish we were moving to Anchorage.
When we got into the airport in Anchorage Angela was feeling a little better and we knew we had a travel break to stretch before our 1 hour flight to Bethel. The part of the airport we first got into was unlike any other airport I have been to though. There were 5 more mooseheads than I have ever seen at any other airport I've been to before. We had to wait about 25 minutes outside (it wasn't that cold in Anchorage) for a shuttle to the other section of the airport (which we realized was only about 200 yards to our right after our short shuttle trip). Then we went to the airport chilis restaurant and ate lunch and hung out for about an hour and a half.
Our flight from Anchorage to Bethel left at about 7pm (I'm not sure if it was Alaska time or not at this point - which is an hour earlier than Seattle). It was a small plane, but not a propeller plane. I continually looked out the window at the landscape on the short flight, while also playing Donkey Kong Junior against Angela on our Nintendo DS's. As we approached Bethel, Angela and I looked out the window and marvelled at how flat everything was. We saw few trees and couldn't tell if what we were seeing was frozen river, lakes or land. We did see a winding strip of very flat snow that we were pretty sure was the river (or some rivers). Then we noticed a track through the snow and a truck driving over it. I am pretty sure it was the river highway. I guess during the winter, the river is frozen so thick, it is used as a highway to all the villages up and down it. We landed and went quickly inside the (one building) airport (but not before my nose hairs started to freeze).
We didn't know who was meeting us to take us to our temp housing, but we waited for our luggage and started stacking it up. Then the PA system asked Angela Williams to come to the counter. She went and came back to our luggage with a guy and a little boy. I think the guy's name was John and he was there to help us get to our temp housing and give us a tour as well. As we started taking our luggage out, our friend Alessandra met us and offered to drive us, while John took our luggage (there really wasn't room for Angela and I after John filled his small car with our 12 pieces of luggage anyways).
We got to temp housing (which was only a 2 minute car ride from the airport - in fact most things in bethel are only 2 minutes away from wherever you are at) and John gave us the lowdown on the place after we got our luggage in. He told us about the water tank that is filled once a week. He let us know that we can't take long (ten minute) showers or we will run out of water quickly. I didn't realize that John was supposed to (and meant to) take us on a tour of the hospital (where Angela would work) as well as the town, but we were so tired and didn't think we wanted to take a long tour with someone we had just met. So we let John know that we were wiped out and would have our friends give us the lowdown on Bethel. But John wanted us to be prepared, so he used our kitchen counter to draw invisible roads for Bethel and explain where everything was. My eyes glazed over and I just kept nodding, as I had no idea what he was talking about.
After he left, we realized that we did need to grab some food, so Alessandra took us quickly over to introduce us at our new church (the youth service was just getting out when we got there) and then we went to the nearest grocery store ( I think there are only two in town) and grabbed some food to eat.
When we got back to our temp housing, we crashed. We ate, and watched some tv and then hit the hay.
It was a long day and it was physically and mentally hard to leave Washington, but we made it and are better for the journey. Maybe our wolf friend died (I don't remember the Natty Gann movie that well), but we made it and hope to do well in our new town.
My next post will be about our first impressions of Bethel. As of tomorrow, we will have been here for 2 weeks, so we have a lot of first impressions, including Seal soup. I've taken a few pictures too, but don't have the chord to download them onto the computer (it is with our things sitting in Anchorage). But as soon as possible, I will get some pics on our blog. There is a lot of beauty here in Bethel, and I'm trying to capture it and let you enjoy it as well.
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