The Weary Traveler

Flew in from New York yesterday, and boy, are my arms tired. Ba-ding dum!

Actually, my entire body is tired. While flying the last leg of my trip from Anchorage to my current home, I gazed about the cabin of the deHavalind Twin Otter (18 seater, co-pilot leans through the open cockpit door to give you the safety speech, seats don't recline, and one passenger's carry-on was a box of ceramic tile she could only find in Anchorage) and noted a number of my fellow travelers nodding off despite the loud drone of the twin engines and the bumpy ride down the peninsula. Not an unusual sight.

From conversations in the waiting area before boarding, I learned there were at least two other flyers who'd come from the East coast that day. I'm sure we were all up before dawn and plain tuckered out from jetting across the country. Travel to and from Alaska is no easy task. It takes about 12 hours (not including the time difference) and several schleppings through various airports. It requires juggling plane schedules so your commercial jet flight into or out of Anchorage meshes with the local air service to/from whichever little town you need to get/go to. If planes are delayed, an overnight stay (in either an Anchorage hotel or on the oh, so comfortable plastic seats of the airport) is not unexpected. If you're heading to one of the smaller towns up here, there is usually another plane to your final destination. Eventually. Some only fly on certain days of the week. It's the price we pay for living the way we do.

Frustrating? It can be. But as long as there's no great rush (and in AK, we are a fairly laid back kind of people when it comes to travel) we deal with it. My mother bought me and my husband matching travel mugs with "Zen for Travelers: We'll Get There When We Get There" on them. I try not to let travel glitches get to me. I have more important things to worry about.