Take a look at a map, and ask yourself, “How does a trip from Togiak to Craig, Alaska come to involve a hotel room in Renton, Washington?” It went down like this: I left Togiak on a Friday morning in time to catch my flight out of Dillingham. From there I stayed overnight in Anchorage and started south the next day.
Leaving Anchorage, I boarded the dreaded “Milk Run.” There are two versions of the Alaska Airlines Milk Run. One leaves Anchorage, stops in Juneau, stops in Sitka, and then stops in Ketchikan. The other leaves Anchorage, stops in Juneau, stops in Petersburg, stops in Wrangell, and then stops in Ketchikan. After Ketchikan, both flights head on to Seattle, but who cares about that? Ketchikan is my hub.
Anyway, I was on the three-stop Milk Run, and by the time we were leaving Wrangell my throat was hurting from stress and the weather was terrible. Ketchikan was completely socked in and the wind was likely to come up before morning. We throttled back and began to descend. . .and then sped up and regained altitude. The pilot came on a minute later and said something like, “sorry, folks, there are ninety-mile-an-hour crosswinds at the airport, so we are heading for Seattle.”
We landed in Seattle about an hour and a half later, and I was urged to wait at the airport, as the weather in Ketchikan might clear so we could try it again. Apparently, there had been several flyovers already, because the airport was full of people who wanted to get to Ketchikan. About a half an hour after my flight landed, one of the other flights loaded up to try it again, and after another hour a second one took off. Both of those flights got there at a lull and were able to land.
Around 7:00 p.m. my flight was called. I had the choice to stay in Seattle overnight, or get on that plane. I opted on. Surely, I thought, if we have to fly over again we’ll head on the Juneau, and then at least I’ll be in the right state. Once we boarded, however, the pilot explained that if we were unable to land we would head back to Seattle again.
You guessed it; we got back to Ketchikan, and the crosswinds had kicked up again to a brisk 95 mph. We landed in Seattle for the second time around midnight, and my attitude of cheerful forbearance was in tatters. There were probably a hundred passengers in all. The agent tried to explain to us that the airline was not obliged to give us hotel rooms because the problem was weather. However, we all just stood there staring at her, with some of us moving a step or two closer, and she just started throwing hotel vouchers to get rid of us.
By the next day the storm had passed, and I got to Ketchikan without any more foolishness. But before my flight came I took a walk to get breakfast. I found that in Renton, Washington, the crosswalk signals like to yell at people. “Go ahead!” said the crosswalk sign. “Never mind! Wait!”
Okay, how about now?