Arrive Alive

So I finally made it to Alaska. This was no small feat. My original flight was scheduled for Monday. This was to be a no-go. Not only was Cola closed for snow but so was Atlanta with my connecting flight. So Monday I changed my plans via telephone to Wednesday and DC instead of Atlanta. Hollie and I enjoyed our stay of execution and spent our snow days vegging and pigging out. A very nice time indeed.
Wednesday, we headed to the airport and after a thorough search by TSA authorities, I sat. For nearly five hours I sat, waiting for planes and pilots to reorganize from the previous days of chaos. Planes were rerouted, flights cancelled, pilots napping in rocking chairs to catch up on rest. Fun stuff. My late departure from cola had me concerned for the DC to Seattle leg. If I didn't make it, I'd be stuck in DC overnight. We landed and I sprinted. Ran from Concourse A to Concourse C and made the departure time by mere minutes. I got onboard and the plane was half empty. I noticed a couple exit rows were empty so I plopped down in one. A guy from the back of the plane came forward and sat behind me, the flight attendant saw this and came back and talked to him. We apparantly were sitting in economy plus and it was an upgrade charge of $50, but she decided not to make him pay since the plane was so empty. Yippee. Upgrade at no charge. I settled into my three seats and watched Social Network and napped a little. The flight went by pretty quickly.
At Seatac I had plenty of time for my connection so it was an easy stroll down to my gate. The gate was pretty full because apparantly ice in Seattle had cancelled a few flights the day before, so my plane was max capacity. I was in the front row but had to sit next to a guy that just smelled bad. I tucked my head under my coat but every time his stench wafted my way, it made me wretch with disgust. I put my coat over my head and that helped alleviate it some.
During the flight, I fell asleep and his stench woke me, I sat straight up, but was glad I had been awoken. I looked out the window and it was an amazing sight. The moon was at least a 1/4 and there were no clouds in the sky. We were over the western canadian mountains at the coast and the view was astounding. Everything was bathed in grayish moonlight and I could see peaks and valleys, glaciers and water, individual lights shown up through the inky darkness of the bays and inlets. Rivers cut dark trenches through the landscape. It was breathtakingly beautiful. After about twenty minutes, we hit a cloudbank and it was gone.
We landed and I headed to the baggage claim. Fairbanks airport is nice and instead of the glass and metal of a lot of airports, it is more wood and stone and I assume fairly new. At the baggage claim were a polar bear and a grizzly, both stuffed exhibits. Once I had collected my bags I headed out to the taxis. One pulled up,  and promptly slipped and fell on my ass. Welcome to Alaska!!!