Bad Start to a Long Trip

Well, I am currently sitting in the Anchorage airport awaiting my flight out to the Bering Strait. My journey began early yesterday morning in Baxter, Minnesota. Erin dropped me off for my 7:30 A.M. flight the first of what was supposed to be three for the day. Upon checking in for the flight I was informed that the flight was delayed due to a mechanical issue with the plane, and that it would be about an hour late. This of course was going to cause me to miss my connecting flight in Minneapolis. Now I try as often as I can to go online and select a seat for my flights. I had done so in this case and had a nice exit row seat for my flight from Minneapolis to Seattle. Now all of a sudden I am not going to make that flight and they are looking to book me on another flight. The agent finally tells me that she has found a seat for me on a direct flight from Minneapolis to Anchorage, but all she could get me was a middle seat in the back of the plane. As you an imagine I was not too excited about going from a nice roomy exit row to a middle seat in the back of the plane, but under the circumstances it was better than not making it to Anchorage at all. So the plane showed up about an hour late and we took off for Minneapolis. As we touched down I looked at my watch and realized that I might just be able to make my original connecting flight, the one with the exit row seat. So as soon as I got off the plane I took off running through the terminal. Of course my next flight was basically at the other end of the airport. As I came racing up to the counter to check in the agent told me to hurry they were about to close the door. I handed her my boarding pass I had printed off the night before and she tried to scan it. It wouldn’t scan. She told me just to run down to the plane and find an empty seat. So that’s what I did. I got on the plane to find my sweet exit row had been reassigned to someone else. I was lucky though to find an isle seat near the front of the plane and thats where I sat.

As we took off I started thinking about what was going on and realized that I may have made a terrible mistake by getting on this plane. My bags were being checked on the direct flight to Anchorage, not on the flight I was on. Sometimes when a passenger doesn’t board a flight they will take their bags off thinking that the person is avoiding flying with their luggage for some reason. So now I’m thinking that when I don’t show up for the direct flight to Anchorage that they are going to pull my bags there in Minneapolis. That would not be so good.

When we landed in Seattle I went over to my connecting flight to Anchorage and found that when they had re-booked me in Baxter that they had taken me off the flight from Seattle to Anchorage, and the flight was completely full. I explained to the gate agents what happened and they were able to book me on a different flight that was actually leaving a little earlier. So I hustled over to where my new flight was leaving from and boarded shortly there after. As the plane was being pushed away from the terminal the connecting rod that they push with snapped off. So not only did they have to find another one of those little pusher deals, but they had to have someone come over and inspect the plane to make sure nothing happened in the incident. So after about 45 min of sitting on the airplane we pushed back and were on our way.

We landed in Anchorage and I headed down to baggage claim. Of course my bag didn’t come off the plane I had just landed on, and I was about to file a lost bag claim when I looked over at one of the other bag claim areas and noticed a flight from Minneapolis had just landed. I had a glimmer of hope. My bags should be on that flight since it was the one I was supposed to be on. I waited and waited and finally near the very end when almost everybody had already received their bags and left my bags emerged on the conveyor belt.

Now today my original flight to Unalakleet was supposed to be on Hageland, but I was informed about two hours ago that they canceled their flight for today, so Teresa (BSSD’s Travel Person) was kind enough to rebook me on Pen Air. So that’s where I am now, sitting in the Pen Air gate hoping that my flight will take off in 20 min like it is scheduled to do.

On a side note the weather up there isn’t the best right now. In Unalakleet the wind is blowing 41 mph and gusting to 54 mpg. So the landing could be a little exciting when I get there.

My time in Unalakleet should be pretty short as I am scheduled to head over to St. Michael this afternoon.

I’ll fill you in on how things went when I get to my final destination for the day.

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