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Seattle, WA (Dexter)
11/25/04 Day 10 – Seattle, Washington.Song of the day: Sliver (“Grandma take me home”)
Well I didn‘t get much sleep in that motel in Nome because US customs tracked me down and called me in the room a few hours later. They said they would appreciate it if I could make my way down to their office down the street.
It was about 11:30 am when I walked down there and what struck me about this town as I walked through it was that the sun was barely up. In fact, it looked like it was almost sunset. That‘s what happens in the higher latitudes, you know, during the winter the sun doesn‘t stay out long. But it was really trippy to see it in person.
I finally arrived at the post office/US Customs building (small town). All right, so I had to be scolded for not clearing customs last night, yes, yes, I understand, I‘m very sorry, it‘ll never happen again. Actually, the customs agent was a pretty nice guy, just doing his job I guess. He drove me out to the plane to check its documents, and so I finally got to see a little bit of Nome. It‘s a really cool little town. This is the place, I‘m told, where the Iditarod sled dog race finishes every March. I gotta check that out sometime.
My new friend Brent was there still and after the customs guy was finished with me I got the plane ready. Brent had a nice 1949 Dodge truck to show me, that he had restored, and it was awesome. When he asked me to sign it, I felt a little bad, messing up his truck and all. I‘ve signed a lot of weird stuff before, but never a vintage truck!
I was ready to leave at about 2 pm. I told them I‘d be back for the Iditarod, climbed in and took off for Anchorage. Alaska is really beautiful country to fly over. At this time of year it has a starkness to it but it‘s so expansive that it sort of takes you back, like whoa, this shit is big. The flight to Anchorage was an hour and a half and by the time I landed, the sun was just setting.
You know, it‘s the little conveniences of home that make all the difference. When you‘re travelling internationally, you just can‘t get stuff that you take for granted at home. Like, I tried to get peanut butter for the last four days. Good luck! So, when I saw a Subway sandwich shop in Nome, I just about got misty. And now, in Anchorage, my cell phone started working. Things were really looking up. If I could just find a Del Taco or an In-n-Out burger (two of my favorite local places to eat), it would be just like OC.
My stop in Anchorage was pretty brief, I got some gas, made a couple calls and was off again. I was now headed to Seattle, Washington.
People don‘t realize how far away Alaska really is. Like for this flight, you wouldn‘t think that Anchorage is that far from Seattle, but it‘s like 1500 miles. It‘s about as far as going from LA to Chicago. So this was a pretty long leg. One cool thing about it though, even though a lot of this flight is over Canada, you don‘t have to clear customs in Seattle, cause you take off from the US and you‘re landing in the US. So it was a good flight. The idea of being back in the continental US sounded pretty righteous to me.
The descent and landing into Seattle was probably the worst weather of the entire trip. There was icing on the descent, and quite a bit of turbulence. It was the kind of turbulence that every once in awhile lifts you out of your seat and knocks your head against the ceiling. It was also, of course, night by this time, which always adds a little more difficulty to any approach. I was bumping around in the clouds pretty good until right before touchdown, when I broke out and could see the runway. It wasn‘t over yet, though. I went through some pretty strong wind shear on final.
Most people who don‘t really fly, I know, are like, ‘Wind shear, I know that‘s bad, but I don‘t really know what it is.‘ Basically, wind shear is where the wind direction and wind strength are changing so suddenly that if you‘re not careful, your plane‘s airspeed can drop so low that you literally fall out of the sky. Again, something I generally avoid. So although I never felt that I was in any serious danger or anything, it kept me paying attention all the way through to landing. When I finally got on the ground, I couldn‘t help but think somehow nature was making me earn it – I couldn‘t just coast back into the US without paying for it!
Although I had only been flying for about six hours that day, I was beat. I decided to call my friend Blackball who lives in Seattle and stay for the night. He picked me up and we went to a full on Mexican taqueria for a couple tacos and a beer.
Tacos, holy crap, it just keeps on getting better and better.
