Our final day in Alaska. Sad but also, the promise of warmer weather kept me going. We still had plans to do for the day in the snow so we had to hold out for a little longer. We got to sleep in a little for the day, as the lobby's continental breakfast went until 11am, but we ended up getting up a lot earlier because Jess remembered she had to check in for our red eye which we had forgotten about entirely until 9:30am. Which was technically 8:30am for us because daylight savings time hit and we were totally not expecting that cause we forgot about that entirely also. You know, like idiots. Like idiots twice over. So, with the leap forward adjusted for and the flights handled we got threw on some clothes and headed downstairs for our take-away box. The woman remembered us from the day before and got everything ready for us in a flash. I wonder if she thought we were, like, actual Important People because she was super nice and really quick about everything and I felt kinda bad cause we're just some girls but you know what, we're Gold members, we're Club Level, we are VIPs! And it was awesome to be given some special treatment throughout our whole time there!
We stocked up on croissants, pastries, and reindeer sausages (because of course they serve those at breakfast) then Jess had an idea. A trashy idea. A wonderful, trashy idea! We needed sandwiches for our flights, but they served bread, meat and cheese platters for free at breakfast. So, like with our earlier days at the club lounge we decided it was the perfect chance to make a Trashy Sandwich! Free sandwiches? SO our vibe, even as VIP Gold Members. So, we chucked enough bread, meat, and cheese into our boxes and brought it up to our room. There we ate most of our breakfast and slapped together our sandwiches and put them in our pre-planned Ziploc bags for just such occasions.
Then we prepped for the longest journey of the trip since the ride from the airport, a bus trip to a bar called the Peanut Farm! It was the first event or activity we planned for that wasn't within walking distance which had worked out pretty awesome for the whole trip but we really wanted to go and do this official Fur Rondy event: Ice Bowling! We had no idea how it worked or what it was but we WANTED to do this! The directions loaded on Jessica's phone, we bundled up and followed them out into the cold. We started with walking the alleged 8 minutes but we saw on her phone that the next bus left in 2 minutes and the other one wouldn't come for another half hour after that so we HOOFED IT and we MADE IT like CHAMPIONS! Starting the day off with success! We followed the map to let us know which stop to get off at and then began the 11-ish minute walk to the Peanut Farm. Jess and I are fast walkers though so it only took about 6 minutes and we came upon the first Peanut Farm because apparently there are two? An old and a new one? The old one was the one we were looking for though as that one had the lake with the event and luckily it was the first one and we knew it because of the giant banner they had to direct us!
Inside there were thankfully more signs directing us where to go so we didn't have to deal with the horrifying ordeal of having to ask someone where we were going and we got to just look like we knew what we were doing. Love that feeling! We ended up at a table with clipboards where we signed a pretty cheap and flimsy liability waiver, paid the $10 each for 10 sets of pins, and got our free t-shirts! We knew they said there would be a t-shirt but I always panic and tell myself "don't be upset if they're out or the advertisement was wrong or something" because I'm a worried and I don't like to get my hopes up even about minor things but I got my shirt! We both did! And it was such a cute shirt! With those and a scorecard in hand, we were directed to a backdoor that lead to a pretty solidly frozen lake with 10 rows of bowling lined up on the ice! Literally Ice Bowling! Bowling on ice! How awesome!
The way it worked was the ice was marked off with orange spray paint dictating the lanes, then at the end there were little cubes made by hay bales where the pins were set, and in that area was a teenage employee there to be a Pin Resetter! So cool! We dropped our stuff off on one of the tables and picked out our balls! We went for the lowest weight, obviously, cause we're weak potatoes, and discovered right away that it was super difficult to get our fat, gloved hands into the tiny, snow-filled holes of the bowling balls. We threw some pretty bad shots to start out with as we figured out how to actually throw the ball, but we we sorted it out eventually. Jess sorted it faster than I did though and got a pretty fair amount of strikes once she got her rhythm. I got some strikes and spares too, but mostly from the ball bouncing off the hay bales and hitting the pins on the rebound which they allowed because this is all just for fun! We did out 10 pins each but I got a little confused thinking we got two rounds, not one each, because I'm a carnsarned fool, so we debated just buying another round as we stood around the fire, uh, can they had by the bowling. The teens were keeping it lit but they really didn't know what they were doing. They had a fire going, for sure, but they just kept throwing in more paper which keeps a flame going, but not a genuine one. Too much paper muffles the flames trying to burn on the actual wood so you end up with a short, not-so-hot fire rather than a roaring blaze. But, who am I to correct anyone having fun so they did their thing and we stood and debated buying another round as it started to snow.
We went to the bathroom and were almost gonna head out when I decided that I actually really did want another round so we went and paid $10, got another shirt (one for our mother this time) an headed out! Technically, $10 only should've gotten us 5 rounds each, but no one was really keeping track, and we gave $5 tips to both our Pin Resetters, so we did actually pay for it. Also we ran out of money, that was the bigger issue. All we had was enough for the ride home, $2 each. We had a blast, again, and Jess smoked me, again, getting something like 9 strikes. Crazy! I did... mediocre, but again we had a super fun time! What a blast! We were never gonna get another chance to do this so I thought "Why not!" and we did it again! Following this we did actually set out for the bus for real. It said the bus would arrive in only a few minutes, but it was nearly 20 minutes of us in the snow and cold before it actually came. We didn't mind really, we could stand the cold, and we just figured the phone had the wrong times on it, so we hopped on and began the return journey!
We realized shortly after getting on that we were on the same bus that we'd gotten off, meaning the Outbound, not the Inbound that we actually needed. But, we had nowhere to be and nothing else to do so we sat and enjoyed a 30 minute ride to the end of the line where the driver asked if we'd missed our stop and we had to tell him we're actually stupider than that and got on the wrong direction bus, so we were just gonna be here for a ride all the way to the other end! He said that was all good and so we sat! Saw some weird passengers, saw some regular passengers, and really got a great tour of Anchorage! So, it all worked out! We finally ended up back where we belonged and took the short trudge in the snow to our hotel. There we basically parked ourselves for the rest of the night! We updated our blog and journals, watched HGTV (shocker), ate and drank what we had left, and tried to get some sleep before our midnight flight.
At 9:30pm, Jess went down to the lobby to print our boarding passes, but she had to come back up because Gmail's a brat that doesn't let you log on without jumping through a million hoops so she had to sort that out, but she got them printed around 9:44pm and we finished packing the last of our stuff. We called for a cab to meet us at the front, but we definitely took to long double-checking our stuff and heading down so we ended up waiting at the door for about 15 minutes before we realized we'd definitely missed it (as confirmed by the lobby receptionist who said the cabs never wait more than a hot second) and had to call for one again. This one we did actually managed to be there in time for and jumped in! The trip to the airport cost us $20, which wasn't awful, but hurt more than the $4 for the bus which doesn't run passed 6pm on weekend. Still, we made it with plenty of time to collect our bearings, muddle through TSA, and locate our terminal and gate! We then went shopping for a little bit, getting a few more bits and bobs for people back home, and wasted some time until boarding. We were flying Delta the way back, so they had the cool TV's on the back of the seats and they gave us free earbuds too! So I watched The Addams Family, the new animated one, and then 10 Things I Hate About You, which is still such the romantic comedy! Top tier!
We left Alaska at 12:50pm then landed in Seattle around 5:25am (adding that extra hour as we entered a new time zone). Then Jess and I... napped. As best we could, at least, in the hard chairs by our new gate. We slept for basically 3 hours, overheard a woman telling her friend over the phone about how she was racially profiled by some rando at Starbucks cause she was Asian and wearing a surgical mask, listened to a baby cough every 5 seconds which was unsettling to everyone, and saw a bunch of other folks sneaking a snooze too. Around 20 minutes from the start of boarding I did a quick run to get more macaroons from Lady Yum because e just couldn't leave without getting them again! Jess then went to the McDonald's shop to pretend she was someone who's friend forgot to grab the mayo so she could get some packs for our sandwiches! We slathered one pack on one of the sandwiches and ate it there before boarding and it was great! Such high quality bread and meats! Perfect little treat for our tired bodies.
We took off for our second flight, the 6-hour one, at 9:15am and I watched I Feel Pretty, which was an interesting little film, and threw on the My Little Pony Movie because it looked colourful and I had a blog post to write! There were TONS of empty seats on that flight, and Jess and I had both booked aisle seats across from each other so we could easily access the bathroom if necessary, but we both ended up getting a whole three seats all to ourselves, each! So much leg room! We got lunch on this flight so Jess and I each got a sandwich which we both didn't eat until forever after we got it because we got all wrapped up in watching movies for me, and napping for Jess. At a certain point we hit some bad turbulence and I realized I REALLY had to pee, as one tends to notice during a bumpy ride, so I stood up to go the few feet behind me to the bathroom. I had noticed right before I stood up a woman turn around from heading towards the bathroom and I worked out why when I stood up: The flight attendants were also strapped in their seats and were saying to folks to wait unless it's an emergency because it's so dangerous. Now, it wasn't really and emergency for me, but I did really need to pee, however I knew that was gonna sound like a lame excuse, so when the woman told me what she told the other woman I just said "I think I'm gonna throw up" and all the attendants went "Oh yeah, that's an emergency!" so I passed no problem.
They likely would have believed me, they had no reason now to, but I hate imagining someone thinks I lied so I of course double down to seal the deal. In this case after using the toilet I turned around and spent a minute or so intermittently coughing loudly. I can't tell you why it was so important they believed me that I would willingly stand in a hostile, shaking aircraft at risk to my own safety for this elaborate measure, but I did it anyway. I then, for some reason, forced myself to cry so it'd look like I was upset and in some kind of pain, because they seemed reasonable to me but in hindsight, why? When I left I made sure to a slight tumble-walk back, which was actually mostly real because the plane was shaking pretty bad. I knew I'd done my job well because an attendant then came to my seat to ask if I was alright and if I needed anything: ginger ale, water, that sore of thing. I told her I had water and some apple juice but thank you for the offer. So, crisis averted. If you count a crisis being "I had to pee and didn't want the flight attendants to judge me so I play-acted a whole scenario so no one could question my right to step into the bathroom during turbulent times". I do, so take that as you will.
In fairness, I wasn't really lying when I was playing motion sick, I was starting to get a little ill with all the shaking and once we got into the 20-30 minute descent Jess and I were both feeling it. We don't tend to get to motion sick on flights, but if the landings are turbulent, like both out second flight landings this week were, than we get pretty queasy. We were both sort of lumps when we finally touched down and a flight attendant again expressed some concern for us, but we knew we'd been 1: Awake for 15 hours straight just traveling (not including all the way up to the earlier Ice Bowling), 2: Eating infrequently if at all in those times. We had one and a half sandwiches each, some complimentary juice, a little water, and a Bang! energy shot, and 3: We didn't take any Dramamine until we were just about to land so our stomachs didn't have time to settle. All in all, we were doomed to get at least a little sick!
At landing we turned out Tracphone back on and our mother had texted us saying she was at the airport ready to pick us up already. We had some time left before we would get off the plane and get through the trams at the Orlando Airport to get to her so she drove around the circle a few times to kill time, as you can't sit in the drop-off/pickup-zone for longer than 2-5 minutes. One of the guards let her stay longer, but she still moves as often as she could. We went to the wrong spot at first, going in between #30 and #31 at the Departures gate rather than between the two sections at the Arrivals gate, but a man told us to just go down the elevator and we sorted it out. We found our mother, gave the customary hugs, and hopped in the car to drive to her place for the night to stay before we made the drive back to our place the following day. One needs time to catch up and tell tales after a vacation, and as our mothers birthday had passed during our time across the country she had plenty to tell us of her birthday celebrations! We finally arrived at the house at just about 6pm. So, we started traveling at 10pm to head to the airport, and finally arrived home at 6pm, but in Alaskan time 2pm. We traveled through the all of Monday for 15 hours before arriving back at our destination in Florida.
At this point my timeline is a little fuzzy as we've jumped forward in time twice and we traveled starting at midnight, so while I normally post my blog post the day after the occasion but because we traveled weird times and no one cares for just travel day posts, today's post includes, technically, yesterday and today's adventure thought for the two of us it was all one day. In all, this has been a wild, crazy, and cold trip filled with full days of travel both ways to spend a basically one weekend on a vacation we'd planned for 10 months on a pilgrimage we'd been dreaming of going on for years. I can't think of a better way to use our time off than to go somewhere as wild and adventurous as Alaska but with the luxury of being a VIP guest at a hotel on the block all the activities for the Iditarod were happening! It was a perfect balance, with tons of great memories of the Last Great Race on Earth! It was en expedition sane folks wouldn't take, and we were told that by a lot of people, but we were determined so we made it happen. It was only a few days, but we crammed so much of everything into every day so we did all the activities on our checklist and I can't believe any of it was real. It was though, and this blog is a testament to it, and I have had a blast writing for it again, so thanks for reading! Well, with that, The Great Alaskan Adventure is over, and all we can really say now is: Thanks for reading, and we'll see you all next trip!
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