Day One - Wellington to Anchorage
I flew to Auckland on the morning of Friday 28th February and spent the day hanging out with my sister in Auckland. Julie kindly dropped me at the airport about 5pm. I'd accumulated a couple of vouchers for the Air NZ lounge, and as I had a few hours to kill before my flight I thought it would be worth using. Very nice it was too, good food and drinks available, including a sparkling water tap that I could fill my water bottle with for the flight. But the best thing is you can just leave your stuff at your seat and go get food, and be reasonably sure it's not going to get nicked or tampered with. Not possible when you are slumming it with the public, if you are travelling on your own you have to haul everything with you everywhere you go.
I was randomly selected for extra security screening (denoted by SSSS on my boarding pass) so I was ushered to a side room and my socks, shoes, laptop, camera bag were all swabbed. Nothing untoward was found of course and I was soon on my way. There was an American woman just ahead of me who was making a huge song and dance about being selected, and she'd better not miss her flight etc. I'm sure they took extra special care with her to ensure she was inconvenienced as much as possible.
The San Francisco flight was 40 minutes late leaving Auckland, but the flight time was shorter than usual, so we arrived on time in SFO.
It was an uneventful flight, I had paid to chose my seat right at the back of the plane, and I was lucky enough to have a spare seat next to me so I could spread out a bit. I watched Jojo Rabbit (very funny and worth the watch if you haven't already seen it) and then managed to sleep for a few hours, off and on. SFO airport is vastly different from the zoo in LA, and I was through immigration and customs, checked in and back dropped, and through security again for my flight to Seattle within an hour of touching down. So I had a couple of hours to kill, and filled the time by eating a healthy spinach and bacon salad for lunch, and drank a bucket of coffee while I people watched.
There was a gate Nazi, threatening to check extra carry on for Boarding class E (cheap seats i.e. me) and she guilted me reluctantly into getting my camera carry-on bag checked. However she had checked it all the way through to Anchorage, which I wasn't that happy about, so I thought I would carry it on anyway and take my chances finding a spot in the overhead lockers. As it turned out, there was heaps of space and she was being unnecessarily aggressive in culling carry-on.
Another uneventful flight, and we landed in a cold and rainy Seattle - down to 8 degrees here from mid twenties in SFO. In contrast, Seattle airport was super busy, it's a big hub for Alaska Airlines, and being Friday afternoon/evening was heaving with people.
It seemed a long wait, but eventually we were all on board and left just a few minutes late. It's a 3hr 45minute flight to Anchorage, and I was starting to feel tired and gritty eyed from lack of sleep. But it passed quickly enough, though worth noting that they are a budget airline, and there are no TV screens and therefore no in-flight entertainment at all, which surprised me a bit given it's a such a long flight.
There was some kind of medical emergency on board, it sounded like one of the kids a few rows behind me got a finger jammed or something, and there was a request for any EMT's or nurses on the flight to help out. When we got to Anchorage, we all had to remain seated while the EMT's came on board and the family was hustled off first.
The outside temperature was -12 degrees, yet I was watching the luggage handler offloading bags, with no hat !! I walked to the underground car park to collect my rental car, and even though that was sheltered, I was rummaging for my hat pdq.
It was about 10.30pm and I was feeling pretty tired, so I was on super high alert as I drove the 15 mins to my hotel. The roads are mostly clear, but there are patches of packed snow and ice waiting to catch the unwary.
I checked in, schlepped my luggage to my room, had a shower and crashed.
I was randomly selected for extra security screening (denoted by SSSS on my boarding pass) so I was ushered to a side room and my socks, shoes, laptop, camera bag were all swabbed. Nothing untoward was found of course and I was soon on my way. There was an American woman just ahead of me who was making a huge song and dance about being selected, and she'd better not miss her flight etc. I'm sure they took extra special care with her to ensure she was inconvenienced as much as possible.
The San Francisco flight was 40 minutes late leaving Auckland, but the flight time was shorter than usual, so we arrived on time in SFO.
It was an uneventful flight, I had paid to chose my seat right at the back of the plane, and I was lucky enough to have a spare seat next to me so I could spread out a bit. I watched Jojo Rabbit (very funny and worth the watch if you haven't already seen it) and then managed to sleep for a few hours, off and on. SFO airport is vastly different from the zoo in LA, and I was through immigration and customs, checked in and back dropped, and through security again for my flight to Seattle within an hour of touching down. So I had a couple of hours to kill, and filled the time by eating a healthy spinach and bacon salad for lunch, and drank a bucket of coffee while I people watched.
There was a gate Nazi, threatening to check extra carry on for Boarding class E (cheap seats i.e. me) and she guilted me reluctantly into getting my camera carry-on bag checked. However she had checked it all the way through to Anchorage, which I wasn't that happy about, so I thought I would carry it on anyway and take my chances finding a spot in the overhead lockers. As it turned out, there was heaps of space and she was being unnecessarily aggressive in culling carry-on.
Another uneventful flight, and we landed in a cold and rainy Seattle - down to 8 degrees here from mid twenties in SFO. In contrast, Seattle airport was super busy, it's a big hub for Alaska Airlines, and being Friday afternoon/evening was heaving with people.
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| A line-up of Alaska Airline tails at Seattle airport |
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| The noise from this group of school kids was deafening. Thankfully they were headed to LAX not ANC |
It seemed a long wait, but eventually we were all on board and left just a few minutes late. It's a 3hr 45minute flight to Anchorage, and I was starting to feel tired and gritty eyed from lack of sleep. But it passed quickly enough, though worth noting that they are a budget airline, and there are no TV screens and therefore no in-flight entertainment at all, which surprised me a bit given it's a such a long flight.
There was some kind of medical emergency on board, it sounded like one of the kids a few rows behind me got a finger jammed or something, and there was a request for any EMT's or nurses on the flight to help out. When we got to Anchorage, we all had to remain seated while the EMT's came on board and the family was hustled off first.
The outside temperature was -12 degrees, yet I was watching the luggage handler offloading bags, with no hat !! I walked to the underground car park to collect my rental car, and even though that was sheltered, I was rummaging for my hat pdq.
It was about 10.30pm and I was feeling pretty tired, so I was on super high alert as I drove the 15 mins to my hotel. The roads are mostly clear, but there are patches of packed snow and ice waiting to catch the unwary.
I checked in, schlepped my luggage to my room, had a shower and crashed.
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| My digs for the next week. |
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