North To Alaska is an older John Wayne movie that I have always liked, and it seemed appropriate as the title for the first post for this trip, we are finally on our way.
We got everything packed and weighed last night and both suitcases were about 48 pounds, a good number for us based on all of the extra items we packed to take with us specific to this trip. Knowing we were going to some fairly remote places, remote meaning not having good access to grocery stores, we had packed some extra items.
We set an alarm for 4:45 AM, and it was early when it went off this morning. We hate to rush getting to the airport, and this will also be the first time we are driving our own car and parking at the airport for the duration of the trip. We knew we needed a little more time to park and then to walk over to the terminal. We figured it was easier and faster just to park and pull our suitcases over to the terminal instead of dropping off the bags first, and Stephanie waiting with them while I went and parked.
We had everything ready and left the house at 5:25 AM, just a little later than our goal of 5:20 AM. Since it was Saturday, and early in the morning, there was no traffic and we made it to the airport in about 20 minutes. We pulled into the surface parking and were surprised at how crowded the parking lot already was, and then we remembered it was summertime, and we do not usually travelling in the summer, plus it was the 4th of July week. We ended up parking near the middle of the lot right outside the parking garage, and it was not a long walk into the terminal from there.
Ashley and Bryan were already in line just ahead of us when we arrived to check in. Check in went smoothly except for us having to pay $30 for each of our two checked bags, even though we had made the reservation and paid for our flights with our AAdvantage Citi Card. That was supposed to get us one free checked bag each. The gate attendant said there was nothing he could do about it because the computer did not have it listed that way, so we had to pay. He suggested that we call American Airlines later and gave us a receipt we would need to have to make a refund claim. We surmise that because we had to make three different changes to our original reservation because of flight changes made by American since we originally made the reservation, that the purchase details with our AAdvantage Citi Card had somehow been omitted.
We then all headed to security. There were quite a few people in the airport this early in the morning and we had a bit of a wait to go through the body scanner. There were two x-ray lines open for carry on items, but only the one scanner, so there was a little bit of a back-up.
Ashley got tagged for some additional inspection of one of her suitcases. Apparently, they had vacuum bagged a few clothing items to compress them, and that compressed state had triggered some flag in the x-ray, due to the higher density and shape. We headed on to the gate while they had the additional inspections done to their carryon bags.
Our Plane To Charlotte
We did not have long to wait before we boarded our flight to Charlotte. The flight left on-time and there were no issues, but not too much can go wrong on a 26 minute flight. We landed and had quite a ways to taxi to Terminal E where all of the smaller regional jets go to park in the Charlotte Airport.
We had a bit of a walk to our next Terminal for the flight from Charlotte to Seattle, and the airport was really crowded, another reminder of summer and a holiday travel weekend. We had a bit of a layover in Charlotte, about two hours total, and the terminal was very crowded at the area for our barding gate.
Flight to Charlotte
Luckily, we found three seats together at a nearby gate and waited. A group of people sitting next to us left to board their flight a bit later and we then had seats for everyone. It was just amazing how crowded everything was.
We finally boarded our flight to Seattle and settled in for the 5 hour 30 minute flight. We had a delay leaving the gate, and the captain said it was due to some construction work on the area behind the taxi way. We only had a 70 minute layover in Seattle for our next flight to Anchorage, so it was beginning to be a little stressful as we waited a good 25 minutes waiting to leave the gate. We finally left and headed to the runway to take off, but there was also about 7 planes ahead of us, and that caused a little more delay before we actually took off.
Flight to Seattle
Everything on the flight was good except that we had expected to get some type of snack since the flight was right at lunchtime by the time we landed and it was 5.5 hours long. No such luck, we only got a drink and some pretzels for a snack, that was it for the entire flight.
Stephanie and I watched movies through the streaming service on the airplane. We are not big fans of this type of system, it is always hard to get the movies to start, it took us many attempts to try and start our movies before they actually would connect to our phones, which was all we had to stream the movies too. We had opted not to bring out tablet and Ipad on this trip. We used our Beats Pro Earbuds to listen to the movies, which worked nice with their noise cancelling capabilities. We also had brough our Bose Headsets, but opted to use the earbuds instead. They work nicely, but started to hurt our ears after a while, they are just not as comfortable as the headsets for longer duration use.
Passing Over Mountains As We Head To Seattle
The flight seemed long, but was uneventful, and we were only about 10 minutes late arriving in Seattle.
We deplaned and headed over one terminal via the underground train. The next leg of the flight to Anchorage was on Alaska Air. It is not a streamlined interaction between American and Alaska Air. Even though we had American Flight Numbers, as well as Alaska Air flight numbers, we could not get boarding passes for the Alaska Air flight when we checked in this morning with American in Columbia. We were told we needed to go to the gate in Seattle and get our boarding passes there. When we got to the gate, the attendant was helping two persons ahead of us and it was not apparently something simple they needed help with because it was taking a long time.
Ashely and Bryan had gone the the other gate right next to ours and had the attendant there print out their boarding passes, so they were done long before us. Apparently, the attendant at that gate had not really been happy to print their passes because when Stephanie tried to go over there while I was still waiting on our gate attendant, the lady was not willing to help her with our passes. They were boarding a separate flight at that gate and maybe she was just busy now, or had not really wanted to help out in the first place since it was not for our flight.
Luckily, by this time someone else arrived at our gate to help out and we finally got our passes. The flight was already boarding, and we were now trying to figure out something for lunch, we had lost all of our free time waiting to get our boarding passes, so we did not have many options. Stephanie went to a small food store near the gate while I headed to the restroom.
Ashley had already headed over there to get them something to take on the plane to eat. Stephanie bought two wrap sandwiches and chips, with a bottled water for about $40. Airport robbery. By the time we both got back to the gate, our boarding group was being called and we boarded the flight.
All of the flights were pretty full so far and this was no exception. Luckily, all of the planes were newer and had sufficient sized overhead bins for carry on luggage and so boarding went pretty smoothly.
We went ahead and ate our sandwiches while everyone was boarding and they were actually pretty good. Maybe they just had to be good, they were expensive!
Getting Ready To Land in Anchorage
The flight left on time and was smooth. They actually had in flight entertainment through a wi-fi connection, just like American Airlines. We both watched movies on our phones, but I was having a little difficulty getting my movie to play continuously, it kept pausing. Eventually, I tired again and it finally worked better. We both watched the latest Puss N Boots movie, but since I got a late start, I was not able to finish the movie before the flight ended in Anchorage.
We deplaned and headed to baggage claim, where we all collected our suitcases without any incident, a good omen for the trip.
Next, we headed to the rental car desks for our rental car, which was through Enterprise. Ashley gets a good rate through her business, and other than it being a slow process to get our car, we finally were assigned our Chevy Tahoe, just like we had reserved, and headed to the garage to pick it up. After doing an inspection with a rental car rep, we loaded up our baggage and headed to our hotel just a couple of miles away.
We headed inside to check in and that is when we rad into some difficulties. They did not have either of our names in the computer, even though these were 100% prepaid and non-refundable reservations. We had to wait about 45 minutes before they got things straightened out, and we finally were assigned our two rooms. I don’t think we ever got an explanation of what happened, we were just glad we were able to get the rooms.
Stephanie and I wanted to head to the nearby Walmart to pick up a few items and to pick up our online purchased rolling duffel to help us to have extra storage for some of the food and beverage items we needed with us to take for the next several days.
We picked up the duffel at the drive up online waiting area and then headed inside to purchase some groceries, just a few of the items on our list, not everything. We headed into the separate wine/liquor store in the front by Customer Service, and picked up some Bota Boxes of Pinot Grigio and two bottles of red wine.
We knew we would be coming back tomorrow with Ashely and Bryan to complete the grocery shopping, and to purchase a cooler, but getting some of the items today would lessen the time for shopping tomorrow. We also picked up some hot wings from the deli, some for us and also some for Ashley and Bryan, we were all just too tired to go out to eat, and it was getting late, already 7:30 PM on our new Alaska time, feeling like 11:30 PM to us.
We headed back to the hotel and settled in for the night and ate our “dinner”. We were tired from the long day, but showers to remove all of the travel grime were the first order of business after we ate. It was not too long before we headed to bed, it was only 9:00 PM here, but with the early departure this morning, and the four hour time difference, we were done.
Tomorrow, after finishing our grocery shopping and re-packing with al of the supplies, we head south to Homer to catch a ferry to Seldovia.