We left Pittsburgh on time at 5:15 pm to head to Phoenix. We made sure we ate before we left and kept plenty of snacks with us because you now have to pay for everything on the plane. Since it was Chase's first time flying we let him have the window seat which totally upset Jorden. Then after we took off she starts crying about all the things she wasn't going to see anymore. I then informed her that although I understood she was upset, whining about it the whole time would lead to dire consequences. Today was not the day for her to expect me to put up with that.
We packed lots of toys for them but you know after awhile they start to get bored anyway. Chase kept playing musical chairs by wanting to sit in any other place but his. Luckily for us there was a little girl about Chase's age just a couple rows back and the kids kept each other occupied. It wasn't until we were getting toward the end of the flight that everyone was getting antsy and cranky. Plus we waited for everyone else to get off the plane before we even attempted to move. First to get on, last to get off.
We arrived in Phoenix around 9pm Arizona time. We only had an hour between flights so that left little time for anything. We had just enough time to grab our things, hit the bathroom, and get to our next gate. Then we discover that our flight to Anchorage had been overbooked so we needed to wait for volunteers to stay. Because we are traveling on DoD orders, we can't be bumped. The problem was that 90% of the flight was traveling the same way. So we had to hope that the small 10% would cut us a break. Not very good odds at all. We all managed to get on but we were scattered around the plane. Jason tried to fix this a couple days ago by purchasing choice seats but it didn't go through because it was overbooked. The best we could do was having three of us together and the other behind and diagonal from the row the other three were in.
Getting to Anchorage was the tough part of the trip. The flight is about 8 hours and it was pretty bumpy. Before we took off we had some baggage issues and sat on the plane at the gate for about 30 minutes before leaving. Since we had no time to eat in Phoenix we planned on purchasing meals for everyone because we all needed just a bit more in our tummies besides small snacks. The attendants came around with drinks but never any food. So we got nothing!! Plus the kids were just plum exhausted which added to the madness. Chase managed to fall asleep within 20 minutes after takeoff and slept for a good portion of the flight. Jorden didn't attempt to fall asleep for about an hour and a half into the flight and she didn't get much sleep.
So we arrived in Anchorage about 40 minutes later than planned which put us at about 1:30 am Alaska time (that's about 5:30am on the East Coast). Because we arrived late, Hertz closed and we missed our rental car reservation. Luckily National Rental Car was open and we got a minivan from them. Because our GPS wasn't working it took us forever to get to Ft. Richardson. By this point we're all hungry, tired, and extremely irritable. Chase was a trooper but Jorden was a mess. She couldn't talk without bursting into tears. So after about 45 minutes of driving around we finally found Ft. Rich. We get there only to have to wait about 20 minutes to get a visitors pass and then another 20 minutes to get our room at the hotel. By the time we got in and got all of our luggage in, it was about 4am. Wanna know what we did first? We found a 24 hour pizza place and called for takeout.
I went to take a nap and told Jason to wake me when the pizza arrived. I woke up around 7:30am and found everyone else sleeping as well. So I just sat around and enjoyed the quiet. Jorden woke up around 9am and Chase around 10. So we're slowly getting on the new clock. Today we didn't do anything except drive around. We found the PX, hospital, and Starbucks (yay!). There was no sense in doing anything today because it's Friday and it would be silly to start the ball rolling so close to the weekend. So Jason will report in tomorrow as scheduled. We will use the rest of the weekend to rest and recover and then on Monday we'll start all the other stuff like apply for housing and get Jorden in school.
Our hotel room is quite nice and pretty big. We have one room with a queen sized bed, in the hallway is a bathroom, then the hallway leads to the living area, which then leads to a room with 2 twin beds. Proceeding through that room takes you to another small hallway with another bathroom and at the very end is another room with 2 more twin beds (if you've ever been in a mobile home, it's a lot like that). The living area isn't that big and I would've liked a little area to make food and do dishes but I'm not being too picky at this point.
Because you all were such good sports and read through this entire thing, here's a couple pictures. One is of the kids in the living room area and the other is of the view of the Alaskan sunrise from our window (for the record, the sunrise picture was taken at 9:45am).
1 comment:
Poor you. Our flight to Hawaii was rough.....the kiddos didn't fall asleep until the last hour. I swore I'd never get back on a plane until it was time to leave the island. Kept my promise too. =)
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