For 5 years, after a winter of living in my independent reverie at my cabin in the woods of Talkeetna I would leave for my summer migration to a Fish and Game job on the lower Yukon River. I get there by first driving to Fairbanks to help a friend plant the large garden we have at his place and then flying to St. Mary’s, via Anchorage, from there.
It was the last summer I decided to be working at Pilot Station. The day I had to fly dawned hot and clear, forecasted to hit record setting temperatures. We decided to leave at 6:30, which seemed like plenty of time to do a big detour to drop a trailer off at Donny’s friend’s house who he would be helping later and then get to the airport to catch my 7:55 flight . He didn’t want to tow the trailer to the airport.
Pulling the trailer was slow going and bouncy due to bad shocks on the truck, but I just sat back and relaxed leaving Donny to get me to the airport on time, letting the present flow along like I’d been doing all winter. It was warm and sunny and what could possibly be wrong with the world.
As we neared the turnoff to his friend’s house, a sudden pang of nerves jolted me out of my peaceful reverie. “What time is it?” Donny looked at his watch and casually said it was 7:20. It would still take at least 10 minutes to get to his friend’s house.
“We need to be to the airport by 7:30, we can’t drop off the trailer,” I implored.
He solemnly agreed, wondering where the time had gone. We had just done this big detour for no reason and would be lucky to get to the airport in time. My heart now raced, but I tried to relax. I’d never missed a flight in my life, despite being pretty late to the airport. It was a beautiful sunny day. What could possibly go wrong?
Railroad Crossing #1. There was a train. I groaned and slunk in my seat. Minutes ticked by.
Further along. Railroad Crossing #2. The same train. Heart racing. Minutes ticking by.
Further along. Railroad Crossing #3. The same train. A racing heart. Another precious minute.
How could any route have 3 train crossings in just a few miles?
We speeded along Airport Way and groaned as the speed limits got agonizingly slower and slower. As we rolled to a stop outside the Rav’n terminal, I leaped out and dashed up to the girl at the Rav’n counter and told her I was flying to Anchorage and then St. Mary’s. “This plane is closed to boarding,” she said, simply.
“But it’s not 20 min. yet!” I exclaimed, noticing, that my plane was sitting right outside the door.
“You need to be here no later than 30 min. before the plane is scheduled to depart. 30 min. is the cutoff.”
“PLEEEEEAAAAAASE????” I implored.
“This plane is closed to boarding.” She was unyielding.
Now Donny had shown up. “But we had to wait at 3 train crossings,” he pointed out, weakly.
“I have to be at my job,” I added, even more weakly.
She got on her computer. The next available flight to St. Mary’s was in 2 days.
If I wasn’t there by then my boss would be livid.
“What about Alaska airlines?” I asked. “Do they have a flight that could get me to Anchorage in time for my St. Mary’s flight?”
For the next half hour I ran back and forth from the Rav’n desk to the AK airline desk. I finally ironed out a way to get to St. Mary’s that day. I could fly AK air to Anc. and then Bethel and then take Rav’n from Bethel to St. Mary’s in the evening. It would cost me. Being 8 minutes late was amounting to a $600 mistake. And I’d miss a few hours of work. But I had no choice.
One of the friendly ladies at AK booked my bags all the way to St. Mary’s for me. As I headed upstairs to security, she came up from behind me and whispered, “I’m not supposed to tell you this, but the tickets you just bought are completely refundable. Your bags are checked all the way to St. Mary’s. When you get to Anchorage run to the Rav’n terminal and see if you can catch your original flight to St. Mary’s. Run! Run like the Wind!” She smiled, walked away, looked back and winked. I smiled and thanked her.
As we flew over the Alaska Range, from sunny skies into dreary clouds, I pondered what she had said. “Run like the Wind!” But there were problems with this plan. I was arriving at the far end of the Alaska terminal and my Rav’n flight would take off from the far end of another terminal. My flight to Bethel was scheduled to board within minutes of landing in Anchorage. If I couldn’t get on the Rav’n flight I was going to have to run like the wind back to Alaska and go through security again and try to catch the Bethel flight. If I missed that flight I was screwed. Did I risk it, try to save money, get to St. Mary’s like nothing had happened for only an extra $150, or did I play it safe, foot the $600 and just proceed to my Bethel flight, a sure thing?
The flight to Anchorage was 10 min. early. I was the first one off the plane. I had decided to Run like the Wind!
This was the first summer out of five that I had decided to carry on a small box of plant starts. This seemed like a brilliant idea to get a head start on my summer garden. It really would’ve been a brilliant idea if I hadn’t missed my flight. So now it was time to run like the wind and I had my daypack on my back and clutched the box of seedlings to my chest. I ran more like a breeze than the wind, but run I did.
Huff, huff, huff. I skidded to a stop at the Rav’n check in counter. There were 4 agents just standing there. I gasped for breath, smiled my sweetest, looked at all of them, and asked, “Who’s nice?” I went up to the girl who gave me the best smile. “Is there any chance I can catch my plane to St. Mary’s?” Click. Click. Clicketty click. “Since it’s past the 30 min. cutoff I can put you on Standby.” This sort of sounded hopeful. “What are my chances of getting on?” I asked. She didn’t know, but said the flight was filled up. That didn’t sound good. She said I should go ask at the boarding desk and they’d know for sure in a few minutes. My flight to Bethel was due to start boarding, but I decided to risk it and run to the boarding counter at the far end of the Rav’n terminal.
As it turned out the St. Mary’s plane was delayed a little bit because they had to switch planes for some reason. The irony of this is that because they were switching planes it was decided they wouldn’t allow standbys. I had no choice but to run like the wind all the way back to the Alaska terminal. When I got to security I thought I was doomed. But I ducked under the flexible railings that corral people and cut to the front of the line after asking the first person in line if that was okay and ignoring the 25 people behind him. Once through security I resumed running.
Bethel was cloudy, cold, windy, bleak, and brown. I was dressed for Fairbanks weather and running like the wind. The airport was mobbed with people waiting to get on the plane to Anchorage. After rushing here and there all morning I now had a 5 hour wait until my St. Mary’s flight with absolutely nothing to do. I didn’t feel like hanging around the crowded airport. I asked someone how to get to the library in town and was told it was a 20 minute walk, maybe 40. This sounded reasonable enough so I headed out into the bleak Bethel air, daypack on my back and box of seedlings closed up and clutched in my arms. I walked and walked and walked, the airport being well out of town. 20 min. went by, then 40. After an hour and still not there I decided to turn around and head back. This was the lowest point of the day for me. People were speeding past me. No one knew what I’d been through today! No one cared! I could’ve been in St. Mary’s, earning money and laughing with my coworkers right now. Instead I was cold, lonely, hungry, and with arms about to fall off.
I made it back to the Rav’n building, checked in, and found out that my bags hadn’t made it from Anchorage.
Waiting around at Rav’n I decided I should call my boss but my phone was in a bag that hadn’t made it and I didn’t know his field cell number. I asked the customer service agent who was employee of the month, if I could use her computer to look up my boss’s phone number and then her phone to call him. She just handed her phone and computer over to me and did something else somewhere else. Really really nice. I could see why she was employee of the month. I thanked her, sat down in the terminal for awhile, and then remembered I had a question about whether my Rav’n ticket to St. Mary’s that I hadn’t used was still valid even if I had been issued a standby boarding pass. I could maybe sell this ticket to someone and make something off of it to cut the $600 down to size. So I asked her about it, explaining that I really wanted to have that ticket for its value. She was quiet. Clicketty click. Clicketty click. “Here you go”. She handed me something similar to a boarding pass but it had money amounts on it. I stared at it confused. “Uhhh, what just happened?” I asked. “I refunded the cost of your original flight back to your credit card.” She smiled. Shocked, my eyes got big and eyebrows shot up. “Really?” I stammered. She nodded.
I stared down at it again. $392 in credit. “Really?” I stammered again.
“Yes” she said.
I didn’t know how to thank her. I was in shock.
“Wow,” I said, “That just made my day.”
“I’m glad something did,” she smiled. About 10 min. later she had gone home. It was 5 pm. If I hadn’t asked about the ticket when I did it would never have been refunded. If I had made it to the library I may never have asked. The whole day was almost worth it just for this. If I had been on my normal flight it would’ve been a ho hum ordinary day. Now I had paid $200 for an adventure in humanity.
When I arrived in St. Mary’s everyone else was done with work and there to pick me up. I was immediately barraged with the camp greeting: “What the hell, Mo, what the hell?!” Soon I was laughing with my coworkers once again. I hadn’t really missed much that day and still got a few hours of work in trying out the boats that evening. Everything worked out in the end. I was only up about $200 instead of $600, which now seemed insignificant.
Talking to Donny later that night I found out that he never did need that trailer after all.
“A Plane Adventure”, by Maureen Chambrone
