The last day- travel home
Trip Start
Oct 02, 2008
1
5
Trip End
Oct 06, 2008
Laurium,
Michigan,
United States
Monday, October 6, 2008
Nanaimo, British Columbia to Laurium, Michigan
The day has started. And start it did at 4:30 PST I was awaken by the sound of the alarm clock beeping at me, the first day the entire trip I woke up with the need of an alarm clock. I got my pot of coffee and got ready for the long day. I made it to the Harbor Air office at 6:30am as required and was checked in and ready to go. I was seated in the Co-pilots seat with the headset on the 20 minute flight back to the main land. The view was fabulous and the sunrise was gorgeous. We landed without any problems and the shuttle was waiting to take those of us heading to the airport. Once at the airport I checked in with Alaska Airlines, cleared customs and then security and was off to find my gate. Now despite the fact that I am familiar with the Vancouver airport I could not locate my flight, come to find out it was in a completely different section of the airport. I found the gate and was ready to crash, I did manage to stay awake until I boarded the plane, once aboard the plane I was essentially out like a light. I slept until landing in Seattle practically threw me to the floor. Once off the plane on Terra Firma I placed my first phone call back home from the US and updated the family on the situation and then located Starbucks and then my gate and some food. Our plane to Minneapolis was delayed due to the late arrival of the incoming crew from Minneapolis despite our plane already being there. Once we got going an hour later I was less than able to sleep although I did doze off occasionally. now due to the fact that I only had a one hour lay over I was a bit nervous about getting off the plane in a timely manor, which of course did not happen. As I was running down the gate, an agent stopped and told me what gate to get to. I had 8 minutes to make it from gate D2 to A12, a nice long haul. I started the sprint to the tram and caught the tram from D concourse to A concourse and then started the sprint down the entire length of concourse A. At about this time I hear the over head page for myself that I had 4 minutes to reach gate A12, I was at Gate A2. I hollered at the agent and asked her to call gate A12 and let them know I was coming. Once I was to gate A10, I saw a lady standing out side gate A12 and I hollered at her and told her to let the gate agent know I was coming. I made with a minute or two to spare. Unbelievable. I have not ran like that in a long time, especially with a 17 pound backpack on. WOW! Anyway, the luggage did not make it needless to say, and oddly enough it got sent to Wichita Kansas. It just arrived as of 10-8-08. Nice and ripe with the smell of sea water, fish, kelp, and mud. What else would I expect after 4 days in rain on the ocean. Oh well.
This is my 2nd day home and I am sufficiently jet lagged with one of the worlds worst headaches, body aches, swollen hands, feet, ankles, knees, and just about any other joint there is. The breathing is about back to normal although my concentration sucks. I will say it is much better than yesterday when I could hardly move. Probably worse this year than last due to the inability to sleep and switch time zones.
It was a well worth the time and exhaustion trip.
