We Have Arrived...and We Have Not Left Yet...

Hey, folks!  If you want to learn more about my scientific-like shenanigans, please also visit:

http://teacheratsea.WordPress.com/category/Teachers/staci-deschryver

You'll love it, I promise. 

Well, here I am! It is a small miracle that I have arrived in Kodiak with only 2 near misses to speak of. 

As I boarded the plane to leave Denver, the pilot happily announced that we would be "shoving off" early.  Pleased with this information, I quietly settled in with a book and began reading.  And reading.  And reading.  And then I noticed we were not moving.  After about twenty minutes we were politely informed that a navigation issue would put us "slightly behind schedule."  For an hour and fifteen minutes.  Now, this is the first of three legs I have to make to get to Kodiak, and I only have an hour and a half to get from my current plane to the plane that will eventually bring me in to Anchorage.

Needless to say, my years of Olympic sprint training came in handy when the plane finally did land in Seattle.  I also utilized some hurdle skills over what I have now determined to be poorly placed gate seating in SEA-TAC.  As the blast doors were closing on my portal to Alaska, I ran down the ramp with only seconds to spare.  My BAGS, however, decided to stop and get a Cinnabon during the transfer, because as I eagerly awaited them in Kodiak, they did not arrive in style as I did.  I pondered what it would be like to travel on a ship with two t-shirts and a pair of shorts for three weeks in forty degree weather.  Thankfully, Alaska Airlines did not want my bag as much as I did, because they promptly dropped it off on the next flight in to Kodiak.  I learned that it would be quite easy to acquire my sluggish cargo when the airline employee took me out the front door and pointed at my motel which was across a field about 100 yards away. Since it doesn't get dark until 11:30 in these parts, I just made the quick trek back over when the plane came back. 

Kodiak's airport is...tricky.  Let me describe to you how the landing went from the passenger perspective on a plane where EVERYONE got a window seat.  It went like this:

Ocean, Ocean, Ocean, Ocean, Ocean, Ocean - Runway - 5,000 foot tall mountain.

You may have recognized the absence of buffer words such as "field," "space", "grass", "hangars", "parking lots", or "cows."

To put it bluntly, the pilots were pretty gangster, in my humble opinion.  Imagine what that looked like from the cockpit.  I would try to imagine it, but I was busy witnessing it out the front window myself while simultaneously trying to not to pee down my own leg.  Three cheers for those guys.  They were beasts.

After spending the night in the Hotel I made my way to the ship where I made my grand entrance in true Staci fashion by promptly tripping over this:

 Ah yes, welcome aboard, girl with two left feet.  You will get along swimmingly here, especially when the boat is actually moving.  You might want to consider practicing your walking before we actually shove off and nasty words like "pitch" and "roll" invade your pedestrian vocabulary.

Of course, three to five people saw the whole thing.  An excellent first impression, I suspect, as the crew knew in that instant that they would at the very least have some entertainment for the next three weeks. 

As we were waiting for our staterooms (I love that word - stateroom - having a stateroom makes me feel ever so slightly more important and dignified.  Excuse me, sir, could you please get out of my way?  I have a stateroom to go to),  there were abandon ship drills taking place.  As if that wasn't a friendly enough reminder that being on a ship is, indeed, dangerous, someone was injured during the drill.  This extremely unfortunate situation has put us in a position to wait for a few days before we are cleared to sail.  So,we are patiently waiting in port until we have someone to replace the injured party.

So, for now, I will have some outstanding adventures on shore in Kodiak.  I discovered they do not roll up the streets until about 5 am around here, mostly because it doesn't even get dark until 11:30 at night.  So there is plenty to do and plenty of daylight in which to do it.  Hopefully we will be underway shortly so that I can report on how well I cannot walk when the ship actually moves.  For now, the door jambs do a nice job of reminding me just how much I don't know.

Till next time, folks...