Happy biggest shopping weekend of the year to everyone! We are missing those festivities as Robert and I had all of the Christmas gifts ready to go and shipped south in October. (Remember - I had weeks to shop before our household goods arrived!) BTW - Three day priority mail from Anchorage to Kansas is more like 5 day - (for 25 lb packages anyway) - but who's counting?
Thanksgiving weekend is traditionally the weekend (at my house) for the LIGHTING OF THE CHRISTMAST TREE WITH ALL OF THE ORNAMENTS. It is going to be late this year. Since the only place we could put the tree is by the front door which is where all of the new granite will be coming in, I didn't want to have the antique ceramic ornaments on the tree and a slab swing by tipping it over. We still need to put up the reindeer in the yard. I keep hearing comments about screwing them into the deck so they don't blow away. Maybe that's why I haven't made a big deal about putting them up yet. Normally we put the reindeer on a light sensor timer. When it is dusky, the reindeer come on. I am not sure we are going to go that route this year as dusky occurs about 2 pm and our lights will then be on for another 9 hours. I'm not really sure our timer counts that high?
This weekend, I believe, is also the biggest traveling weekend of the year. Statistics called for something like 34 million to be going somewhere the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Woof. That's a lot of (grumpy) people in the airports and on the roads.
There aren't many towns I have been in the Lower 48 with only two roads into it. Actually one if it is a continuous road. Most places have one or two highways and/or country roads which may or may not be paved. In Anchorage, you have a choice. Do you want to go North or go South? West takes you into the Cook Inlet mud flats (no roads) and East takes you into Chugach state park where there are trails you can hike on but I am generally not up for a several day hike as I'm not carrying that much crap on my back. At least this makes it relatively easy to decide where to go for a nice Sunday afternoon drive plus it is rather hard to get lost unless you go off-roading.
On the upside, we do have an international airport and while I have not studied the schedules, I honestly believe every flight into and out of the airport occurs at between midnight and 1 am. (OK - I know that isn't completely true. I have heard tell of others who manage to leave at a decent hour of the day like mid afternoon but that is strictly legend.) Maybe I should quantify and say every flight I have had to deal with departs or arrives at that hour. I would love to fly in on a sunny, clear day looking over the mountains and the Gulf of Alaska. It has to be a beautiful site. I normally get darkness though.
Robert tends to be the one traveling and I have drop off/pick up duty. That's fine especially since we only live 5 miles form the airport. Bless Robert's heart - for a drop off, he gets to go to the airport right at 3 1/2 hours before he boards. For a 1 am flight arrival, I can leave at 12:30 am, catch the lights correctly, swerve into short term parking and walk in to the terminal as the first passengers arrive looking like I have been there waiting and pining for him for hours. (It is a good facade to keep up.) The biggest problem with this exercise is the timing. I can barely stay up for the 10 pm news and yet I have to stay awake and drive somewhere in the middle of the night. One of these days, I am going to fall asleep, jarring awake to the phone ringing and the facade will be gone.
The other issue is the cold weather. I have to get fully dressed in artic gear to go to the airport just in case I have car trouble. If it was in the 30's I wouldn't have a problem just tossing on a light jacket and my fuzzy slippers or my tennis shoes (there's a vision!) but at 6 degrees, snow drifts and a 20 mph wind, I don't want to be walking very far without a parka and snow boots. Hopefully it will never happen but I would rather be prepared than really cold. (FYI - it is hard to drive a car in snow boots. Kind of like driving with 2 pair of shoes on at the same time. Always up for a challenge though).
It's even more fun actually taking those flights. Leaving at 1 am gets you to Seattle at 5 am - just in time to catch all of the connections to make it to a meeting somewhere that day. I don't know how people do it. We recently flew from Anchorage to Kansas City and it took no less than 15 hours, 3 flights and 2 long lay overs. It wouldn't have been that bad except I didn't want to miss the plane and didn't go to sleep Thursday night before going to the airport. I was one tired puppy by the time we arrived. Going home was a lot like coming down - 3 flights, 2 lay overs and arriving after midnight. No way was I able to go to work the next day.
Seven more days and we get countertops back. A call for celebration!
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