July 22 -- homeward bound

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We got off the ship in shifts, with those who needed to get to the airport quickly getting off first. We weren't in a rush, but some others on our bus were....

I was still in the last stages of the migraine, so I didn't take any pics of lovely (and extremely expensive -- average home price $800,000!) Vancouver.

We got to the airport in pretty good time, but then had to wait forever to check in with Northwest. And then wait again to go through US customs. (We'd gone through Canadian customs before we even got on the bus to the airport.) And then wait again to check our bags. And then wait *again* to go through security. Oy. Our "plenty of time" turned into enough but not really extra time. I hope the other people who had ridden on the bus with us made their flight......

Vancouver is supposed to be one of the nicest airports in North America, with a stream running through it, and displays of native American art..... We saw some art from a distance as we waited in line, but we didn't really have time to go exploring.

I nibbled on graham crackers (purchased in Anchorage when someone else had been feeling iffy about the tum), sipped water, ate Tums, and then we got on the airplane.

It was cloudy, so I didn't spend much time looking out the window.








When we went to Alaska, it was an hour and a half to Minneapolis, and then five hours and forty minutes to Fairbanks.

Our flight home was four hours and ten minutes.

Alaska is really very big. Very Big. Fairbanks is sort of half-way, north/south-wise, and then the inside passage (where we cruised) continues south, and more south. Every day after we left Fairbanks, we were getting closer to home.....

I was glad that the shorter flight was at the end of our trip. We were lucky, though, on the way up, DH and I ended up with an empty seat in our row, so various family members could come and sit and chat a bit on that long flight from Minneapolis to Fairbanks. That made the long flight shorter.



You'll no doubt remember my musings about the sky being so big in Alaska.....

As we drove home from Detroit Metro, I wondered why the sky looked so different from Alaska. One thing that is different is -- I don't remember seeing one jet trail the whole time we were there. There are surely no jet trails in any of my sky pics......

Toto, I don't think we're in Alaska any more.....................



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