Text 28253, 76 rader
Skriven 2012-08-15 17:22:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: Alaska 116
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AS 190 FAI ANC 1755 1855 734 7AB

Back to the Express for an even shorter visit, and it was no
big deal that our room this time was more standard than the
last one. More alarms, but we managed to get up before them.

AS 151 ANC OTZ 0600 0731 734 21AB

The plan was to meet at the Boardroom at 5, so Lilli and I
took the first shuttle at 0420 and were the first to arrive,
giving us ample time to admire the much-admired pancake
machine and the also-prized espresso machine. We could have
gotten the second shuttle at 0500, in retrospect.

It was a pleasant flight but not very rowdy, with us not all
in a bloc but rather interspersed with regular people. The
aircraft was a combi, the front part taken up with big cargo
containers, a somewhat truncated passenger cabin in back.
Access is by stairs to the rear door.

As there is but a 47 minute stop, we were discouraged from
deplaning at OTZ - Lilli and I would have done so anyway had
there not been some big guy sleeping in the aisle seat.

Turns out later that some of our party whom we hooked up
with in Nome had had trouble reemplaning in Kotzebue the
previous day because the TSA screener didn't recognize the
Global Entry card as a valid ID - one of the dangers of
using such newfangled technology, I guess.

AS 151 OTZ OME 0818 0901 734 21AB

This is a really short flight across part of the Chukchi
Sea and the Bering Land Bridge Preserve. There is supposed
to be cool scenery, but I didn't see it.

When we landed at tiny OME airport, sharp-eyed Lilli saw some
people outside the fence pointing and staring at our plane;
she figured there must not be much to do in Nome; actually,
the excited spectators were the two who had done the trip the
day before and had the trouble getting through security in OTZ.

After the usual logistical figure-outs, Chris L and Bob
offered up a pair of vans to take us the mile or two to the
Aurora Inn, where there was a bit of a scrum for bed and
floor space, as the hotel was sold out. Lilli had oversold
her room with our friend Eva, so I ended up on a rollaway,
which though a little lumpy ended up doing the job.

Breakfast at one of the supposedly better places to eat in
town, Airport Pizza, where about half of us obediently had
breakfast food, and the other half had pizza; my part of the
table feasted on pepperoni pizza and (once the twin issues
of no beer before 11 and the waitress being too young to
touch John Barleycorn were solved) Glacier bock. Some over
yonder experimented with the Greek pie - gyro meat, feta,
and tzatziki sauce, and by some miscalculation there
appeared two chicken alfredo ones. I did not receive any
reports on these, but the consensus from this tough, largely
east-coast crowd was that the only decent pizzas are from
[name your city], and these weren't close. I actually found
my couple slices enjoyable, but I have pizza so seldom that
nostalgia always plays a role in my attitude.

The day's excitement was multifold. After our meal, we
wandered about town a bit and then witnessed the annual
bank robbery, in which the Wells Fargo office is assaulted,
and Wyatt Earp saves the day. Followed by the Solstice polar
bear swim, participated in by our friends Geoff, Paul, and
Chris B (the padded one) and cheered on gleefully by the rest
of us. I splashed a few square inches of myself with Bering
Sea water and considered that quite enough.

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