Category Archives: Travels with Maria

Blogging from the road.

The Simple Things in Life

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I have a great, ordinary day.

After spending yesterday being lazy and eating too much, I was determined to make the most of today. So I made rough plans to go for a hike at Red Mountain and then visit my favorite Thai restaurant in Flagstaff. I’d bring Jack the Dog and my good camera. I’d take my time and have a good time.

And that’s exactly what I did.

On the Road

I had a nice leisurely breakfast and spent a few hours reading something I’d written a long time ago. Reading my old fiction is always a bit depressing. I put so much of my time into it and now I realize how much rewriting it would do before I could ever consider publishing it. Both the content and writing style are immature. I wonder how many other writers look back at their old, unpublished work and feel the same way.

By 9:30 AM, I was ready to hit the road. I packed an orange and a bottle of water in a canvas bag, grabbed my camera bag and jacket, and loaded it all into the truck. I put Jack in back — I refuse to get dog hair all over the cloth seats in the cab — and closed the cap on him. Then I headed out.

I stopped to visit Matt and Elizabeth on my way out. They live full-time on the other side of the mesa. In fact, they’re the only people who live full-time on the mesa at all. They were in the middle of cleaning out one of their sheds, getting it ready to turn into a greenhouse. We chatted for a while as Jack wandered around their yard. I remembered that I didn’t have a leash for Jack and asked Matt for a piece of rope. I left with a 6-foot piece of nylon rope that I fashioned into a leash. Although there wouldn’t be many people where I planned to hike, there’s always one in the crowd ready to complain if your dog is off-leash.

We descended down the mesa and through the flatlands below. At route 64, I turned right, heading toward the Grand Canyon. There weren’t many people on the road, which kind of surprised me. It was, after all, Saturday morning. What better time to visit the big ditch?

Planes of Fame

At Valle, a small town at the intersection of routes 64 and 180, I made a brief stop at the Planes of Fame Air Museum. This remarkable aviation museum, which is based at Valle Airport, has an amazing collection of planes and aviation memorabilia. It’s impossible to miss, since General MacArthur’s Constellation is parked right out front. Oddly enough, it gets few visitors, despite the fact that thousands of people drive past each day on their way to or from the Canyon. I highly recommend it; it’s worth the stop for anyone interested in aviation — especially military aviation. And it the name of the place sounds familiar, it’s because it’s associated with the larger Planes of Fame museum in Chino, CA.

I was stopping in to hand over some brochures for Flying M Air. The museum’s lobby walls are lined with brochure racks for things to see and do all over Arizona and I like to keep my brochures there. At the same time, I usually pick up a batch of the museum’s brochures and put them in the racks at Wickenburg Airport. (It’s the least I can do!)

I had a nice chat with the two women there. They still had some of the brochures I’d mailed to them about six months ago. I asked them to put the brochures away until September 1. I told them I was closing down for the summer and there was no sense getting phone calls when I wasn’t ready to fly. They were completely understanding.

Walking Inside a Mountain

On leaving Planes of Fame, I headed southeast on route 180 toward Flagstaff. I’d planned to hike at Red Mountain, the remains of an ancient volcano that had collapsed in on itself thousands of years ago.

We’d discovered Red Mountain years ago, in 2003. While at Flagstaff’s excellent visitor center, we’d stumbled upon a free publication called 99 Things to Do in Northern Arizona. Number 26 was “Walk Inside a Mountain”:

Located 32 miles north of Flagstaff on U.S. 180, Red Mountain is one of the most intriguing sites in the Flagstaff area. The mountain is a volcanic cinder cone that rises 1,000 feet above the surrounding landscape. It is part of the San Francisco Volcanic Fields, a belt of volcanoes stretching through Flagstaff and on to the canyon of the Little Colorado River.

The northeast flank of the volcano is deeply sculpted, with a natural amphitheater in the center….The 2.5 mile round-trip hike is well worth it because you actually get to see what a cinder hill looks like on the inside.

This was enough to pique our interest, so we tracked down the trailhead and paid it a visit with Jack the Dog and a picnic lunch. I remembered it as an interesting yet easy hike — a good destination for another hike with Jack.

Today, I skipped the lunch and just brought along my Nikon D80 with two extra lenses in the fanny-pack style camera bag I bought for such hikes. I let Jack out of the truck and hung his makeshift leash around my neck. Another couple started the hike right after we did, but I let them pass us when I stopped to take a rest.

The trail to Red Mountain is an easy gravel pathway, partially eroded but plenty wide in most spots. It winds through typically high desert vegetation: grasses and pinon and juniper pines. Plenty of sun and shade. The path climbs gradually almost its entire length, offering occasionally glimpses of the cinder cone at its end, as well as the San Francisco Peaks and Mount Kendricks, beyond it, to the east.

The trail follows a dry stream bed into a canyon between two steep slopes of dark gray volcanic gravel. These slopes have been here a long time, as evidenced by the huge ponderosa pines growing out of them. They also give the trail a sort of claustrophobic feeling, especially with all the shade from tall trees all around.

The trail ends abruptly at a six-foot tall stone dam completely filled in with silt. A slightly tilted ladder with handrails leans against it. As Jack and I arrived, a group of 5 people were just making their way down. We waited.

One of the people asked, “How are you going to get the dog up there?”

“Oh, he’ll climb it,” I assured them.

“He’ll climb the ladder?”

“Sure.”

By this time, they’d all come down. They stood a few feet away, giving us an audience. I climbed up the ladder and Jack followed me, placing each foot carefully on a step as he climbed.

“It’s a circus dog!” someone called out.

Beyond the dam, we were inside the mountain. It was very different from what lay outside. Inside were mostly red rock formations very similar in appearance to the “hoodoos” at Bryce Canyon National Park hundreds of miles to the north. There were trees and hills and black rock. The force of erosion was quite evident. Jack and I explored the west side of the mountain’s insides and found ourselves winding through a series of narrow slot canyons. Of course, I had my crazy fisheye lens with me. I took a few shots with it, including this shot with Jack the dog. You can’t imagine how much red dust I got on the seat of my pants sliding off this observation point.

Here’s another weird shot with that fisheye lens. For this photo, I lay my flannel shirt, which I’d shed during the hike, on the dusty ground under a small pinon pine tree, facing up. Using the self timer, I snapped the shutter, then moved away quickly so as not to be in the photo. I love taking weird photos like this.

We explored inside the mountain for about 30 minutes. We were the only ones there. I’d forgotten to bring water with me and I knew Jack was thirsty. On the north-facing rocks, there was snow and I led the way to the base of a particularly snowy area, hoping that the snow was melting before it evaporated into the dry desert air. We found a small puddle and Jack had a good drink.

I took a few more shots, experimenting with various lenses and exposures and focal lengths. What I saw through the lens didn’t do the actual scene justice. It was beautiful and surreal.

We headed back to the dam and ladder. A pair of hikers stopped to pet Jack. When we got to the ladder, he carefully made his way back down. I wished I’d gone first and had taken a movie of it with my phone. I don’t think too many people would believe it, especially if they saw the ladder.

One of my favorite photos of Jack the Dog was taken the first time we visited Red Mountain. In it, he’s running towards us on the trail, with the San Francisco Peaks in the background. I decided to reconstruct the photo. When I got to the right spot, I called Jack back to me and snapped this photo. It wasn’t as pretty a day, but I think it’s a better photo.

We reached the truck, where Jack and I had a drink of water. Then I closed him up in the back of the truck and headed out of the parking lot. It was about 1 PM.

I should mention here that I have a photo of Red Mountain taken from the air. You can see it in the post titled “The Winslow Loop.”

The Drive to Flag

I continued southeast on route 180 toward Flagstaff. There was one spot I wanted to visit along the way — the very picturesque Chapel of the Dove. But when I neared it, I saw that its tiny parking lot was full of cars. I figured they must be doing some kind of memorial service and I didn’t want to intrude. So I kept driving. I’ll stop there another day when there’s no one around.

I did stop alongside the road to take this photo for Miraz. If I’m not mistaken, it’s the same spot a photo on one of her recent blog posts was taken. I’m off the ‘net right now, so I can’t check.

Along the way, Route 180 climbs to just over 8,000 feet above sea level. My redneck truck sure didn’t like the elevation. It drove terribly. Even cruise control couldn’t keep up the speed. I’m very glad my trip this summer won’t keep me in the mountains.

Thai Food and Errands

Boy, I sure wish I could remember the name of the Thai restaurant we’ve been eating at in Flagstaff when we’re there. It’s right downtown, across the street from Babbitt’s, with a connecting door to the Hotel Monte Vista. It has the best Pad Thai Noodles I’ve ever had and a really great “combination” soup with a clear broth, rice noodles, chicken, tofu, pork (?), and veggies.

That’s where I went for lunch. I parked the truck in front of the tattoo parlor on Route 66, tied one end of the makeshift leash to Jack’s collar, and walked the two blocks. I tied Jack to a signpost outside the door and went in. After washing my hands three times to get the dirt off them, I settled down for a nice lunch. I only finished half of what they put in front of me, so I took the rest to go. (I’m finishing up the soup now. Yum.)

Afterward, we walked over to the Flagstaff Visitor’s Center to drop off a bunch of Flying M Air brochures. The Visitor’s Center shares space with Amtrack in the original train station right downtown.

Back in the truck, we headed over to the HomeCo Ace Hardware on Butler Road. This is a great hardware store that I’ll take over Home Depot any day. (Having spent much of a summer in the Flagstaff Home Depot, I can assure you that I’m sick of it.) It’s a good-sized place with everything you need and enough floor staff to help you find whatever it is you’re looking for. The True Value Hardware Store in Williams is also very good, although not nearly as big.

Although I was tempted to hit the Barnes and Nobel Bookstore on Route 66, I talked myself out of it. Instead, we hopped right on I-40 and headed west.

I did make one more stop before returning to the mesa: Dairy Queen in downtown Williams. They make the best hot fudge sundae. Even a small one!

Why It Was a Great Day

Now this day may seem pretty ordinary to you. A bunch of errands, a hike, and lunch out. Big deal.

But I enjoyed the whole day immensely — perhaps more than I should have. And knowing that I enjoyed it so much made me enjoy it even more.

Perhaps one of the things that made it so enjoyable was my choice of listening material for the long drives. (I did, after all, drive well over 100 miles today.) I had my iPod plugged in via cassette tape adapter thingie and was listening to podcasts. I was alone, so I didn’t have to worry about missing what was being said because of conversation. The podcasts I listened to — Point of Inquiry — gave me something to really think about. I like getting thoughtful input.

Another thing that contributed to the good day might have been my complete lack of schedule. I had a list of things I wanted to do and plenty of time to do them all. I didn’t need to be someplace — or back at the mesa — at a specific time. So there was no stress, no rush. Very relaxing.

Now I’m back on the mesa, relaxing in our camping shed. Outside, the wind is absolutely howling — they forecast winds 25 to 35 mph with gust up to 50 mph. My windsock is stuck straight out as if starched. Occasionally, the building shakes. But its cosy and safe in here with music on the radio and sunlight coming in through the windows.

And I have leftover pad Thai noodles for dinner.

Travel Plans

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Three trips in just over a month.

Pity me. I’ll be on 9 different airliners over the next 40 days.

First Stop: Florida

There’s a joke that New Yorkers “get” and I’ll be so bold as to try it here:

Q: What’s a good Jewish wine?

A: [whining] I want to go to Florida.

While midwesterners and northwesterners retire to Arizona, New Yorkers (and others from the northeast) retire to Florida. Not only do they retire there, but they vacation there. And since New York has a huge Jewish population that vacations and retires in Florida — mostly in the Fort Lauderdale area — this joke is funny. Well, at least it’s funny to New Yorkers. (And having heard it from a Jewish person, I don’t think it’s offensive to Jews. You may correct me if I’m wrong.)

Both of my parents retired to Florida. While many people think that might make sense — that they retired together — it’s not as easy as that. They’re both remarried and they each moved to different parts of Florida with their spouses.

My mother, who I’m going to see next week, moved to the St. Augustine area. Technically, she lives in Crescent Beach, which is on the far southern reaches of St. Augustine. She lives with my stepdad on the barrier island there. Her home, which she had custom-built about 10 years ago, sits on a tiny canal.

She and my stepdad used to have a boat, but fuel and maintenance costs made that impractical, considering the amount of time they actually used it. So now they have a bulkhead with a bench overlooking the canal. Their neighbors have boats that they seldom use, too, and they can look out on those.

The area is nicely treed and quiet. There are lots of sea birds.

My mom’s house was built in a U-shape. On one end of the U is the master bedroom and bath. On the other end is another bedroom with its own bathroom just up the hall. That was supposed to be my grandmother’s bedroom, but like so many people back east, she couldn’t leave the area she’d lived in for her whole life. (In fact, she died within 50 miles of where she was born, having lived in only three or maybe four places her entire life.) Grandma’s room is the best room in the house, with privacy, easy access to the pool and hot tub between the arms of the U, a nice bathroom, and its own thermostat. Although the house has four bedrooms, I try to manage my trips so I get Grandma’s room. I stayed in the “kid’s room” once with Mike and was incredibly uncomfortable sharing the tiny space beside the trundle bed with a treadmill’s bulk.

My mother and stepdad are going to Italy at the end of the month for two weeks. This is a huge deal. They don’t travel much and I can’t remember the last time they left the country. They’re going with a tour group (of course) and I don’t know the itinerary, but I’m sure I’ll be filled in when I get there on Tuesday evening.

I haven’t been to my mother’s house since Thanksgiving 2006. She hasn’t been out here since Thanksgiving (or perhaps Christmas?) 2004 (?). She really doesn’t like to travel by plane. One year, they decided to drive out. Yes: St. Augustine, FL to Wickenburg, AZ, a distance of more than 2,100 miles. You might be asking yourself: what were they thinking? The answer: they weren’t. It was a long drive and they were on freeways the entire way. It might not have been so bad if they didn’t hit a dust storm in the Tucson area, but they were tired when they encountered that and it really rattled them.

It takes two planes to fly to visit them — no one has a direct flight from Phoenix to Jacksonville or Daytona (she lives right between them). I could get a direct flight to Orlando, but then I’d spend more than an hour driving from there. I’d rather spend that hour on the ground, in Houston, looking for a nice lunch and shopping in the airport terminal.

I’ll be in Florida for five days: Tuesday through Saturday. Two jets each way equals four different jets.

California, Here I Come!

My next trip is for business. I’m flying into Burbank, CA to meet with a new client for a brand new job. I can’t go into details because I’m under nondisclosure (NDA), but I can say that I’m working on a new project that should be completed by the end of May. I’ll talk about it more then.

I’m flying Southwest into Burbank. I don’t like flying Southwest. The lack of seat assignments is a royal pain in the butt. I like to know before I get on a plane where I’ll sit on that plane. And since I’m likely to have carry-on luggage, I like to know for sure that I’ll be able to stow it. Southwest makes knowing these things impossible, so I tend to avoid it.

But my client paid for this trip’s airfare and booked it for me, so I can’t complain. It’s a more convenient flight than I’d get with another airline — Burbank is closer to my final destination than LAX, and a heck of a lot less crazed. I’ll probably save a whole hour of travel time by avoiding traffic. And maybe, just maybe, Southwest isn’t as bad as I remember it.

Because this trip is for business, I don’t expect to have much fun. I have to finish the entire project in 4-1/2 days. (I arrive on Sunday and depart on Friday at about noon.) The quicker I work, the more time I’ll have to goof off, so that’s a good motivator. And not finishing up on time is not an option.

It’s just one jet each way, but if you’re counting, that brings the total up to six jets between now and May 9.

The Washington Trip

In mid-May comes the trip I’ve been looking forward to: a helicopter flight from Wickenburg to Boeing Field in Seattle, Wa. There’s nothing I love more than long cross-country trips by helicopter. If I could figure out a way to earn a living doing it, I’d be doing it all the time.

The trip is to reposition the aircraft for my summer job. Yes, this year, after two years of false hopes, I’ve been signed up to do cherry drying for growers in central Washington state. But to do the work, I need to get the aircraft up there. That means a 10-12 hour ferry flight which I hope we can complete within two days. Once at BFI, I’ll leave the helicopter with a buddy’s mechanic for an annual inspection, which will be due by then.

Since I’ll be in central Washington for at least a month, I’ll need a place to stay. So right after I drop off the helicopter, I’ll hop on a plane for Wenatchee, WA, rent a car, and start scouting around. I plan to drive up with my new old truck pulling my travel trailer. Alex the Bird and I will camp out for the entire time. I’m interested in finding an affordable campground with full hookup and WiFi, but there’s a chance I might get a free (or almost free) partial hookup with (fingers crossed) WiFi at the same private airport where the helicopter will be based for the first part of the season. Since I have time, I figured I’d go check out my options. It’s a long drive from Wickenburg, AZ to Quincy, WA, and I want to make sure I know where I’m going to be parking my rig before I get there.

The plane from Seattle to Wenatchee may not be a jet, but it will be part of an airline. I fly from Seattle to Wenatchee and then back to Seattle before flying home to Phoenix. If you’re keeping count, that’s three more plane rides for a total of nine.

Other Work

Between all of that, I have other work to do.

I have two helicopter charters for Flying M Air — one of which is later today. After that, Flying M Air’s Phoenix-area operations are closed for the season. I have 21 hours left on the Hobbs meter before I need a 100-hour inspection (which is about the same as an annual, but must be done every 100 hours). If I fly 2-1/2 hours today and 3-1/2 hours on Monday, that leaves 15 hours for the ferry flight and helicopter training I need to do (in Portland, OR, which I hope to hit on the way to Seattle). While I’m allowed to go over the 100 hours if the flight is repositioning the aircraft to where the maintenance will be done, I’m not allowed to go over it for training flights. So I simply can’t take on any new charter flights until I get to Washington.

(And yes, I can continue to operate my tour and charter business in Washington State. My Part 135 certificate is “portable.” So when I’m not drying cherries, I hope to make a few extra bucks by transporting growers and other folks who need to get from place to place near my summer base(s).)

I also need to record a training video for macPro Video. I would have started this last week, or this week, but I’ve been having trouble getting satisfactory recording equipment together. (See my video blog entry about this.) I might try to do some of it in Florida. We’ll see. Otherwise, I’ll have to do it between the Florida and California trips.

I also need to go to Howard Mesa to pick up a few things I’ll need on my summer-long trip. Among them is Alex the Bird’s mid-size cage, which should fit nicely on a shelf in the camper, my low-wattage one-cup coffee maker, and some odds and ends that’ll come in handy for off-the-grid camping, if I need to do any of that. I’d also very much like to get away from here for a weekend because of a variety of other crazy things going on.

And I need to get ready to write a new book about QuickBooks Pro for Macintosh. I’ll work on that while I’m away this summer. I’ll be bringing two (possibly three) laptops with me so I can write. There’s another book I’ll be working on while away, but I’m under NDA about that and can’t say more.

In any case, I’m looking forward to a challenging summer away from Wickenburg.

I’m also looking forward to my three shorter trips over the next 40 days. I really do love to travel.

Alaska in March

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A few notes from a brief trip.

I was in the Anchorage, Alaska, area this past week, from about 12:30 PM on Tuesday through 8 AM on Friday. I got home last night.

I was up there for a pilot job interview. The reason I needed 2+ days is because the weather is ever-changing and we wanted to make sure I’d have a chance to fly. I did, on Thursday, and surprised myself by landing atop a snow-covered ridge and making the steepest confined space landing I’d ever attempted. But all that is another story.

The Weather

Airplane at GirdwoodThis was only my second visit to Alaska. (The first was last June.) I expected it to be cold and miserable. I was pleasantly surprised. Although it was cold, it wasn’t nearly as cold as I expected. Daytime temperatures hovered in the low 30s each day, dropping down into the low 20s at night. With a borrowed down jacket and the right footwear, I didn’t feel that cold. And although there was some snowfall each day, there wasn’t enough to consider the weather bad. In fact, it was rather nice.

The way I’d describe it is this: March in the Anchorage area is like late January or early February in New York.

Of course, there was snow everywhere. I’d never seen so much of the stuff before. It was piled up alongside the roads and it blanketed the fields, hillsides, and mountaintops. In most places, it was the pure white, unspoiled stuff — the kind you see on Christmas Cards. Absolutely beautiful.

Girdwood

I spent most of my time in Girdwood, which is about 40 miles south of downtown Anchorage, in a little valley off the Turnagain Arm at the foot of Mt. Alyeska. The town is known primarily for the Alyeska Ski Resort. Snow-covered mountains tower above the town on three sides. Beyond them are seven glaciers.

I stayed at a B&B that I [sadly] cannot recommend. The place stunk of dog or cat urine — I suspect cat — that had obviously soaked into the padding under the carpet. I found it difficult to breathe. I think the lack of fresh air and my inability to get a good night’s sleep contributed to the cold that hit me at the end of the week. It’s a shame, because the place was otherwise very nice, clean, and well-equiped. If they’d replace the carpet and institute a strict No Pets policy, they’d have a place I’d be glad to recommend.

Girdwood has only about 1,000 year-round residents, but oddly enough, it has more (and better) restaurants than what one can find here in Wickenburg. So there were plenty of dining opportunities. The locals like The Bake Shop, which I’d been to on my first visit to Girdwood last summer. Great soup for lunch and good breakfasts.

Everything is absurdly expensive — about 30-50% more than what you’d pay in the lower 48.

Skiing

Alyeska SkiingIf you’re a skier or a snowboarder, Girdwood is probably someplace you’d like a lot. There were certainly plenty of people on the slopes of Alyeska when I was there — that might be because it was spring break. The mountains are steep and covered with trails. There are a handful of lifts, as well as a tram, to get to the top.

I took the tram up on Wednesday afternoon, when it was too cloudy to fly. The tram passed through the first layer of clouds, revealing the skiers and snowboarders coming down the mountain out of the second layer of clouds. Once outside, I walked around a bit, waiting for the clouds to clear. Occasionally, I’d get glimpses of the snowcovered mountains on the opposite side of the valley or the top of Alyeska. But it never cleared out enough to get decent photos.

From the Air

You really don’t realize just how much snow there is or how many mountains there are until you see the area from the air. As part of my interview process, I got to ride along on three flights in the Girdwood area.

The first was to a stretch on the Alaska Rail Road to pick up a worker. He was part of the team set up to clear huge amounts of snow dumped on the tracks by an avalanche. We saw the entire scene from the air — including the bulldozers and snow cats hard at work. This wasn’t the only avalanche we saw. Avalanches are quite common in the area in the winter time and we saw signs of past avalanches on each flight.

The other two flight were scenic tours with glacier landings. This is a relatively common type of helicopter tour in Alaska. We didn’t, however, land on the glacier. We landed on some snowy ground near its lower end, where it meets the sea. The pilot shut down and we stepped out onto the snow. It was quite tricky to walk on the stuff without sinking in. On the second flight, I stepped out onto the snow and my foot sank into it up to my thigh.

I should mention here that the glaciers look different in winter time than they do in the summer. In the winter, they’re blanketed with pristine snow. In the summer, a lot of the surface show melts, revealing the blue ice and glacial moraine beneath it. While the blue ice and the melted pools of water you may see atop it is a sight you’ll never forget, the clean winter show is equally beautiful, in its own way.

Once on the ground with the helicopter’s engine turned off, it was very quiet. But I could hear water dripping from the nearest of three glaciers. And the sound of tiny cracks. After a while, a chunk of ice from the most distant of the glaciers broke off and slid into the sea with a rumbling sound. Very cool.

During the flight, we also saw moose, mountain goats, seals, and sea otters. My big regret: I didn’t have a camera with me.

It thrills me to think that I might do flights like this throughout the day, every day, all summer long.

Clear Skies in Anchorage

After a side trip to Portage Lake, I took the rental car back to Anchorage on Thursday night. I was spending the night at a friend’s house.

DenaliWe went out to dinner, then took a drive to one of the overlooks near the airport. The view to the north, over the Knik Arm, was perfectly clear — so clear, in fact, that we could see all of Mt. McKinley (Denali) and the mountains around it — which had to be at least 150 miles away. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky in any direction, so we could clearly see all of the Alaska Range and whatever other mountains were nearby. My friend told me it was the clearest evening he’d ever experienced in the year and a half he’s lived in Anchorage. We watched the sun set — it was nearly 8:30 PM! — and headed back to their house.

I wanted to stay up that night to possibly see the Northern Lights — I’ve been told you can see them from points just north of Anchorage if it’s clear — but by that time, my cold had set in and my nose was running like a faucet. With an 8 AM flight the next morning, I figured it would be best to hit the sack early.

Alaska In March

I don’t know if the three days I spent in Alaska are typical of three March days in the area. I hope they are. It was a very pleasant time to visit, a time with no tourist crowds, a time to meet and talk to the real locals. I hope I get a chance to visit in the spring again.

Morning Flight to Alaska

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It’s nice when travel goes smoothly.

Last June, Mike and I went to Alaska for vacation. Our travel plans, which were made by a real travel agent, were completely screwed up, as I detailed in “Trouble on the Tundra” in this blog.

While I think the travel agent was to blame for our screwed up hotel arrangements on that trip, I can’t blame her for airline delays. I blame the airline — Alaska Airlines — for that. Unfortunately, I had to fly with the same airline again yesterday. Fortunately, when they get it right, they do a good job. And they got it right yesterday.

But I’m getting ahead of myself a bit.

I want to fly in Alaska this summer. Last week, I lined up a job interview with a company based in Girdwood, AK, which is just south of Anchorage. Here’s a quick summary of yesterday’s flight to Alaska from Phoenix.

Before the Crack of Dawn

My flight was scheduled to leave Phoenix at 6 AM, so I was up and getting ready to go at 3 AM. I was out the door in the cool, predawn morning at 3:30 and, after a quick stop for gas in my Honda, was on the road heading out of Wickenburg at 3:45 AM.

The thought of this would send many late risers into cardiac arrest. But I’m an early riser and typically start my day around 5 AM anyway. Getting up two hours earlier wasn’t a big deal, although it did require the use of an alarm clock. Well, that’s not really true, because I woke up about 5 minutes before the alarm would have buzzed and turned it off before it woke Mike.

The drive down to Phoenix was a pleasure. There were few cars on the road on Grand Avenue and Carefree Highway. I set my cruise control at a reasonable speed — that’s one that was unlikely to get me jail time — and zipped on down the road. I had my iPod connected, and listened to last week’s episode of “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me” from NPR. The top was up because it was quite cool outside.

Traffic on I-17 was light, which you’d expect at 4:30 in the morning. But what you might not expect was getting an excellent parking spot in the West Long Term Economy lot at Sky Harbor. This is the long-term parking lot on the west side of the airport, adjacent to Terminal 2. I got a parking spot about 100 feet from the crosswalk to the terminal, so I was able to park, get my luggage, and simply walk to the terminal where my plane would depart. No need to take a shuttle bus or to remember if I needed the “Roadrunner” or “Gecko” or whatever shuttle on the way home. This probably saved me about 20 minutes of travel time.

I already had my boarding pass printed out, thanks to the miracle of the Internet. And I only had one piece of luggage, which, although not exactly small, would easily fit in the overhead bin of most airliners. So I didn’t have to wait on line at the counter. That saved me another 20 minutes.

A Brief Security-Related Rant

I did, however, have wait on line at security. And although I don’t usually pull out my liquids and gels and stick them in a plastic bag for the world to see, I had a feeling that that morning I might get grief about it. So I grabbed one of their baggies and dumped my entire toiletries bag into it. I’ll use the baggie from now on.

For the record, I have real gripe with this whole liquids and gels thing. First of all, if you don’t pull them out of the bag, they usually don’t bother you about it. In fact, I’ve never been bothered about it. That makes me wonder if (1) they can see it at all and (2) if they really care. Rules like 3-3-1 (or whatever bullshit name they’ve applied to this particular invasion of privacy) are not designed to keep us safe. They’re designed to inconvenience us just enough to make us think they’re keeping us safe. If I’ve taken liquids and gels through in my luggage a dozen times without getting searched, how many others have? Doesn’t their equipment sense the naughty stuff even if it’s inside the luggage? (Jeez, I hope so!) And just because my plastic baggy clearly displays a tube of Neutrogena face cream, does that mean there’s Neutrogena face cream in it? Come on, TSA! Do you think we’re all a bunch of morons? And how about it if you stop playing head games with us and just do a good job getting us through security?

But in some cases, it’s best to just go with the flow. So I used a baggie and put it in a bin with my shoes, cell phone, purse, loose change, jacket, scarf, and boarding pass. The other bin was for my computer, which I also had to pull out, completely remove from its protective case, and lay in a separate bin with nothing above or below it. (Again, who’s to say that there’s really a computer in there if TSA’s equipment can’t see that it’s a computer with its expensive x-ray equipment? Why does it have to be out of the case? Are they trying to profile us based on our choice of laptop make and model?)

Of course, sending the boarding pass through in a bin was a bad idea. Even though they never said to keep it in my possession as I went through the metal detector, I had to retrieve it to show the metal detector guy before he’d let anyone else through. This held up the line. But I wasn’t the only one who made this error. The guy in front of me did the same thing — but it was too late to retrieve my boarding pass at that point because he’d held up the line and my stuff had already gone through the x-ray machine.

The only good thing about all this security is that if your valuables go through the x-ray machine before you get through the metal detector, there’s a reduced chance of your valuables being stolen before you can get to them. In the “old days,” I never let my things go down the belt unless I knew I’d beat them to the other side of the x-ray machine.

Ah, the good old days. The memory of going through security fully dressed, without half unpacking my luggage, is sweet indeed.

The Flight

Although Terminal 2 is not one of the nicest at Sky Harbor, they’d fixed it up quite a bit since my last pass through there a few months ago. There was a nice coffee stand where I bought a latte, a muffin, and a piece of pumpkin pound cake for the flight.

When I got to the gate, they were boarding. I stopped long enough to pull my iPod, headphones, and laptop out of my luggage and put my down jacket (borrowed from Mike) in. A short while later, I was seated in 7F with the wheelie bag in the bin over my head and a tiny airplane pillow behind my lower back, belted in and sipping latte.

The plane left on time.

We took off to the east, then banked left to the north. The sun hadn’t risen yet, but it was bright enough to see the Salt River, Chandler and Falcon Field Airports, and Fountain Hills. Our flight path took us up the west side of the Verde River, past Bartlett and Horseshoe Lakes (which both appeared full), Sedona, and Flagstaff. We probably flew over the top of Howard Mesa, although it could have been on the other side of the plane.

Just before we reached the Grand Canyon, the sun appeared as a bright orange dash of light at the horizon. It grew slowly out of the east, rising almost imperceptibly until it was an orange ball. As it brightened, it cast long shadows over the rugged terrain.

That’s when I started noticing the thin, long clouds at right about our altitude. It took me a moment to realize they were contrails from other jets criss-crossing the sky. We flew parallel to one for a while, cutting across another. Although I’ve seen many contrails from the ground — we all have! — this is the first time I’d ever noticed them from the air. It was very cool.

We flew over the Little Colorado River and Colorado River, now heading north-northwest over terrain that wasn’t as familiar to me. It clouded up, obscuring my view for a while. Later, the clouds broke up again and I could see more unfamiliar ground. Much later, I saw the Columbia River, where it makes its big turn in western Washington state. Then more clouds as we turned to the west and began our descent. It wasn’t until we were below the clouds, making our final approach to Seattle Tacoma Airport that I realized how windy it was. Large flags blew straight out. I got a postcard-view of downtown Seattle before we touched down on the wet runway of the airport.

Once in the terminal, I had to find my gate for the next flight. I was in Terminal N, which appeared to be an island terminal in the middle of the ramp, and had to get to Terminal C. I asked an airport employee and was directed to an underground train system. One stop and I was at my terminal, with 40 minutes to kill before boarding my next flight.

I went for a short walk. The terminal was quite nice, with a big open food court area and lots of nice shopping. (I tell you, there’s better dining and shopping at many airport terminals than I can find in my own town.) I wanted to get a shoe shine, but the shoe shine girl was at her alternate location in Terminal D (according to the guys in the Bose booth beside her shoe shine chairs.) So I bought some sushi and carrot sticks to go at little restaurant not far from my gate.

I spent a short time waiting in the gate area. Planes took off down the runway right outside the window. A few very small clouds floated up the runway about 100 feet off the ground. Clouds were broken in layers around us, with blue sky and sunshine making occasional appearances. Although the weather wasn’t great, it was a pretty day.

Before long, I was on my Seattle to Anchorage plane, seated in 16F. (I’m a window seat person, in case you haven’t noticed.) There was an empty seat between me and the man on the aisle and, as the incoming crowd thinned out, we marveled at our luck on the otherwise full flight. But just before closing the doors, they let two more passengers on board: a heavyset man and his much thinner wife. We got the wife.

She was a very pleasant person, but a talker. (Yeah, I know; I’m a talker, too. But I know how to shut it off. She didn’t.) She lived in Fairbanks and spent her summers in a motorhome in Yuma, AZ where her sister lived. (I can tell you more about her entire life, including her kids and grandkids, but I’ll spare you.) They were going back to Fairbanks to surprise a friend of theirs for her birthday. In a month or two, they’d drive back to Fairbanks from Yuma in their motorhome.

It was nice chatting with an Alaskan about Alaska, although I can’t seem to come up with many points worth sharing. We did talk a bit about fishing and about how the tour companies tend to do as little as possible to satisfy the tourists, who generally have no clue what they’re missing. We also talked about cruise ship passengers being more interested in shopping than actually seeing and learning about the port cities they stop at.

The whole time we flew — and it was a 3-1/2 hour flight — it was cloudy beneath us. Until we got about 45 minutes outside of Anchorage. That’s when I realized that I wasn’t looking down at clouds. I was looking down at snow covered mountains.

Of course, I’d had much the same view on our flight to Anchorage in June. This time, however, the air seemed cleaner and crisper and the view seemed more spectacular. The mountains came right down to the ocean, with snow almost all the way to the bottom. There was no beach, no rocky shoreline for a stroll. Just ocean and then those tall peaks.

I don’t know how tall those mountains were, but I’m sure most were at least 5,000 feet. They were rugged and rocky and looked as if they were made of granite. There were pine trees along the lower elevations of many of them. And, looking to the east, that’s all I could see: rocky, snow-covered mountains.

The woman beside me took an interest in the view and leaned over for a better look. She pointed out a few glaciers — there were dozens of them! — and places where she and her husband went fishing from their boat, which they keep in Valdez. Then the clouds moved in again, hiding the ground from view. I looked out on the horizon and saw the top of Denali (Mount McKinley), way off in the distance.

Then we descended through the clouds, The next time I saw the ground, we were approaching Anchorage and I could see the airport from our downwind leg. We came in from the north, over the mud flats, which were littered with large blocks of ice that hadn’t been there in June. I reminded myself that it was still winter, a fact that was confirmed when I felt the cool breeze on the jetway as I walked out into the terminal.

Only the day before, I’d been wearing a t-shirt as I walked around Las Vegas.

The End of a Smooth Flight

I was in a rental car, on my way to Girdwood, within 30 minutes of landing at Anchorage. The only reason it took me that long was (1) I stopped to look at the historic photos of the airport on the way to the Rental Car counter and (2) I couldn’t remember which rental car company I used, so I had to ask at five of the eight rental car desks before I found my reservation. (I never claimed to have all the answers. And besides, isn’t it impossible for everything to be perfect on a trip?)

There’s a lot to be said about packing light. Because I only had one piece of luggage and because that piece of luggage was small enough to carry on board with me, I saved a ton of time by not having to check it and then retrieve it. (I also didn’t have to worry about the airline losing it.) Because the luggage had wheels, transporting it was easy. I think that my choice of luggage and the way I packed is a big part of what made my trip so smooth.

I’m just hoping my return trip will go as smoothly.

Composed at a B&B in Girdwood, AK with ecto.

Skip the Massage; Get the Facial

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The joys of a real spa.

Yesterday, for Valentines day, my husband treated me to an overnight trip to the Scottsdale Fairmont Princess. The Princess is a five-star resort in North Scottsdale with amenities that remind me why I work so damn hard sometimes.

It was great to get away from town — even for such a short time — to go to a place where “service” and “quality” are more than just words thrown around by people who’ve never experienced them. The Princess’s staff members go out of their way to provide excellent service and make you feel special from the moment you walk in the door. The bellman who escorted me to our room not only pulled my small wheelie bag for me, but pointed out the various restaurants, shops, and other points of interest along the way. In the room, he showed me how to work the thermostat, hung up my jacket before I could stop him, and even fetched ice for the ice bucket. That night, when we went down for dinner at our second choice restaurant, the hostess there tried again to get a table for us at our first choice. (No luck.) We wound up eating in the Princess’s low-end restaurant, which still offered better service, a more interesting menu, and better prepared food than any restaurant in Wickenburg. (I will admit that Rancho de los Caballeros has a better wine list.) Even room service this morning was a special treat: fresh fruit and plain yogurt for me and blueberry pancakes with fresh blueberries, strawberries, and whipped cream for Mike, all served up with today’s New York Times.

Ah, civilization. I guess I miss it more than I thought.

But the highlight of the trip for me came after Mike left to go to work. I made an appointment at the Willow Stream Spa, which is part of the Princess complex, for an aromatherapy facial.

While I’ll admit that I’ve experienced a true spa only five times in my life, this was, by far, the nicest. It featured wide open spaces, pleasant aromas, the sound of falling water almost everywhere, and friendly service. After checking in, I was escorted to the women’s side of the facility by a woman who played tour guide. She pointed out features that included a waterfall (where spa guests could enjoy the spray or high pressure of the falling water), hot and cold plunge pools, steam room, aromatherapy inhalation room, and Swiss shower with 12 shower heads. (We skipped the private rooftop pool — the resort seems to have a swimming pool everywhere you turn — because it was a cool, rainy morning.) Even the waiting areas were warm and comfortable, the kind of place you could easily spend the day with a good book.

I was assigned a locker, terry robe, and slippers and told where to meet my “service provider.” I wasted no time getting undressed and slipping on the robe. By the time I found a seat in the corner of the waiting area, I was already relaxed.

When I tell my friends that I prefer a good facial over a massage, they think I’m crazy. I think it’s because they’ve never had a good facial.

Here’s the brochure description of what I experienced this morning:

Arizona Aromatherapy Facial. 60 minutes. Restoration. Ease tension through the healing gifts and remedies of the desert. Choose from desert lavender for balance or chamomile for restoring your skin from the desert sun. Th healing is all encompassing with an invigorating lavender foot experience, a scalp and hand massage, as well as couperose skin ampoule.

(And yes, I’m very glad I don’t have to write this kind of silliness. I simply could not spread it thick enough, if you know what I mean.)

The point is, a good facial tends to more than just your face.

My service provider, Heather, led me to a private, softly lighted room with the gentle sounds of New Age music. While she stepped out into the hall, I slipped out of my robe and into a “cocoon” of sheet-lined towels on a special padded table molded to keep my body in a reclined sitting position. Then Heather returned to get to work.

She began with my hands. She put some creme on my nails and cuticles, then used fragrant massage oils to massage my hands. Then each hand went into a baggie with a warm sand-filled mitt over it. I can’t describe how good it felt. It was like wearing heated mittens on a cold day.

She then moved on to my arms, which got an excellent massage with more aromatic moisturizers.

Then she started on my “face,” which began at my upper chest and went all the way to my hairline. Lots of steam and different cremes and exfoliating gels and moisturizers. She told me what each one was as she applied it, but I don’t remember any of it. They all smelled really good. There was a hot towel on my face and shoulders whenever something needed to be wiped off.

Then the neck, shoulder, and scalp massage. I cannot imagine a back massage feeling as good as this.

Then more cream on my face and a warm towel while she went to work on my feet and lower legs, with moisturizer and a good rub. They got plastic baggies and warm booties, too.

All this took about an hour. I was completely relaxed, feeling almost on the verge of sleep. I don’t think I said more than a dozen words during this time — and anyone who knows me personally can attest to the fact that I rarely keep my mouth shut.

Heather finished my face with some moisturizing oils and unwrapped my feet and hands. Then she left me alone again to rerobe. She met me outside the room with a cup of cold water, then escorted me back to the waiting area, where she recommended ten to fifteen minutes in the inhalation room. I made a beeline for it.

Now I need to make a distinction between aromatherapy at a quality spa and the kinds of “aromatherapy” products you can buy in candle shops and cosmetics shops and home shopping parties. The crap you buy for home use at these places is crap. It’s over-scented, made with chemicals that could probably make you sick if you use them often enough, and gives aromatherapy a bad name. While I don’t buy into the idea of certain smells giving certain benefits, I do know that a room full of fresh air that is lightly infused with the scent of eucalyptus or mint or rosemary or some combination of these things clears my sinuses and makes me want to breathe deeply all day. It also makes me want to throw out all those crappy, smelly candles I’ve managed to collect — mostly as gifts — over the past ten years. I don’t want a cheap alternative. I want the real thing.

Anyway, I had a great time at the spa, although I didn’t stay very long. I didn’t have a swimsuit with me, which is required for several areas. But I made a conscious decision to do this more often, despite the rather high cost. Whether I return to the Princess’s spa or start checking out the ones in other luxury resorts in Phoenix and Scottsdale remains to be decided. (Frankly, I can’t imagine any other facility being nicer than this one, so why try the others?) All I know is that I deserve to be pampered once in a while and I’m going to make sure I get the pampering I deserve.

As for facial vs. massage, why not give it a try? Report your findings in the comments here.