The journey home for Christmas

I managed to make it home for Christmas and back with not to many major problems. I thought I would kind of give you all an idea of what I go through to get home in pictures and time. SO, here it is.

ALL TIMES ARE ALASKA TIME UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED!

8am-3pm white out, clear as day, white out, clear as day. All day we weren't sure if the planes were going to fly or not.

3pm (6pm CST)-scheduled to leave Stebbins

5pm- Vern says over the P.A. "plane will be here in 10 minutes, we leave in 2." We all rushed to the 4-wheeler and trailer. At the "airport" we waited.....but couldn't see the plane. Finally we saw the plane and as it circled around to land into the wind, we lost it again. The plane landed with no runway lights and when it got to the other end of the runway, we lost it again in the snow. Hageland (the airplane company who rescued us) was the only company still flying as they realize the importance of us teachers getting out of the village at Christmas time.

5:30 load the plane, brush it off with a barn broom and wait for the front-end loader to clean off the runway.
5:45 we are off the ground from Stebbins....can't really see the end of the plane wings but hey, we are on our way to Nome.

6:30 we landed in Nome.....safe....for now....but out of Stebbins and one part closer to being home. In Nome, we ate at Fat Freddy's, visited the Russian Store and Sandy and I got an interesting cab ride back to the airport.

9pm-scheduled to leave Nome for Anchorage. Above: Nome Airport

9:45pm - Actually leave Nome for Anchorage. The pilot wanted to know how many people on the plan were teachers.....everyone but 3 raised their hands. There were about 60 people on the plane.11:15pm -Land in Anchorage, rush to the other airport to catch my next flight. 1Am - scheduled departure time from Anchorage...instead, I am faced with a dilema...I for some reason have a seat on standby even though I booked in September. I therfore, was praying someonewould give up there seat so the luggage I checked all the way to Minneapolis would not sit there unattended with all of my Yupik things and laptop in it. Finally I decide I might as well give up my seat so I can get the $400 voucher instead of nothing. Thank goodness, someonegave theirs up so I could fly home with my stuff.

1:45 leave Anchorage for Pheonix....it was cheaper that way. 7:45 am arrive in Pheonix, run across the concourse to get to my connecting flight. Find Jess from North Branch....she teachs in Gamble. 8:30am leave Pheonix for Minneapolis.

11:30am (2:30 pm CST) arrive in Minneapolis

Then what do you do after you travel for almost a whole day.....you wait an hour in the airport for your ride!!!!!!!!! Thanks mom, Peter Jr, Bobbi Jo and Tracy for picking me up....I appreciated it.

I got back to Stebbins on the 30th of December and we started school on January 3rd 2006. My first year is almost over....it is definetly not how I expected my first year of teaching to go however, I have learned a lot so far and am sure I will continue to learn....from my mistakes!