Saturday, July 26 - Flying North

I took Miss Maddie down to the Cat House Hotel this morning and settled her into her regular Junior Suite.  The hotel was full, jammed with feisty cats climbing all over the rafters, but fortunately Mad is a very bold cat and she will soon whip the others into doing her bidding and leaving her favorite sleeping holes available.

We left the house at 1:40 for our 7 PM flight which was none too much time.  We took Hwy 1 down the coast past Malibu and all the beaches were crammed with holidayers and festooned with hundreds of colorful umbrellas and also lots of traffic.  We made the Alamo lot to drop off our rental car at 4:20 and took the bus over to the LAX terminal.  We’re flying on Alaska Airlines, first class,  using American miles as we don’t want to hang onto our miles for too long.  Bob was very pleased that that allowed us to saunter through Security without taking off our shoes or belts!  We made our way up to the Board Room, as Alaska calls their premiere lounge,, settled into comfortable chairs, and nibbled on cheese and drank free beers for an hour.

We went down to our gate and got on board in seats 2D & F, wide with lovely leg room.  Our tickets said we were to get a snack which turned out to be really delicious polenta cake with Bolognese sauce and a spinach salad and a glass of decent red wine.  Alaska rules!

Polenta & salad

We flew up the central valley of CA, over Lake Tahoe.  After just two hours we were seeing beautiful snow-capped volcanoes of Mount Hood and Mt. Ranier emerging from the haze, and then we were landing in Seattle.  We found another Board Room in which to relax with cookies and cocoa, before boarding  another 737 and taking off for Anchorage.  We passed over the extensive Seattle area in the dark and then when we were over Canada I saw a thin rim of twilight appear on the northern horizon!   It grew to about 180 degrees of the horizon and dimly illuminated the landscape.  We arrived in Anchorage at 1:30 AM and flew over the small city beautifully situated in the midst of mountains, water and forest.

Mt. Ranier

Although it was the middle of the night the airport was full of life with open shops and McDonald’s.  We rented a Toyota Corolla from Avis and drove a short way to a Best Western where we collapsed and into bed at 3 AM Alaska DaylightTime (one hour behind Pacific).