Probably my favorite thing about my travel style is the capacity for crazy random happenstances. Admittedly I’m not the most outgoing person, but I seem to bump into the right people at the right place and time. I was too busy having fun in NZ to write about it when it happened, but I ended up joining a group of internationals when I was on my hike up/down Mt. Doom. One member of the group got helicoptered off the volcano, I had fun people to hang out with and a free bed for the night, and I made a possible link for helping with research in Antarctica!
From: NZ, India, Poland, Finland, Sweden, Germany, US, …
I’ll have to break up my most recent series of adventures into posts because otherwise I’d be writing a book in a blog post…
Back in early October I left Alaska for a visit home to Michigan. Before I get too far along, I should try to summarize the point of this excursion to the Lower 48. Seeing as I didn’t use my flights home and back north last Christmas, I had a healthy chunk of credit to use on Alaska Airlines before this Christmas Eve. Since my Grandma will be turning 90 this February and I hadn’t seen her in almost 3 years, I figured I really should make it home to see her, visit my Aunt and Uncle near Chicago, take a long overdue trip to my family’s cabin in da U.P., and maybe go hunting. After a few weeks at home, the plan was to visit Seattle and meander south to the puppies and people of Conservation K-9s in Eatonville before taking the Alaska State Ferry through the Inside Passage and returning to Fairbanks in early November.
That was the plan, right? Well, naturally that plan changed when I realized I could potentially lengthen my trip to include joining my best friend’s giant group of her dad’s college friends and family in southern California for Thanksgiving. I’d heard about the gathering and unofficially been invited for years, but I’d never considered going because of the travel expenses. However, being that I was already on the West Coast and traveling mostly on previously spent money, the idea seemed conceivable. Plus, Teri looked at me with big eyes and emphatically said, “Yes,” when I proposed the idea.
I booked myself a flight to see my brother in the San Francisco Bay area; after all, I hadn’t seen him in almost 3 years, either! My plan was to split extra time from mid-November to Thanksgiving between Seattle/Eatonville and the Bay area. With Teri’s assistance I caught a ride to Thanksgiving at Pine Mountain with some people I’d never met. For post-Thanksgiving travel I checked out plane and train ticket prices for my return north and – to my delight – found Amtrak’s Coast Starlight could take me from Los Angeles to Seattle for only $145 and roughly 34 hours of life. With nothing to rush back to in Fairbanks and an appreciation for train travel, the trip sounded perfect. Tack on a flight to Fairbanks (using my last $50 of AK Air credit!) on my birthday in early December, and I had a round trip!
Now isn’t that how most people plan their travels?
*My apologies for the random pins and strange colors on those maps. I just found this exciting website (www.scribblemaps.com) and wanted to illustrate my travels, but it’s after 2am and I really need to sleep rather than refine maps. 🙂
rangertrampings 