Trip to Juneau... or Seattle, That's Cool Too

Friday I went to the SLC airport to start my adventure for the summer - interning in Juneau, AK. I got there at 2 pm and met up with two of the girls I'd be working and living with over the summer. We were so excited we could hardly sit still. We had to wait,

and wait,

and wait

for what seemed like forever until our plane was scheduled to leave at 3:26 pm. Unfortunately, we had to wait longer than expected because the plane was a bit delayed on its current flight. So the plane didn't end up coming in until 4:00 pm, and that nearly killed us with anticipation as we became antsy to board.

To our dismay, as well as gratitude that we were kept safe from a potential crash, the plane was broken (something about the thrusters that slow the plane down upon landing) and the people in charge were trying to find a spare part or a spare plane. They finally decided to use the 737 in the hangar because the part they needed had to be flown in from Atlanta. So, they switched the plane and called a new crew (apparently the crews are trained for one specific plane, so they can't be switched from one type to another - who knew?!), and the new crew needs at least 2 hrs. notice to get there. The airline then printed out vouchers for all the passengers to get dinner, and rebooked flights for those who had a connecting flight in Seattle.

We were included in that. We finally flew out at 8:00 and got to Seattle at about 9:00 their time (10:00 UT time) and, needless to say,

missed our 7:00 connecting flight, so the airline booked us a hotel room and a new flight the next morning.

We were so tired, so we hurried outside, found a shuttle, made it to the hotel and just crashed. Except for me, I called Uncle Steve and talked to him for a while; it was great to talk to him :).

<-- This is how we felt after our adventure (haha)

Seattle was pretty. Green and lush. It was rainy and chilly, but that's to be expected. Yesterday morning we ate breakfast and went straight to the airport where we made it through security pretty quickly and got to our gate in good time. Once on the plane, and as they were just about to head, they had to reboot the IRS (?) system that controls the whole plane and it was taking us a while. This delayed us about 15 minutes, which I used to get to know the wonderful people I was sitting next to: Joellen, who was there with her son who is going to school for a degree in airline engineering, and Jesse, who is young and wanted to travel and have an adventurous summer with his friend here in Juneau. They were two great people to meet.

We then had strong head-winds, so the plane had to work extra hard and was a

little slow going (I dunno, it still seemed pretty fast to me), and then we made our way into Juneau! Wow! What an interesting journey and now a new adventure ahead of us!

It's beautiful here in Juneau... like an antique town in the mountains, with evergreen forest covered mountains on all sides and the ocean coming in the valley. There's about the same amount of light all day, from before 7 in the morning to after 11 at night (although at night it does get a bit more dusk-like).