So we chose to break our travel up over two days, since a giant plane flight with Sophie seemed...risky. The first day, we were flying from Anchorage to Seattle, then spending the night in a lovely airport Marriott, and flying back to Orlando the next day.
So I got up nice and early that day (6am, not as early as everyone else, but still awfully early), to await the people to pick up our luggage. The plan was, I would hand them the luggage in the hall so that they didn't wake Sophie. Too bad they never showed up to get our luggage. Eventually, Steve called down, and they came to get it. We found out later that they thought we were all in David & Amy's room, so they knocked there & no one answered, so they didn't pick anything up. Or something. Maybe they thought they already picked it up the night before? I dunno. Anyway, by the time they came for the luggage, we were all up anyway. So at the appropriate time, we all headed down to wait for the bus. And we waited, and waited. The bus was delayed at the other hotel, for whatever reason. At this time, they also asked, "So wait, where is David Rosenberg?" Um, he left two hours ago on the other bus. D'oh. Anyway, eventually the bus came, and we got underway. We took some back roads route to the airport, which was uneventful (we got to hear more about the earthquake blah blah), but we did get to see a moose wandering down a side street right next to the airport, so that was cool.
So, we got to the airport, checked our bags, and headed to the gate. I don't really remember anything tremendously interesting about the airport, to be honest. We got on our flight (yay for the family preboard), and headed to Seattle. After a few fairly uneventful hours on the plane (I think Sophie was mostly ok, she wasn't feeling great, so I think we held her a lot of the time, but she wasn't hysterically screaming like the previous day, at least), we landed, and went to get our bags. Again, uneventful. Piled them all precariously on another cart, and headed to the Seattle airport parking lot elevators of doom once more. Once again, Sophie & I ended up in one elevator, and Steve & the luggage were in another one, and once again, we got on after he did, but got to the destination floor before he did. I swear, those elevators were possessed. Anyway, found the airport shuttle, headed to our airport. It was nothing exciting, but perfectly adequate. I think it was midafternoon by then, and we were *tired*. Well, all of us except Sophie, of course. We ordered midafternoon room service, and watched tv for a while. That night, we had dinner with an old friend of Steve's sister, which was nice, then we went back to the hotel room, watched most of Mamma Mia on tv, and went to sleep.
The next morning, we had to get up pretty early once again, to catch another shuttle back to the airport. This was, once again, uneventful, as was the flight itself. At least this time we got a porter to help us navigate the elevator of doom. I don't really remember much of the flight home itself, except that Sophie was a little less clingy that day, I think. Maybe. Our driver met us at the baggage claim (different driver from the first day, but he was fine), and took us home, where the cats were very happy to see us. And thus ended our Alaskan adventure - lots and lots of fun, lots of very cool things, but it was still good to be home. :)
