5 Planes in 2 Days May 8, 2008

Salt Lake to Portland 2 hours

Portland to Seattle 33 mins

Seattle to Anchorage 3 hours 9 mins

Anchorage to Kodiak 1 hour 10 mins

Kodiak to Larsen Bay 30 mins

Who loves plane rides? Not me. I used to be a flight attendant so now the whole novelty of the big aluminum tubes catapulting through the sky is dead to me. Now I just see it as a big, smelly, old, dirty means of meeting your seat mate whom you will never speak to again and probably really don’t want to be speaking to now. But seeing as the other option of taking a 12 hour boat ride from Kodiak to Larsen Bay sounds infinitely less fun- I always opt for the quickest route.

I really can’t complain about the last leg of the flights though. Kodiak to Larsen Bay is on an itty bitty teeny tiny plane that holds up to 5 people. The view is unrivaled. The plane is small enough that you never go above the cloud ceiling so you stay close enough to the ground to spot bears, deer, whales and all sorts of boats etc. Much less you are getting the most beautiful view of the Pacific Ocean dotted with snow covered mountains and sprinkled with an endless number of small islands which apparently sell for quite a steal. (It’s the whole buying a boat, to get back and forth from civilization, and shipping all of the materials needed to build a house on said Private Island, in the middle of the ocean, that cost so much. )

The last 5 mins of the flight are my favorite. It’s the time that you spot to village and cannery from a distance and it slowly gets bigger and brighter. Once you are close enough to see all the red buildings of the cannery that’s when your stomach starts to churn with anticipation. Then you get a clear shot of the mile long dirt runway the moment before you touch down. It’s spectacular.

The last time I was here was in 2006 and boy does it feel great to be back here. The best part was walking back into my old room. The room that someone else lived in last year and seeing my sticker still planted firmly on the back of the door. It reads ‘Feminists F*@K Better!’ That was all it took for me to heave a huge sigh of relief about things being so uniquely abnormal here. The fact that the one solitary thing that stayed in that room while I was gone was the sticker and things like my bed, dresser, trash can, mirror, shelves, and chair were all deemed shitty enough to switch with better ones makes me so unbelievably happy I get to be a part of this crazy history again.

But, by far, the best part of today was running around saying hello to all the returnees that I know and love and listening to Ray tell us his plan for attracting women. He is counting on his pheromones to do all the work for him. Ray? Pheromones? Yes please tell me more. That is quite the scientific approach to women coming from this man… ok coming from any man really.

Who would willingly admit that they’re hoping their musk will be what lands them in someone else’s bed. (I mean really, personally, I can’t tell you how many men, I’ve never spoken to, but I’ve smelled and thought ‘I must sleep with you.’ It’s too many to be objective here. I so hope you realize that’s sarcasm.) The only thing he’s done to assure the women will all be attuned to his specific musk is to- are you really ready to read this??- repeatedly pee outside the door of the women’s bunkhouse. Yes, that is what he said. I wish that were a lie alas it is not. He has seriously been peeing next to the door on the dock. Ray thinks that when it starts to warm up all the women will subconsciously be drawn to him because they have been unwittingly smelling his pheromones. I don’t know what is sadder the fact that that is really his actual plan and he really is doing it or the fact that I was laughing too hard to chastise him. Really, Ray is peeing on the dock next to the Sockeye bunkhouse. Who are these people?!? I know you all wish you were here.