Travel Diary

For this adventure, it was mainly a trip to Seattle to visit friends. But my next level up in MVP status awaited me, so I tacked on a few extra flights.

What flights? Well, first I flew to Seattle (my destination). But that was a layover. I waited an hour at about 9pm at night and then took a flight to Anchorage, Alaska—which was my first time there.

What’s it like?

Well, it was 1am and I only saw the airport, so hard to say. The airport is nice though. Very quiet at those hours. Not many people around then and many of them sleeping wherever they could find a place to sprawl out.

I walked around the explored. There were many stuffed animal exhibits so it was fun to take photos. I also got outside for a little bit and enjoyed the nice cold air. I had not seen snow in a long time.

It was a two-hour wait but the time passed. Next thing I knew I was on another 4-hour flight to Seattle. No first class upgrades for these flights. I guess they were too full for that. At 8am, I arrived in Seattle and got a ride to my friends’ place in Bellevue. I was quite tired.

Thursday and Friday were both work days. I had my computer and logged on from there. Saturday was the big day of the dance competition. We woke around 7am and then had a busy routine of picking up donuts and coffee and then heading to the school. My job was to emcee the event. It would be a long day.

There were dozens of events of girls doing cheer routines. My job was to introduce them. Kind of a cool thing, but not sure I’d do it again. Mainly, it was to help my goddaughter’s sister out as it was her senior year.

At night, we all relaxed with beer and wine.

Sunday was a casual day of football and I went for a 3-mile run in the cold PNW rain. Then at night, I headed home, by way of...

New York City.

Yeah, I took a late flight to the east coast to get even more miles. I didn’t get the first class upgrade; however, someone wanted to trade seats with me to be next to his wife, and he was seated in first class. So yeah, a bit of luck there.

We arrived around 5:30am. I barely had slept at all but had to exit the plane. The guy next to me invited me to use his spare lounge pass in the Alaska First Class Lounge, so I accepted that offer. Got some free food and juice and coffee to start the morning.

Around 7am, I left the lounge and took the trains to Manhattan. I was mainly just going to walk around. First, I headed north, then east to the waterline and up and down that a while, then back to Central Park for a spell. The cold was annoying, but the lack of sleep was almost painful. I was just completely worn out. Nevertheless, sleep was not an option. Finally, it was time to journey back to the subway. I took a train to Jamaica station and then the airport rail to the terminal. I waited for what seemed a great long time, but finally got to board. I had a first class upgrade going back, which was a treat.

I was still too tired to even eat so I passed on my free meal, just opting for a small bag of chips. Then I did get some sleep and hours later, we were arriving in …

Seattle.

Yeah, still getting in those miles. It was another 2-hour wait there until I finally got to take my last flight home. My long weekend had finally come to an end.

I slept well that night.