Flying to Alaska off season (not during the summer) it can be nearly has hard as flying to Samoa. They do have daily flight from different US cities, but they were all over-booked.
I was supposed to fly from san Francisco to Las Vegas, and then direct to anchorage, but I ended up in Denver, Colorado instead. I found it ironic, because just outside the gate, there was a real-size statue of Jack Swigert, the guy that said “Houston, we have a problem”, when the Apollo 13 had complications returning to Earth.
I found it ironic not only because, yes, I was having a problem going to Alaska, but because, not many know, the Apollo 13 not only was returning to Earth, but was also returning to American Samoa. In fact, on these first moon expeditions, NASA was worried that the astronauts would come back with unknown “spatial illnesses”, and they decided that the safest place to land was right on our beautiful island, thousand of miles away from the rest of the world. All Apollo missions landed just off-shore Tutuila (my island), but Apollo 13 had also the honor to land on nothing less than Flag Day, that is a kind of “Dependence Day:, when American Samoa became a territory of the U.S. On this day, there are lots of roasted pigs, dances, and canoes races… it will be in few weeks, so, stay tuned!
Going back to my trip, I ended up arriving in Alaska at 10:00 at night (much later than my backpack, that go there at 4:00 pm!), but I meet lots of interesting people on the way, and I got a first introduction to Alaska.
This is what impressed me the most: people do wear wolves here. Apparently their fur does not freeze when you breath on it, and so it makes a perfect warm and dry cover for your face area. Here a picture of Steve, a lawyer way up in the north (there are some village that you can reach only by small planes or by dog-sledding), with his 5 wolves parka!
I was supposed to fly from san Francisco to Las Vegas, and then direct to anchorage, but I ended up in Denver, Colorado instead. I found it ironic, because just outside the gate, there was a real-size statue of Jack Swigert, the guy that said “Houston, we have a problem”, when the Apollo 13 had complications returning to Earth.
I found it ironic not only because, yes, I was having a problem going to Alaska, but because, not many know, the Apollo 13 not only was returning to Earth, but was also returning to American Samoa. In fact, on these first moon expeditions, NASA was worried that the astronauts would come back with unknown “spatial illnesses”, and they decided that the safest place to land was right on our beautiful island, thousand of miles away from the rest of the world. All Apollo missions landed just off-shore Tutuila (my island), but Apollo 13 had also the honor to land on nothing less than Flag Day, that is a kind of “Dependence Day:, when American Samoa became a territory of the U.S. On this day, there are lots of roasted pigs, dances, and canoes races… it will be in few weeks, so, stay tuned!Going back to my trip, I ended up arriving in Alaska at 10:00 at night (much later than my backpack, that go there at 4:00 pm!), but I meet lots of interesting people on the way, and I got a first introduction to Alaska.
This is what impressed me the most: people do wear wolves here. Apparently their fur does not freeze when you breath on it, and so it makes a perfect warm and dry cover for your face area. Here a picture of Steve, a lawyer way up in the north (there are some village that you can reach only by small planes or by dog-sledding), with his 5 wolves parka!
1 comment:
Wow! Those wolves must be C-O-L-D!
Or maybe they just moved to American Samoa . . . I think I saw some dogs today that looked like skinned wolves on my way to work.
Post a Comment