Flying to Pilot Point

Last Thursday, the day that we flew out to the village, started in a complete whirlwind.  Our first flight left Anchorage at 7:25am, which meant we had to leave our hotel at around 5:00am.  After stuffing ourselves into a taxi with suitcases, dog crates, and everything else, we finally departed for the airport.  (Note to self: traveling with dog crates is a HUGE hassle.) We flew with Penn Air, which was nice because they are much smaller airline and allowed us to be more lax with the dogs and security.

We boarded our Anchorage flight in a generally calm and timely fashion, and headed for King Salmon.  The flight lasted just over an hour and was uneventful, thankfully. We landed in King Salmon at around 8:30am and shortly after we were whisked away to the district office to meet the administrative staff and fill out paperwork - or at least that's what we thought we were going to be doing. We'd barely made it to the district office before Grant Aviation (our next airline transporters) called to say that bad weather was moving in and we needed to leave ASAP.

In true bush fashion though, it was a case of, "hurry up and wait." We arrived at the airport, which is really just a glorified Morton building, and were told that the pilot wasn't there yet, so we waited...and waited...and waited.  After all of that waiting, the airline then informed us they were going to make a trip to Chignik Lake first, before going to Pilot Point, and that we were going to leave at our regularly scheduled time of 2:00pm (it was about noon by this time). The nice woman working at the airport offered to babysit the dogs for us if we wanted to go out for lunch, so we quickly took her up on the offer and headed to Eddy's, which is one of the few places to go for a bite to eat in King Salmon.

Finally, after all of that waiting, the airline announced that we would be leaving soon. We took off for Pilot Point around 4:30pm.  After a long, slightly stressful day I was more than ready to make it to our new home. The flight to Pilot Point from King Salmon was short (about twenty minutes), but incredibly scenic.  We flew low over the tundra, getting the chance to see small lakes, rivers, mountains, ocean, and even a volcano.

We touched down in Pilot Point and were thrilled, and a little nervous, to be in our new place of residence.  We were welcomed wonderfully though, making the transition not feel quite as scary. There were a handful of our new students waiting to meet us at the airport, which was fun. After we helped the pilot unload the plane, a seasonal maintenance worker for the school drove us to see the school and our new house.

View of teacher housing and the school, from a distance. 

After a crazy, hectic, sometimes overwhelming day of travel, we were thrilled to be in our new village home.  It's been a non-stop adventure since we arrived last week (hence the lack of posting until now), but we've been completely loving it.

Your turn...What are some of your crazy travel stories?
Currently listening to...Big Jet Plane - Angus and Julia Stone