The Time Is Nigh

The hour is almost at hand and I was met with a very pleasant surprise earlier this afternoon: my passport arrived! I only applied a week ago and was told that it would take at least four weeks minimum and here it is! That is fantastic timing and I'm going to go ahead and plan to ride the White Pass railway as early as next week. I also made a drastic change today and cut off all my long, mountain-man hair. I didn't want to deal with it all summer, so I got rid of it. Kinda sucks, but it'll be easier to manage this way.

In the meantime, the painful process of packing has begun, the one thing that makes you sit back and wonder if any trip you could ever take is actually worth it. The fact that I'm going to be gone for at least five months just makes it that much more difficult to do, because one must be super picky to not go overboard but extra careful to not leave anything critical. In other words, it blows! My experience with it this trip has not even gotten fully off the ground yet, so I still have much joy to look forward to this evening.

So here's the rundown of my itinerary for the weekend: I leave for the airport around 9:00 or 9:30 in the morning and should get there between 10:30 and 11:00. The flight leaves at 12:10 and lands in Houston at 2:00. I'll be there an hour, then change planes and fly on to Seattle, arriving at 5:31 P.M. That airport is a pain, so the less time spent there, the better. Unfortunately I'll be there a full hour and a half, then I'll change planes again and take off for Juneau. The plane will make a stop in either Ketchikan or Sitka and then will move on, landing in Juneau at 9:46 P.M. Alaska time, which will be about 12:46 A.M. Alabama time. I'll then grab my luggage and head on to the hotel. I didn't get to see much of Juneau when I went up on that cruise last year, so I'm going to stay there all day Sunday and will report to the ferry dock at about 5:00 Monday morning (8 A.M. here). The ferry ride is about seven hours long and will follow the same path I took on the cruise, arriving in Skagway at 1:30 P.M. (4:30 here -- your day will just be wrapping up!) I'll post whatever updates, photos, and videos I can get along the way to both this page and myspace.

All right, back to work! See you in Juneau!