Vance Tales

Well…we made it back from Alaska on Monday…finally.  You all know from my previous post what a crazy trip we had going to Alaska…well coming back really wasn’t any better at all.  Suffice it to say that Continental Airlines managed to turn a 6 hour flight into a 9 hour flight, causing us to miss our connection flight from Houston to Nashville (our connection was supposed to arrive in Nashville at noon on Sunday).  They could not promise us a flight out of Houston until 3:45 p.m. on Monday, but they could get us a flight out of Houston into Memphis at 6:00 p.m. Sunday night.  So Matt and I took that flight, arrived in Memphis a little after 8:30 p.m. on Sunday night, stayed with my grandparents that night and had my Dad come pick us up and drive us back to Nashville early Monday morning.  I made it into work by 12:30 p.m. Monday afternoon and Matt worked from home.  That is just a brief overview.  Suffice it to say that, if Matt and I can help it, we will never fly Continental Airlines again and we are unable to recommend it to anyone.  If you would like the whole grueling story let me know. 

On to good news!  Matt and I took approximately 400 pictures while in Alaska and will be posting some of those as soon as we get them cropped and edited.  Alaska is a beautiful state.  The weather was perfect (around 65-70 degrees the entire week) and the people were incredibly friendly.  We didn’t get to do as much sightseeing as we would have liked because Matt DID have to work and because we were limited by lack of transportation.  We didn’t get to see any wildlife because of time constraints…so, I promised Matt that I would take him back one day–but we will definitely be taking a cruise! 

More to come later on…

Matt has a business trip to Anchorage, Alaska this week and decided to bring me along. The beauty of Alaska is indescribable. The trip here isn’t!

Matt and I arrived at the airport approximately an hour prior (possibly even earlier than that) to our 2:50 p.m. boarding time. We were happy because our flight said “on time”. About the time we were due to board the plane the airline put a time of 3:04 p.m. up for a departure time–we were delayed…UGH! Keeping in mind that we only had 33 minutes to make our connecting flight in Houston, TX, we started getting a little nervous. We finally got off the ground at 3:40 p.m. We arrived in Houston ten minutes after our connecting flight left. So…the airline put us on a 12:10 p.m. flight for Saturday (in first class). They provided us a hotel for the night and food vouchers. The hotel was HORRIBLE! Matt and I actually found bugs in our bed. BUGS! The next morning when we were ready to leave we couldn’t get the hotel shuttle to hurry up so we could get back to the airport. We were afraid we would miss our flight again! We finally made it to the airport and onto our flight bound toward Anchorage. When we arrived in Anchorage we had to wait an hour for our hotel shuttle (our hotel is only 10 minutes from the airport). We had to wait for our luggage. Luckily it made it!

My camera died on the way to Alaska…I have never been so disappointed. We bought a new battery. We tried a new memory card. We tried turning it on without the lens attached. Nothing. The point-and-shoot camera we are using is fine, but not what I was hoping to use my entire trip.

Yesterday, we took a train ride to Seward, Alaska. The sights were so beautiful! Here’s one picture for you to see what I am referring to! Oh yeah, by the way, God is definitely trying to teach me patience because when we got back from Seward yesterday evening we had to wait 30 minutes for our hotel shuttle (again only 10 minutes from the hotel)…life is definitely an adventure!