There aren't many adventures I take on my own. Not without at least ONE kid. This is by design, as I find travel to be one of the best gifts I can offer my children. But sometimes opportunity rises and we have to jump.
I got a phone call last night at 8pm from a friend, asking if I wanted to take a Space-A (free) flight on a C-130 from Kodiak to Valdez, Alaska for the day.
Ummm, need you ask? Island fever is a THING here, especially this time of year, and I don't care WHERE this plane is going as long as it's not Kodiak and I'm inside it. Where is Valdez? I don't know, let's go.
The boys and Brad were away at an overnight campout with Boy Scouts. In retrospect I would have pulled at least Calen from the campout, but it was Camden's very first Boy Scout overnighter and it was good he had his brother with him. So I packed a little day backpack and this morning we boarded the C-130 Herc at 6:30 this morning and took the ninety minute flight to Valdez, Alaska, which is right in the heart of Prince William Sound (south of Anchorage, north of Cordova).
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| Stitch with our ride |
Can we talk about flying Space A for a minute? It's so carefree. I marched on that plane with my water bottle full of water. I had a knife in my pocket. I stood in the cockpit mid-flight. Someone was standing up taking pictures out the window during the middle of landing. They don't care. We're adults. What rules.
Side note #2: Since the boys couldn't go, I snuck into their room this morning and "borrowed" Camden's "Little Stitch", and posed him all around Valdez today to show the kids later.
We arrived in Valdez with absolutely zero plan, just the kind of adventure I like.
Turns out there was a bush plane air competition right there at the airport, including the "world famous" STOL (Short Take-Off and Landing) competition, so we hung out and watched for a while.
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| The winner of the STOL fly in competition. Check out those bush plane tires! This is also Calen's favorite non-military plane |
We took a break from the air show and called this "guy" (some contact of a friend's friend) that does shuttles from the airport to town and back. The "shuttle" ended up being this fantastically sketchy rickety van that only had five actual seats, the back two rows ripped out and some combination of cardboard and particle board laying a makeshift floor instead. We buckled my friend's kids in the seats and her and I risked it in the back - which was well stocked for the zombie apocalypse - complete with a case of beer, a mallet, some ski poles and a jar of salsa - and we took a wild ride to the marina in the little town of Valdez.
We took a walk down the Marina boardwalk, which had breathtaking views of the Chugach mountains, bald eagles fighting over a fish and some cute little restaurants, which we stopped into one (The Fat Mermaid, because obviously) for lunch. Then the rickety van picked us back up and we went back to the airfield to watch the rest of the show, then loaded up in the c-130 and headed back home.
I'm MADE for spontaneous adventures like this. And with the island fever burning, it was exactly what I needed. (And maybe next time, the family can come with too).
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