Before this month is through...I shall post about last month...

Howdy ya'll!
Wow, September just whooshed by and lo' and b'hold, here it is just about the end of ol' October! Things have been crazy busy here, but in very good ways.
Jordan and I travelled to Alaska in the beginning of September and stayed with our friends, Vicky, Matt, Madison and Emma. Thank you for showing us around Hatcher's Pass and the gold mine, and around Anchorage. I can't wait till you move closer and we get to see you all so much more.

And, where do these wild blueberries go Madison? In your mouth of course! Low growing blueberries are fantastic as well as the currants we could pick off the sides of the mountain we were hiking. I can see what all the hub-bub is for the bears!
We're hiking up to an old gold mine and the town that was created around it. Dormitories, cafeterias, schoolrooms and the processing areas. Other materials were mined and separated from the rock that they pulled from these mountains but gold was the goal.

We all went out for dinner and drinks later, and met up with Paul and his wife. Paul and Vicky and I all graduated from the same high school. Paul is newly stationed up in Alaska and it worked out so well to get together and catch up.

The next morning Matt drove us to the city and Jordan and I met up with my folks to begin our cruise down the inside passage of Alaska. Jordan and my Dad and I decided to take a walk through the Saturday market before we got on the bus that would take us to our cruise line.

Short story though, DO NOT FLY UNITED!!! We were due to fly out on a Thursday. We had called the week prior about our flights to make sure we were heading straight into Anchorage from Seattle. They said yes, straight shot, that they had heard of some flight changes but our flight was unaffected. We had called about a month before to do the same thing because my folks who were also flying to Anchorage from Portland were going through Seattle then on up to Anchorage...But, United had changed their flight so they would have to fly south to LA then back up over Portland, up to Seattle, then up to Anchorage. They did all this changing of flights without ever notifying them. They said they had tried, yet my parents were never notified. They changed their flight and went through Alaskan air instead, straight into Anchorage. Since it didn't seem that our own flight had changed, there was no need to try to change anything. The day of the flight, Jordan called to check on our flight and they let us know that our flight HAD changed and that our flight time had changed as well, and we'd have to be at the airport ready to go in about an hour to fly three hours south to come five hours north. Since that was undo-able, we changed our flight to the next day still with United so we didn't lose our 450.00 in airfare that we had spent. We still had to go south to LA to get the straight shot flight into Anchorage. We took one three hour flight, an hour or so layover then four and a half flight to go three hours north from our home. Also, a policy that seemed to drive the icky feeling in deeper is that you have to buy your food on any flight shorter than five hours. Not that anyone likes airplane food, but that was a loooong day and having to fork over ten bucks for us to have a couple of snack boxes was just tormenting. Though, I have to say, snack boxes are a much better idea than airplane food ( think sun chips, hummus, applesauce and such, so not bad...only bad after forking out so much money for the flight and having it go the way it did). The telephone customer service was terrible as Jordan tried to fight with them over what could be done for them to make us happy since no contact had been attempted. Their records showed United tried to contact us, yet no contact was made. What they did offer us were two fifty dollar travel vouchers ( not to be used with airmiles, nor combined) to fly with an airline we care NOT to support. Can't say it enough, I'm calling it F-United.
But I DO NOT WANT TO DIGRESS from the AWESOME time we had with Vicky and her family. Thank you for allowing us into your home, showing us such a great time, getting together with Paul whom I haven't seen in four years, and just plain being yourselves, being funny and loving and welcoming. I can't help but smile thinking about the good times we had.

PS, you'll note Vicky is wearing a blue hat and scarf...Kudos to me for my first and second knitting projects! Vic, you look Mahvahlus! Love you all and can't wait to see where you end up. I'm crossing my fingers for Bremerton!