Fairbanks, Alaska: cold, dark, white.
(Everything looks nice and tranquil under two feet of snow.)
After all the planning and anticipation, I'm finally here. We arrived Friday afternoon a little later than scheduled (exactly 12 hours in fact) but we've proven that no amount of airline hurdles can derail us. Not lost baggage, difficult check-ins, crazy layovers…or even emergency landings.
We got to the Seattle airport in good time, gave our hugs of thanks and goodbyes to the Darrows, checked in just fine (for once) and boarded our plane. It was a pretty big sucker- over a hundred passengers, over booked, etc. Jim and I got to sit together, so at least this time we weren't bound to have any emotional breakdowns.
We were in the air about an hour when this elderly gentleman started to pace up and down the isles, opening and feeling around inside the luggage compartments, clearly looking for something specific. No one paid him too much attention until the flight crew attempted to get the beverage service going he wouldn't get out of the way. He was old, but he was a decent size and plugged up the whole isle pretty efficiently.
In a raised voice he mumbled something about the lights being broken, and he was trying to fix them… he also claimed he was the captain.
It got down to forceful words and it became clear that this guy suffered from some kind of mental health issue, and that he was traveling completely alone. Nothing he said made sense and when a stewardess gently touched his elbow in an effort to direct him back to his seat he flipped out, grabbed her by the shoulders and started shoving her up the isle quite forcefully.
The incredible thing is that within seconds about 6 nearby passengers jumped up and to the aid of this poor terrified stewardess, and it ended up taking that many guys including the air Marshall to restrain him. It was decently scary. They held him there in the isle, and words were exchanged, they let him go, and he almost attacked another flight attendant, so once again, he was grabbed and this time they cleared out his row, struggled to zip tie his hands, and belted him down in a chair (with the help of the 6-8 hero passengers.) The whole ordeal took place in about 15 minutes.
Protocol said our plane had to make an emergency landing to remove the dangerous person, but since we were flying over Canada, we had to turn around. We originally took off from Seattle at 9:30pm, and at 11:30 we were back on its tarmac. We were told that we had to stay in our seats and buckled when we landed because when there's a threat on a plane and it has to make an emergency landing, the problem is controlled by local authorities. The plane pulled up to a gate in a flurry of flashing lights, and we were boarded by a number of uniformed officials, including a paramedic who had apparently been informed of this guy's medical situation, appeared to give him something, and then removed him from the plane.
It was all very exciting. We were only a few rows behind all the action. I couldn't help feeling really sorry for this guy. I hope that he doesn't have any understanding of the kind of disturbance he caused. As far as we could tell the flight attendants and passengers were all ok.
It was long after midnight before we made it to the airline desk where we received food vouchers, hotel accommodations, and tickets out for the next day. Jimmy and I had nothing serious waiting in Fairbanks, and there were enough people making a fuss around us that we didn't have anything to be but calm and collected. The sad adventure-deprived part pf my brain actually enjoyed the whole thing.
We made friends with the hotel shuttle driver, and so after we checked into our room (they only gave us one because our flights were booked together,) he drove us to Denny's where they accepted airline food vouchers. So we had a french toast and mozzarella stick date at 3 am, then only had time to watch half a movie in the hotel room before we had to catch our 6am flight out (with no hostile dementia patients.)
I felt like I would never get here even as we boarded the second plane in Seattle, but God is good.
At least they didn't lose our bags (this would be the first leg to buck that irritating trend.)
It took all Saturday to recover, but I have greeted the dim, -5, buried in wads of snow Fairbanks world with arms wide open. Who knows, maybe I'll spend a fair chunk of my life here. It's really quite beautiful right now. The sun starts setting at 11am, and takes nearly 5 hours to go down, filling the sky is the most beautiful colors. I could get used to this—actually I could never get used to this, but that's why I think I will like it.
I would appreciate your prayers as school starts up on Wednesday, and the weather gets colder (whimper.) I will need it!
Great big Alaska hugs,
Anne