After a month of travel and excitement, I am now home in North Carolina, safe and sound.  But I couldn’t leave Alaska without one final adventure.

I was scheduled to fly to Anchorage late Sunday night from Nome after the Wells Fargo Awards Banquet.  Due to the large number of folks who needed to be transported to the airport to make that flight, my driver needed to drop me off and then go back for a second load.  I walked into one door of the terminal just as Jeff King walked through the other.  We looked at each other and quickly assessed the situation.   If we hurried, we might be able make the flight that was just boarding.  Of course, the clerk recognized Jeff immediately and granted his request to make the flight.  Though I was an unknown, they graciously accommodated me as well.  Unfortunately, I had checked my bags earlier in the day for the later flight, so they were not going with me.  But I took the chance, hoping that eventually I would be able to claim my bags.

It turned out to be a serendipitous meeting, because that was the last flight to make it out of Nome that night and for the next two days.  While we were in the air Sunday night, Mt. Redoubt erupted, sending an ash cloud nine miles into the sky.  The flight I had originally been scheduled to take was forced to turn around to avoid the ash cloud.  The volcano erupted five more times in the next 24 hours, but the prevailing winds were blowing north/northwest; most of the ash blew away from Anchorage and into the interior of Alaska.  My bags were eventually sent to Fairbanks and then forwarded on to Asheville.

I was happy and relieved to make it to Anchorage Sunday night so I could make my flight to Charlotte on Tuesday.  But that early flight also gave me a special gift – the opportunity to chat with Jeff King for the two-hour flight from Nome to Anchorage!