It’s fun to watch the airport appear and disappear.

July 2, 2010 at 5:14 pm · Filed under alaska, atquasuk, summer 2010, travel and tagged: airplanes, airports

I’ve written before about the uncertainties of North Slope airplane travel, but I don’t think Jeremy and I have ever before had to wait four hours for the weather hold to be lifted. We expected to pick up Rob and Kelsey from the airport around 8:30 this morning, but here it is five after one and we have yet to get our day started. It’s foggy! Only about 45 minutes ago could we see the airport from the window of the house for the first time today.

Jeremy is sitting backwards on a dining room chair, eyes glued to the window. “Now it’s time for my favorite activity,” he said. “Watching the airport.”

He’s only being a little bit sarcastic. We spend a lot of time airport-watching. Usually we can see it easily, even through mild fog. An unexpected plane, a larger than usual plane, or a line of cars driving out to the airport is sure to catch our attention, and may even be the highlight of a quiet Atqasuk evening.

Jeremy is giving us earnest and constant updates on how well he can see the airport. Currently, it’s gone again.

Rob and Kelsey are on their way from Barrow to join us in Atqasuk for the 4th of July weekend. If I say it like that, it sounds like we’ve planned a vacation; in reality, we of course have work to do, and at first were puzzled at Bob’s decision to have us out of town during the only holiday weekend of the summer. Last time we were here we enjoyed the festivities in town. This year, we will have to enjoy the festivities in a much smaller town.  And we will make our own fun- after, of course, we get our work done.

Jeremy and Sergio (our friend from UTEP who arrived in Atqasuk on the last flight yesterday) and I have probably been enjoying the fog wait more than our companions in Barrow, since we’ve been sitting around eating and watching Jackie Brown. But now the movie is over and Jeremy is getting antsy. I imagine that any minute now I’ll hear a familiar cry of  “plane’s on the ground!” and we’ll scramble around to grab shoes and coats and jump in the truck to go meet them…

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