one way to start vacation

The airstrip is a solid mile down a dusty gravel road from our house. On June 9th we were to start our vacation, bringing out two foldable kayaks, two lifepreservers, clothes for 10 days, a tent, two sleeping bags, two thermarests and a bag of dryfish.

Keith whispered me awake around 7am. "Eliza our flight is at 9. We have to be there by 8:30. We have to make two trips each to carry all of our stuff. Each trip is twenty minutes. We begin the last trip out at 8:10, which means we started back from the first trip at 7:50. Which means we have to start the first trip at 7:30. Eliza, its 7:12, neither of us has had showers. And we're not done packing."

I couldn't really follow it either. But we didn't have time.

I jumped in the shower, Keith had some oatmeal and started off with a load.
I started off behind him with my two trips worth in my hands. As I reached the straight away I watched Keith jumping up in a truck, getting a ride. It wasn't long after I scored a ride myself.

It was 8am, three quarters of our bags were sitting on the airstrip. Keith ran on ahead of me and I followed him home to help with the last load.

As I turned into our circle Keith was striding out to meet me.
"You got the keys?"
Its our little game. Our little game, right Keith?
This however was not our game just like that time in the middle of the Cascades.

Nope, no keys. Locked out of the house its 8:20, our plane leaves at 9, we are twenty minutes from the airport and our bags are locked in the house.

A quick pow-wow and we were off to the clinic where our landlord works. The sign says clinic hours are 9:30-4. Luckily we find everyone in.

Unluckily, our landlord doesn't have our keys on her, nor does she have a ride. Her house is a half hour walk in the other direction.

On the flip side, it seems pretty much everyone in town has keys to our house. When we called a local fix-it man a while back to fix our furnace, Keith asked if he should leave the house unlocked. "Do you have to?" the old man asked. Keith offered to leave the keys outside somewhere. "Why, have you changed the locks?" Turns out this guy has keys to our house.
And he was up at 8:20 on June 10th, when Keith called pleadingly.

The guy came through and even brought Keith back to the airport. In time to wait twenty minutes for the plane.

Budding migraines in tow we got into Fairbanks and after a quick round of shopping. (Nothing like a espresso and a CD spree after a few months in the bush.) We jumped in the car and headed South to meet my parents.

On the way there we paused for some scenic overlooking and Keith balanced his chi out on a cliff over the Nenana river.

(Another way to start your vacation is to get stranded in Boston, when your flight is canceled, arrive in Anchorage a full twenty four hours late, and not get your baggage until three days later, when a courier knocks on your motorhome at two-thirty in the morning. My parents gave that way a test run, and don't recommend it.)