Day Three

So, no phone call since Saturday. I can safely assume that they ran into no problems that Stephanie couldn't handle and they are now at camp, and having fun. I have been e-mail corresponding with the camp director for about six weeks now, and her staff have been so excited to be having my teens come all the way from Alaska that it is heart warming. They went out of their way to meet Stephanie and the girls at the airport this morning and are going out of their way to deliver them back on Friday. They rounded up bedding for them so that they wouldn't have to drag it from Alaska. They rounded up prom dresses for them so they wouldn't have to bring those from home. They e-mailed them regularly to tell them what to bring and what to expect and just to make certain that they were not the only campers there that didn't already know someone. Bless the Michigan MADD chapter. I feel this sense of a job well done.

They start back on the 14th, and unless I hear anything from them, you won't get any further updates from me until then.

Day Two

So far as I know, having received no phone calls to the contrary, Stephanie, Crystalyn, and Danielle left Juneau at 6 a.m. and Jessica left Ketchikan at 7. They should have connected in Seattle about an hour ago and now they have the day to visit the museum and shop. Stephanie doesn't like shopping, so she plans to take a book. Picture it now. Three teens who never get to a big city mall, only one of whom gets to any kind of a mall (and what we call malls [all 2 of them] here in Juneau I used to call small strip malls when I lived in California) at all and only one of our "malls" has a clothing store that would appeal to a teen. Two of the girls buy from catalogs or from the same store that everyone in their community (yes, men and babies and toddlers and kid brothers and grandparents) shops at. And these three are wandering free in a big city mall! Shadowed by a woman with a book! And all four a trifle overwhelmed by the size of things and the number of people about. I don't know if it is more heaven or hell.

They will leave Seattle at 10:50 tonight, change planes in Cleveland, and arrive in Flint at 8 tomorrow morning. Meanwhile, the other teens coming to camp may be getting their things together or they may be putting that off until tomorrow morning. The camp staff has been working hard all week. I know that because I have been exchanging e-mails with them.

Day One

I: And So They Are Off
Today it begins. Stephanie and Crystalyn take the ferry from Haines to Juneau, staying tonight at the Juneau Airport Travelodge; Jessica flies from Craig to Ketchikan, spending the night with her grandmother.

II: Mid-morning Call

Wherein we see the wisdom of starting Jessica on an early morning Saturday flight taking only half an hour to get her to Michigan by Monday noon. Just got the call. Craig is fogged in. No flights out of there today or tomorrow or possibly Monday. However, she does have time to make the ferry today and connect with the rest of her flights. Her grandmother can as easily pick her up at the ferry terminal as at the airport.

Travel in Alaska seldom goes according to plan.

III: Meeting at the Ferry Terminal

And so, this evening I drove out the road to the Ferry Terminal and met Stephanie and Crystalyn when they arrived from Haines on the Malespina. When I was walking in to the terminal, I saw these two huge dogs! Just amazing. Almost as tall as my favorite Irish Wolfhound, Abe, but much bulkier. "What are they?" I asked. "Mastiffs," replied a man who seemed to know. Well, I can believe that! They certainly looked like all the things I'd ever read about Mastiffs. And then I walked two feet further, and saw the dog they were with. She looked just like them, except that she made them look like toy mastiffs! An animal this big looks naked without a saddle! (And as I was leaving the very small woman who owns the dogs came up. She says they are a St. Bernard, Great Dane mix. And the big one is named, are you ready for it? Tiny.)

And on to the gangplank and there they are, coming off the ship. Since Stephanie is the chaperone, the three of us had dinner together and discussed some few business items that needed to be dealt with ("please make sure everyone turns in their boarding passes so our director can get reimbursed by the grantor" type of thing) and, since I just hired her to be the Adult Leader for Teens In Action, Haines, a few weeks ago and we had only met on the phone, getting to know each other. Only a few years after I was a hippie in San Francisco, she lived on a commune in Vermont. When I was a Montessori teacher, she was a special ed teacher for the deaf. When I moved to Fairbanks, she moved to Haines.

Crystalyn is a delightful young woman; yesterday was her 16th birthday. Haines is a town of 1,850 people. Crystalyn knows all 80 of the students in her high school. The traffic in Juneau (6 p.m. Saturday night, coming in from the ferry dock, in a community of 32,000) was a little overwhelming for her.

This is going to be so interesting for everyone involved. All of the other teens at the camp are from Michigan, all will be getting in cars Monday morning and driving to camp. And here comes our group. Three of them traveling for two and a half days! Taking ferries and and planes, changing planes in Seattle and Cleveland. Heck, most of the campers aren't even packed yet, and one of mine has had to change from a float plane to a ferry because the island she lives on is fogged in and another has tried deep fried mushrooms and gone swimming in a hotel pool.

I'm Getting Dizzy & My Eyes Are Crossed

I'm sending one adult and three teens to Michigan this weekend for MADD Powercamp. Since it is a ropes course, and I do cane rather than ropes, I'm not going. I am, however, in charge of reservations and making sure that everything goes well. Which would be ok if they weren't departing from three different towns. And if they were all starting out on the same day. Or if Travelocity's response to my initial request wasn't, basically, "You can't get there from here" (the single most consistent response to anyone trying to travel around or out of Alaska by any means of transportation whatsoever).

So, I spent three whole days, including working through lunch, just lining up the reservations. In order to get to Flint in time for camp on the 10th, three start on the 8th. Two come to Juneau on the ferry. One goes to Ketchikan on a float plane that has been known to be fogged in. The fourth starts on the 9th. Then the three who have flown out of Juneau have to meet the one who flew to Ketchikan in Seattle. At this point, Travelocity can figure out how to get them to Michigan. Coming back is just as complex, with one stopping in Seattle to visit family for three weeks and one stopping in Ketchikan for a day to have a tooth pulled.

So, three days to figure out the schedule, let my brain rest over the weekend so I could look at it with clear eyes before I made the reservations. Last week, I spent two days working out charts and tables in order to send them a letter telling them their individual confirmation numbers, flight plans, seat assignments, etc. Had the agency secretary read it for clarity.

Came in this morning and spent two hours figuring out meals -- how many of each, considering that the teen from Craig will be having dinner with her grandmother on the 8th, the teen from Juneau will be fed breakfast by her mother on the 9th. All that sort of thing. Worked out a table. Took it to the same secretary, who is also a bookkeeper, to see if her numbers agreed with mine. They did. I presented this to the director to get an advance for the chaperone to take to buy these meals. And he said, "Have her put it on her card if she can and we'll reimburse her when she gets back."

And now all I have to do is compose a letter for the parents of each of the girls to sign giving permission for them to travel (and outlining that girl's itinerary) and to seek medical attention if it is needed.

I really appreciate travel agents about now.