(Again, hover over the picture to view the caption.  Click to make bigger.)

It was actually cold getting off the plane in Alaska.  We were wearing sweatshirts, but after living in hot Bahrain we didn’t have much in the way of jackets (and no coats at all), and we didn’t bring any anyway.  But it wasn’t too bad, and we didn’t have long to wait until the airport shuttle came and got us.  As I was getting into the shuttle I stepped on the grass and the ground felt spongy under my feet.  That is so different from what I’m used to.  I don’t know if the ground in Alaska really is spongy, especially at this time of year, or that I’m not used to walking on actual dirt anymore, as the ground here in Bahrain is dirt, yes, but quite hard.

It was also interesting how much light there was.  It was after midnight when we landed, and the sky was not entirely dark, although it was black in most places.  It turns out that there are only a few hours of darkness in Alaska at this time of year.  For example at 10:00 p.m. the sun is only just starting to set.  And in June, from what I was told they pretty much have 24 hour daylight.  Of course in winter it’s dark a lot: I was told the sun doesn’t get up until after 10:00 a.m. and it’s down by 3 or 4 in the afternoon.

So we slept a few hours and then got up to get ready for the wedding.  Jeremy’s sister, Jessica, was getting married.  We got to the church in plenty of time to meet the family, talk to them, watch everyone else finish getting ready, take the family photos (very important), and eat lunch (also very important).  Jessica married into a very large family.  Her new husband has 10 brothers and sisters.  The youngest is 4.  And everyone was there for the wedding, including the already married brother and all the college kids.  I really enjoyed my time with that family.  They were really sweet and a joy to be around.  They were very friendly and very accepting; I felt real comfortable around them.

The wedding itself went well.  I think Jennifer, another sister of Jeremy’s, took about 1000 pictures, mostly of Jessica, while she was waiting to walk down the aisle.  Jessica was very beautiful, and her groom, Abraham, couldn’t stop grinning.  It was a very sweet and nice wedding.

After the wedding and after we sent Jessica and Abraham away the rest of us “family” cleaned up and then we changed clothes and went to the mountains and went on a hike.  It was really fun.  We got to see a waterfall and some snow.  Snow in May!

Sunday we went to church there and went to the pastor’s house afterwards, who is Abraham’s dad.  It was real nice to spend more time with Jeremy’s family and Abraham’s family as well as the three members of the bridal party that weren’t technically family but were embraced as if they were.  It was real nice fellowship.

Monday we had to leave to go to Canada.  It turned out there were parks and things to do and see in Alaska.  And we got along so well with the people there, that I wished we’d made plans to stay.  I didn’t really want to leave.  But we had fun in Canada too, and someday we’ll go back to Alaska.  After all, we’ll surely visit Jeremy’s sister.  I just hope it’s in spring or summer.

(There are more pictures in the sidebar.)

(Note: I’ve been having a lot of trouble getting pictures to post properly. To see the captions hover your mouse over the picture.  Click on the picture to make it bigger.  You can also see these pictures on the sidebar on the page titled “Washington, D.C.”  On that page there’s also a slide show option.)

And then we left for leave. We left our apartment around 11:00 p.m. Monday, 5 May. We boarded a plane around 1:00 a.m. Tuesday, 6 May. We traveled to London, UK, where I saw real grass for the first time in almost a year. Grass! Real, green grass! And I saw Queen Anne’s Lace too. It’s been a really long time since I saw any of it.

After a few hours in London we boarded another plane which took us to Dallas. Now why we had to go to Dallas to go to Washington, D.C. I don’t know. I really don’t. But our route took us over the southern edge of Greenland. That was way cool. The clouds parted just enough so I could see some of the land. It looked like mountains or hills with snow in the valleys between the peaks. I also saw rivers that were completely frozen. I even saw some glaciers. And I saw islands. There were lots and lots of islands. I had no idea the southern coast of Greenland was such a network of islands. And around and between the islands were icebergs. Literally millions of icebergs. Big ones,maybe ship-sized to small ones, almost too small to see from the plane. And some were far enough apart that you might be able to take a yacht between them if you were careful to those that were so close together you couldn’t even take a kayak through-you could walk from one to another. I thought it was really interesting how the icebergs made patterns in the water. They were scattered all over, but the close together ones were strung together in the water like ribbons of ice or like strings of pearls if each pearl was tiny and there were thousands making up the string. It was really beautiful.

Then we flew over Quebec and I saw a bunch of frozen lakes. As we entered Ontario, the lakes were beginning to thaw. I never knew before this that frozen lakes thaw from the edges first. Did you know that? Then we entered the U.S. and flew south to Dallas. Overall, we were in the air for 8 or 9 hours. That was a long time to sit in one seat.

We stayed in Dallas a couple of hours and then a little over 24 hours since we boarded our first plane we were boarding our last plane of this part of our trip. We flew from Dallas to Washington, D.C. We debarked, got our luggage with no problem, got our reserved rental car with no problems, and then drove and drove and drove. It took us three hours to get to our hotel. It turns out that traffic is insane in the D.C. area. In Bahrain we think a long commute is thirty minutes. In D.C. they apparently think thirty minutes is a short commute. And I thought it took forever to get anywhere in Jacksonville, FL. Jacksonville did take forever, but it was short compared to D.C.

So we arrived at our hotel midnight local time. If you add in the seven hour time difference and count from the time we left our apartment to the time we arrived at our hotel we had been traveling for 32 hours. That’s a long time! Even just counting the time spent in planes and layovers, it was 27 hours. That’s a long time too.

So we spent three days in D.C. This leg of our trip was a working vacation—Jeremy’s pursuing leads for possible post-Navy employment. In other words, he’s pursuing career options, possibilities for his future. So while he did that Wednesday, I went to Fort Meade (everybody in the military goes to another military base on their leave, right?) and read a book in this lovely park they had there. It was so restful. And it had grass! And I saw a robin. That was cool. We don’t have robins in Bahrain.

Wednesday night we went into the city and walked around some of the monuments. We walked around the Washington Memorial (it was closed, so we didn’t go up), and we walked around the World War II memorial and briefly saw the Vietnam Memorial. It was getting dark at that point and there were hundreds of school kids there, so we didn’t stay long. We also walked through this lovely park they have there and even sat on a bench and watched the ducks for a bit. It was so lovely and restful.  The pictures in this post are from this night.  Hover over them with your mouse to see the caption.  You can also click on them to see them bigger.  And they are also on a separate gallery page: look in the sidebar for the link.

Then Thursday I had a migraine so I stayed in the hotel room and slept and read. I had been intending to visit some museums, but my health had other ideas. Someday Jeremy and I will return to the city and “do it right.” Thursday night we drove around and talked. That was real nice.

Friday Jeremy went to a work-related conference.  I tagged along too even though it was all computer stuff and over my head.  Jeremy really enjoyed networking with the government employees he’s been working with over the last several months. We had to leave early to catch our flight to Alaska.

So on to Alaska!