Today’s the last day (kind of—I’ll get to that) of the trip, and we felt both accomplished (from doing mostly everything we wanted to do) and burned out (from doing mostly everything we wanted to do), so we were keeping it easy today and gonna head to the airport in the afternoon.

We stopped by our coffee shop and made sure to tell them to stop making extra sandwiches on our account because it was our last day here! We (by “we”, I mean “me”) broke one of their plastic Adirondack chairs yesterday, but not wanting to put any kind of burden on a deserving small business, we (by “we”, I mean “Megan”) bought two new chairs and set them to be delivered a few hours later!

We wanted to get an early lunch (so we didn’t have to have airport food ALL DAY), and there was only one place we hadn’t been that had been on our radar: Bear Tooth Theatrepub. This half-restaurant/half-theater is a not-so-distant cousin of Moose’s Tooth and Broken Tooth Brewing—and it was close by—so we got there just as they opened (luggage in tow) and got a booth. While we didn’t see a movie (showtimes were in the evening) we did check out the connected theater and had a good lunch, then made our way to the airport.

And that’s when the fiasco started. We arrived at the airport around 1:00 PM and Megan was off to catch her 4:00 PM flight while I went to check my bag at the American Airlines counter for my night flight which left at 9:40 PM. It took some time to find the counter and even more time to find out that it’s only open from 6:30-8:30 AM and 7:00-9:00 PM because they only operate two flights out of Anchorage!!! I thought about using the “bag check” service at the airport (where they hold your bags while you explore the town) but I was already tired that I just waited…

…and waited…

…and waited…

…and the counter crew came out around 7:15 PM, but the self-check machines were also down, so those then had to be fixed. I ended up pretty far down in the luggage check line, but knew that everyone there was on the same flight and they’d make sure everyone made it. Plus, I basically skipped to the front of the line when it came to TSA security checkpoint because of my status. It was at least a 30-45 minute line but I was next because of PreCheck, so I waltzed right in and headed toward the gate.

I had my first dirty martini 🍸 on this trip, so I decided to make my last alcoholic drink also a dirty martini at a bar near the gate. Plus, since I have a night flight, I wanted to be extra relaxed for the flight.

But alcohol also inhibits my ability to do time zone math, which is particularly interesting. I’m starting in Anchorage which is AKDT (-07:00), connecting in Dallas which is CDT (-05:00) and my final destination is Tallahassee which is EDT (-04:00). There’s a 4 hour difference between Alaska and Florida. This means that my 9:40 PM AKDT flight is already 12:40 AM CDT and 1:40 AM EDT, but really there’s no telling where my day 15 ended and my day 16 began.

The first flight was 6 hours long. I had my portable CPAP and used it but felt like I got 6 one-hour naps instead of 6 hours of sleep. I arrived to Dallas at 7:00 AM CDT/8:00 AM EDT/4:00 AM AKDT and had 5 hours before boarding my second flight. I basically wandered DFW like a zombie 🧟‍♂️ but didn’t want to sleep because if I fell asleep then I’d likely miss my connecting flight (I was THAT tired). I boarded at 12:00 PM CDT/1:00 PM EDT/9:00 AM AKDT and basically slept soundly (without the CPAP—sorry flight mates) until we arrived in Tallahassee at 3:30 PM EDT/2:30 PM CDT/11:30 AM AKDT.

Even though I had made it home, I wasn’t quite done. I took the taxi 🚕 to the house, only to get in my car and pickup the dogs 🐶🐾 from boarding. Now, when they come home from boarding, they’re excited for 2.3 seconds then they basically sleep for the next 3 days. I’m gonna try, but it feels like the middle of the afternoon to my body. The only advantage is I finally have seen the night! 🌃🌚 Good night!