Ryan McFarland

My flight missed Juneau this morning - it was too foggy. So I ended up in Anchorage.

I’m on my way to Sitka for SEAtrails meetings.  I left Petersburg on the “morning” flight arriving in Juneau at about 1.  I board the flight to Sitka at 10 PM tonight.  I’ve spent a good four hours in the airport terminal just passing the time.  I’ve paid for hotels in Seattle for shorter layovers than this one.

I have meetings all day tomorrow and then Monday morning.  We will conclude before noon so some people can make a flight out of there.  It isn’t early enough for me to catch a flight to Petersburg though so I have to wait until Tuesday morning at 6 to make it to Juneau.  Then I catch the afternoon jet into Petersburg after a 6 or 7 hour layover in Juneau.

You’re aware of my fall out with Expedia. You know of my luck with Priceline. But there’s a new service that has caught my eye. Hotel reservations made at hotelsescape.com seem to be quite competitive.  I booked my Las Vegas hotel on Priceline for $62.44 at the Golden Nugget hotel for the next day.  Hotelsescape has one available for tomorrow at the same hotel for $329.  *GULP* But to their credit they do have a room listed at the Tropicana for $87.  Looking further into the future they have rooms available for as little as $50 a night (plus taxes I’m sure - so somewhere around the $62.44 i paid a few weeks ago) at hotels like the Stratosphere, the Imperial Palace, and the Hooters Casino Hotel.

Let’s do one a little more difficult… Saturday night i stayed at the Diamond Center Hotel in Anchorage, AK.  My rate was $124 a night.   Looking to book a room for tomorrow night gives me the same price - $129 a night - on both hotelsescape.com as well as on the hotel’s website.

Overall, this site will work well if you want a specific hotel and want to shop around for rates.  They seem to be very competitive and the site is pretty hassle free.  If you just want the least expensive bed available you still should use a service that let’s you name your own price.

Ghost Bar

Originally uploaded by zieak

This is part of the view from Ghost Bar at the Palms casino in Las Vegas.

Southern Utah

Originally uploaded by zieak

On our way from Indianapolis to Columbia, Missouri we saw this collection of abandoned buildings right on the side of the highway.

We took the next exit and doubled back along a frontage road.  We stopped briefly to check on a klunk we were hearing at the front of the truck.  We stopped right next to the High Hill historic village which is available for auction.   There’s a church, garage, store and the contents of everything available through the auctioneer.

We drove on to the set of buildings and poked around a little bit.

From September 25th to the 29th we were in Indianapolis for the National Recreation and Park Association conference.  As the president of the Alaska association i serve on the Council of Statewide Affiliates and the Pacific Northwest Regional Council and attend meetings for both representing the state.

We left Indianapolis around 11 and it wasn’t too long before our stomachs were complaining of not having any breakfast.  We stopped at a Taco Bell along the highway and it was the slowest delivery of our order i have ever had at a fast food joint.  The meal was sub standard even for a highway stop Taco Bell.

The trip was uneventful except for seeing significant smoke from a fire near the road and our little stop in High Hill (see that post).  We crossed into the Central time zone.  I have continued to shoot the webcam videos but they have been too long to upload to youtube.  I’ll figure something out because i really want to assemble them into one video eventually.

We met up with Cece and Joe (”What are you doing here?”) and had dinner at Chili’s (Thanks mom!).  We then went to Flat Branch brewery and sampled some fine handcrafted beer.  Their Irish Red Ale was particularly good and was even dispensed with a hand pump (without C02).

Here’s from the West Virginia border with Virginia on Route 64 to Charleston, WV. It is about 130 miles compacted into 10 minutes.

Here’s the rough draft of a web cam created video of our road trip from Phil & Gwen’s house in Virginia to the border of West Virginia. We’re thinking the frames may need to load twice to four times as fast. Naturally we’ll need a soundtrack also. This is over 3 and a half hours of travel time (including the refueling stop) and about 208 miles condensed into just under 8 minutes. The cam took captures every 10 seconds.

Downtown Charleston (West Virginia) is quite nice. The sidewalks are made of brick and are wide. The streets are lines with trees, there are nice lamp poles. Not a single bum. No signs of violence. Little traffic too. Not a whole lot to do… but i’m used to that.