I woke up Friday morning and said, “Hey Samantha, should we go to Juneau today?” and she said, “sure”. We had a bundle of air miles on Alaska Airlines so we got tickets for the afternoon and jumped on the plane. We had been waiting for a hole in our schedule to make this trip, and time was getting short because Samantha is 34 weeks along. Of course the weather was terrible all through out Alaska this weekend so we were delayed getting out of Anchorage. We were on the milk-run which means 1.5 hour flight turns into a 4 hour flight. We landed in Cordova and Yakutat before reaching Juneau. The weather was horrible at all the destinations, and when we landed in Juneau it was 25 knots gusts 40 and rain/snowing sideways … beautiful. I told my Dad we were coming, but we surprised my Mom. Dad came up with some silly excuse to get a cup of coffee at the airport at 8 pm and Mom went for it. She was dumb-struck when we walked up to the car, and piled in as Dad drove by the doors in front of baggage claim.
We had a great time hanging out with Mom and Dad, and seeing the sights in Juneau. My Dad is the State Representative for the City of Wasilla. He is not a politician, he has been a working-stiff like the rest of us his whole life, and has only held this position for a couple of years. He was appointed by Sara Palin to take the place of one of the legislators after the corruption scandal was uncovered in 2007. It’s good to have people like him down there because he knows that the heartbeat of America is small businesses like Blue Ice Aviation, Meekin’s Air Service, and millions of others. Dad owned a really small construction company when we were kids, and my brother and I were the two employees. My mom works as a receptionist in Senator Fred Dyson’s office, and she has been there ever since I graduated high school. Before that, her full time job was raising my sister, my brother, and I, and we did a pretty good job of keeping her busy. It’s great to see them at work in the capital building, and I can’t help but smile because they are such a down-to-earth, honest, joyful pair … and the system desperately needs that right now. My parents are amazing, I love them.