There is nothing quite like a trip home, especially for a child in a foreign land. We had been living in the orient for about a year, when my father decided that we all needed a break from the land of the not quite right. I know that sounds harsh, but we never knew from day to day what new oddity was going to enter our lives. I will save those tales for another time. Our trip home began with a wait. We went to the airbase. We put our name on the list, and we waited and waited and waited and waited. You may be waiting to hear why we waited so long. It came down to what it often does. Money. If we could find a plane that had empty floor space, then we could fly across the pacific for $10 a person. Needless to say this was a considerable discount from our other options and would enable us to stretch our vacation dollars quite a bit farther. After a few days, we finally managed to catch a plane that had some extra space. The seats were less than comfortable, but for a ten year old, it was a dream flight. I was going home. I was going to see my grand parents. Our flight was not a direct one. We hopped to a near by island where we spent the night. Our flight was to leave at 4 am, so my folks thought there was little point to getting a hotel. We knew there was a Mickey Dee's that had opened downtown, and we hadn't had a Big Mac in a year, so the golden arches were a golden treat. We took a taxi downtown, got three fries, three cokes, and three burgers. It cost over forty bucks and didn't taste right. After gorging ourselves on semi-American junk food, we went back to the airport where our 4am flight turned to 6 then 7 then finally 10 am. Still, we were going home. The flight across the Pacific was uneventful. They gave us a box lunch/dinner. The plane dripped on us, as it was not really designed for passengers. We landed next in Alaska where we spent the night in Anchorage. It is a beautiful area. The sun never quite went all the way down that night. TV was American, but slightly different than the continental US. What I remember more than the TV and the perpetual sun was the price of the burgers. $11. My parents weren't thrilled with that, but these were better than the previous ones. There isn't much more to tell on this end of the trip. It was the flipside that got more interesting.
We were supposed to be stateside for a month, but my dad got called back, so we had to go "home" early. His job demanded that we return, so cargo rack travel was not an option. We had to take a real flight. Cross-Pacific travel is never easy. It is a long and usually boring flight with many passengers smoking and blowing smoke rings on the airline stewardesses, even as they tell them that the no smoking light is on. This particular flight was a bit more exciting from my perspective. I had a window seat, and was not real thrilled to begin with. I remember going to sleep and then waking up a couple of hours into an 11-hour flight. As my eyes opened, I looked out and saw smoke pouring from the tip of the wing. Now I wasn't very old, but I was smart enough to know that smoke coming out of your wing was a bad thing, especially when you are over the pacific somewhere. I very calmly turned to my Mom and said: "our wing is on fire." She said, "no dear, don't worry they are just dumping the fuel." Now initially my mind said, "oh ok" as the repercussions of no fuel, big plane, pacific ocean bounced around in my head. A passenger was blowing smoke rings again. The truth of the matter is that we had a navigation issue, so they dumped the fuel to land once again in Anchorage. To make things more exciting, they gave us an armed escort on the way down. To this day, I am not quite sure why we had that fighter on our wing. Anyway, we landed, but were not allowed to exit the plane while they fixed the problem. You see we had exited US Airspace, so we would have had to go through customs again, and for the hour it took to repair the plane, it just wasn't worth it. So, they fixed the plane, and we flew home a few weeks early, on the course another fateful plane took. You see, a short time later, the Russians shot down another bird bound for the same place we were heading. It was enough to make one think, even if one is a child.
