My friend Paul Berberian – the co-founder of Raindance Communications – flew us from Homer to Anchorage for a sushi dinner tonight.
Paul and his friend Paul Wareham were up at our place in Homer, AK visiting for the weekend. They flew PaulB’s Cirrus SR-22 up from Boulder, CO – it took them 15 flight hours over three days. We had a great weekend hanging out and showing them around Homer. Originally we were going to fly to Valdez for lunch, but the weather was shaky and Valdez is a tough airport to land at.
We decided to head to Anchorage for sushi since we don’t have any sushi in Homer (one of Homer’s few weaknesses as an ideal place on the planet.). We left the house at 5:30pm, drove the five minutes to the airport, and were in the air by 6:15pm. We dinked around some near Homer looking at Grewink glacier across Kachemak Bay and then headed to Anchorage. We landed at Merrill Field 45 minutes later, cutting over three hours off the normal drive time (four to five hours).
We met up with Amy’s friend Jon Zasada who runs the Boys and Girls Club of Southcentral Alaska and went out to Peter’s Sushi Spot. Our sushi starved bodies hadn’t had a feast since mid-June so – at the risk of having a rocky stomach experience on the way back – we pigged out. We finished things off with Alaska’s best local ice cream – Hot Licks. Yum.
We headed back home and touched down in Homer at 10:30pm. While I’m not a great small plane flyer, we had a pretty magical evening. The view from the plane at 3,500 feet was unbelievable – the beauty and scale of Alaska is even more dramatic by air at this altitude. Dinner was awesome, and the whole idea of round tripping to Anchorage to have dinner with friends in five hours is very cool.