Sat, Sept 14

BOS-DFW – 9:30 to 12:00pm

DFW-SEA – 12:55pm to 2:30pm (note time change)

SEA-ANC – 10:50pm to 1:20am

Sun, Sept 15

ANC-SEA – 2:30am to 6:46am

SEA-DFW – 11am to 5pm

DFW-BOS – 7pm to 11pm.

As I was doing all this flying this weekend and the following two weekends, I decided to buy a month Gogo In-flight Wifi pass. It was totally worth it and I don’t see how I could live without wifi on any flight from now on.

When I got to BOS, I asked the gate agent if I could standby for an earlier DFW-SEA flight as my original flight was at 5pm instead of 1pm. It was the only flight that would book at the lower rate. She checked and said I had plenty of time as the flight is scheduled to land at 12pm, rather than the original posted time of 12:55pm. She put me on standby and my first flight took off on time and we landed shortly after 12pm.

Once we got there, since we got there earlier than the scheduled time, there wasn’t a gate available to us. It took about twenty minutes to resolve as we got another gate assignment and a large vehicle was blocking the gate. I was in the airport at 12:35pm and ran for the next plane. It was on the other side of the C terminal so I had to take the Airtrain. Luckily it was fast and I dashed out the instant the doors open.

Looking at the signs, I ran straight into the main hallway and bolted down. However, I heard a page for me over the PA and quickly looked around to find the gate right next to the Airtrain exit. I quickly circled back and boarded the plane with a new boarding pass. I spent all of 6 minutes in the airport, so an ideal MR so far. The flight was on time and we landed at around 2:30pm.

There is now a long layover in Seattle and plans were to hang out with a few friends there and see a bit more of the city. Last time, I was only here for 13 hours to run a marathon so I had very little time to see Seattle. Luckily, it was a dry day and the sun came out full blast around 5pm.

There was some traffic in Seattle this weekend as there was some road closures. We drove to Bellevue instead of Seattle because of the traffic and had some sushi at Marinepolis Sushi Land.They had very good tuna and also torch grilled salmon and shrimp, which were amazing. They add a spicy sauce before they torch it. You can see the chef with a propane torch.

We drove to a popular lookout spot to see Seattle.

Next, we drove to the Space Needle. Parking was hard to find as there was a WNBA game going on later that day. We managed to find a spot and walked around the Space Needle and Science Center (it was closed). We also found a Spanish festival and my friend got a rice drink.

We then hopped on the monorail into downtown as that’s a thing tourists do. It only runs for about a mile so it is not very long. It was built for the World’s Fair in 1962.

We walked over to the Public Market once we got off of the Monorail. The station in downtown Seattle is actually on the 2nd floor of a mall. Pretty clever.

We also walked by the first Starbucks which was packed as usual.

We caught a nice sunset right by Public Market.

We went to Etta’s for dinner.

We had the rub salmon, halibut and crab cakes. My salmon was good but it didn’t seem as fresh. The halibut was better.

We walked back to the car and it was a quick drive over to the airport. The airport was quiet and got through security and to the flight. I stepped into the Alaska Airlines Board Room but didn’t get to go in. I have the Lounge Pass from the Chase Ink cards and I was going to use my free entry for the layover tomorrow. I did buy the Alaska Airlines bear in flight outfit just in case I forget to stop back in.

The flight to and from ANC was uneventful. I managed to get some sleep on both flights as the flight left SEA at 11pm, which was about 2am EST, so I was plenty tired. I got off the plane at ANC and wandered around the airport for a few minutes. Pictures below are of inside ANC terminal.

This was a local brewery in Alaska.

The layover was about an hour so it was pretty short. There were a few people sleeping on benches inside the airport.  On both flights to/from ANC, the middle seat was open so I got to stretch out a bit.

We got back to SEA at about 7am PST. I went to Ken’s Baggage & Frozen Food Storage to store my bookbag for an hour while I went to run. The fee was $8 for 24 hours but if you leave it less than 2 hours, its half price. Its not a bad deal but it should be 4 hours. I changed in the airport bathroom and went out for my jog. I ran to Seatac City Hall then looped north back to the airport for a 5 mile run.  I will cover the training run in another post. It was a good run.

As it was a cool day, I didn’t sweat too much and changed back into my normal clothes when I got to the Alaska Board Room Lounge. I had some breakfast and a mimosa with my new friend and got onto my next flight. I then blacked out for about an hour because of the mimosa.

When I got to Dallas, I tried to make the earlier flight to Boston as standby, but I got to the gate too late and missed that flight. I wanted to catch an earlier flight so I can get home earlier and also that my original flight is an hour late. I walked around DFW for a little while and spoke to my wife on the phone until boarding. I didn’t have any extra bags other than my bookbag so I waited until the very end to board the flight.

During the flight home, the wifi wasn’t turned on at first. About thirty minutes into the flight, it was turned on and I went online. I participated in a Twitter discussion about running, which lasted about an hour and a half. This was a great way to kill some time on a flight. We landed on time and I managed to catch the silver line back into Boston. I rode hubway home so I didn’t have to pay for a taxi as the T was closed by the time I got back into downtown Boston.

It was a good mileage run and got to see some friends and Seattle. I need to do some marathon training in San Francisco next week so I am not sure how much sight seeing I can fit into the weekend.