Our trips to and from Guam were an adventure in themselves, so I thought I'd give them their own post. A couple years ago Mike discovered a military flight called the Patriot Express. This flight left out of Seattle and flew to Guam and then Japan. The flight generally flies twice a month and is there to help military members get to these farther destinations. Flying to Guam is EXPENSIVE, so this was our only chance to go without selling a kidney. ;)
We needed to be in Seattle on the 15th in time to check in at 7:30 PM, so we flew commercially and arrived at 3:30PM. We hung out in the USO before check in, and then after our 7:30 check in that turned into 9PM because of the long line. We then needed to wait until 11 PM to see if we made it on the flight, which we thankfully did. We loitered in the airport after the USO closed at midnight, and then boarded the plane around 3 AM. We took off to Anchorage, Alaska where we deplaned in order to refuel. It was supposed to be an hour and a half wait, but ended up being around four hours. After leaving Alaska we finally arrived in Guam about 11 hours later. We left Thursday afternoon and arrived Saturday afternoon. Lots of travel! (Since Guam is 17 hrs ahead, it wasn't two days, but about 33 hrs. Good times!) The kids were champs and Audrey thankfully took naps.
The trip home was even more dramatic. I can stress out a lot about unknowns, but I was never stressed about our travel. I knew it would work out. We were going to fly home with Mike's unit, but the amount of seats available kept shrinking. There was another Utah family there with us and if we'd gone home with Mike's unit, we probably would have bumped that family. The plan then became to leave the day before on a C17 Taskmaster, which is a huge cargo plane. Mike took us to the terminal and waited for us to load up. Audrey was very sad when we left him and cried a bit on the bus. It was very sweet. I'd never been on one before, so the kids and I were VERY underdressed. It was cold. And loud. And uncomfortable. I could see my luggage, but since it was strapped down I couldn't access my warm jacket and pants. Le sigh... The important thing though, was that it was free. The plan was to land in Sacramento and then fly on Delta home, but Southwest had a huge breakdown and cancelled thousands of flights, so flying standby wasn't an option. We stayed the night in Sacramento, and even went bowling, and then drove 10 hours home to Utah. Sarah drove three hours in the middle which helped a lot.
No matter how long or uncomfortable the flights were, I was and am very grateful that we could take this trip. It was incredible and a once in a lifetime experience that I'm glad we could do, and flying on military jets made it all possible.
