No Way In & No Way Out... of Nome.

I was due back in the Lower 48 by 8:40 pm Monday, June 16th. However, due to intense fog and low cloud ceiling I have been grounded in Nome for three extra days.

From Sunday June 15th to Wednesday 18 no flights for Alaska Air, or Bush flights for that matter, landed or took off from the Gold Rush City. Nine flights stright were cancelled, which may not sound like many but when you only have three a day, your city takes a hit. No mail, produce, tourists, you name it, everyone is stranded.

Finally the Wednesday morning (June 18) and afternoon flights landed and took off from Nome. Unfortunately, I was not on any of them. I anticipate leaving this evening but it seems that the fog has rolled back in and the ceiling once again has dropped to 100 feet, and it needs to at least be 300 according to the National Weather Service.

It has been a rough past few days going back and forth to the airport, saying goodbye again and again and checking and recheking my bags. I went to open one of my checked bags and three TSA search flyers fell out onto the dust road of Nome. I couldn't help but laugh.

Slowly but surely the grocery store shelves became bare and when we went out to eat our server, Bruce, said that if we had one more day without flights they would be running out of almost everything. Scary to think right? No way in, and no way out.