Rain, Rain, Go Away...

It's raining today in Kodiak. As it is almost every day.

I should have seen this coming from the first day. Our scheduled arrival into Kodiak was the night of February 1st. We boarded the little plane (it held about 18 people) from Anchorage with Jack tucked cozily in his kennel in the back of the plane. The cargo guys said "Bye doggie! Have a good flight!" and shut him in with all of the luggage. We could hear it quite clearly as we were only separated from the luggage area by a very thin canvas-like wall. We took off and Joe and I spent the next 45 minutes passing the Nintendo DS back and forth across the aisle as we continued our heated Yahtzee battle. Thirty minutes later, we still hadn't landed. The flight is only supposed to be 50 minutes long so I was getting nervous. The pilot piped in that we had circled the island three times already and due to bad visibility on the landing strip we were going to have to fly back to Anchorage. Seriously?! Planes really fly back to where they came from?? In normal circumstances, a pilot would have known about bad visibility before he even left the airport and would therefore never have wasted the gas to fly over and "check". However, there is nothing normal about Kodiak weather. I know that now. We landed back in Anchorage and half the plane giggled when the cargo door opened and we heard, "You're back doggie! Have a good flight?"

The next morning we hopped on another plane destined for Kodiak and prayed that this time we would be able to land. We were getting worried about all of the flights Jack was having to take even though he was being quite a trooper and not giving us any trouble. Our prayers were answered this time. Forty minutes into our flight, we started descending. When I'm on planes, I always prepare myself for that part where you go through a cloud layer and it's a little bit turbulent. I don't necessarily like the bumping around but I do like the part where you break out of it and see the land below you and you know you are almost there. It's a brilliant moment. Our plane started down through the cloud layer. When we broke through I scanned the earth below. No land in sight, just more clouds. We kept descending and entered into another cloud layer. A minute later when we broke through I stared out the window again. Still no land. All I could see was another layer of clouds to descend into. When we broke through the third layer I peaked out the window again, afraid of what I'd see. This time, it was beautiful islands and inlets and mountains. We were finally landing.
I have flown many, many times and I have never had to descend through more than one layer of clouds before landing. The experience taught me something very valuable (and depressing) about Kodiak. The clouds above my head that are dumping rain on me day after day may eventually run out of rain to dump. However, there is another layer right above it just waiting to lighten its load. And another layer above that one.
We have had less than 20 days of sunshine since we arrived here 106 days ago. People tell me we might have a nice summer. I really hope so.....I just hate that they say "might".  And because I'm being so negative about it, I'm going to force myself to list 5 things I love about the rain:
1. My "happiness in a cup" (Starbucks nonfat latte with sugar free cinnamon dolce syrup) tastes better when it is cold and rainy out.
2. I love sitting on the back deck with Joe and our Wall-E heater watching (and listening to) the rain fall on the lake.
3. I am especially exuberant on days when it doesn't rain and I wouldn't be that way if it didn't rain so much every other day.
4. My raincoat is a very pretty color.
5. Rainy days are perfect for curling up with Joe on the couch and watching "King of the Hill".

There. I feel better now. Oh, and I am currently (and always will be) taking donations of Starbucks cards to fund my "happiness in a cup" addiction. Thank you. :)