Cerebral Gibberish

8/12/2007 – 8/13/2007: Sunday – Monday (Better late then never)
Even though we could sleep in today, since we finished all the work we needed to do while at Adak, I still got up around 8:30am for some reason. I took another cold shower since the hot water heater decided to stop working again over night and then cooked up some breakfast. We had issues accessing the Internet last night but this morning it was back so I checked my email and sort through the pictures I took yesterday. We were suppose to get a phone call from one of the Adak guys in the morning so we could go do some fishing but when it got to be around 10am Chris and I started to get cabin fever so we walked over to Justin and Terry’s place to see what they were up to and maybe borrow the truck again. It turns out they were also waiting to hear from Mike about the fishing but no one knew his phone number so we all decided to go out and explore more of the country side and abandoned buildings.

The first place we stopped was the old police station / police dog kennel. The office side of the building look like the other building we wondered though in that with some cleanup you would have a fully furnished and most likely functional office space. Granted the computers and the xerox machine are a little outdated. In the back offices we found the evidence log as well as the vault, which was open, that the evidence was stored in. There were a few smaller safes which stored ammo and other stuff which were left open as well. Boxes of shotgun shells where dumped out on the desks but I would not want to try and and use them since they looked weathered and rusty. On the kennel side of the building was another office with yet another open safe. There were several gas masks laying around in the room. The kennels themselves where not all that exciting.

From the police station we headed out into the country where we explored a few old WWII army barracks which were camouflaged in the landscape by being buried into the side of hills. Following the back roads some more we eventually found ourselves on top of a mountain or at least a really high hill where there was a small antenna array which turned out to be hooked up with some seismic sensors in these small huts with solar cells on them. I’m not sure how much use the solar cells are on Adak since I have not seen the sun yet while I’ve been here. From there we kept following this one road where we did pass by some hunters going the other ways most likely looking for some caribou. We saw the Alaska Airline’s radar array up on one hill and then two fairly large antenna arrays which Justin said looked like a small Elephant Cage Antenna. The road we were on eventually lead to a set of buildings that Chris and I went though yesterday but Justin and Terry have not been in so we went in again and this time I had my flashlight with me also.

We then headed back toward town where we stopped by a old warehouse type building that was missing one of its walls. There was a large bald eagle in the rafters that flew off when we entered the warehouse. There was a second floor to the warehouse but all the stairs up have been knocked down. Justin said someone must have done that recently since he was up there the last time he was on the island. On one of the walls in the warehouse someone spray painted “Keep Out Gary” on the well. I guess they knew I was coming. hehe.

The last set of buildings we explored were surrounded by two barbed wire fences so you know something good must have been going on in there. It would seem this was a big communications center which housed several data center rooms. Of course the military did not leave any of their good hardware behind. It looks like the people that worked in these building pulled long hours or something since there was a full gym and basketball court in a connecting building. The wood floor of this basketball court was in a lot better shape then the court in the old high school.

After exploring, Justin and Terry dropped Chris and I back off at our house so we could cook up some lunch and finish packing for the flight home. Terry called us a few hours later letting us know that they were going to drop their luggage off at the airport and were going to come back by to pickup our stuff to take to the airport. When Terry arrived he had some bad news. The flight was running about an hour behind and of course our layover connection in Anchorage was only 30 mins if the flight was on time so it now looks like were are going to miss that connection.

After dropping our gear off at the airport we headed back to the Central Office to make use of the phones to see if we could setup a different connection back to Raleigh. After being on the phone with the airlines for 2 hours, they basically told us that since we have not missed the connection yet, they can’t do anything.

So begins ours journey back to Raleigh. The flight out of Adak was indeed late but once were were in the air the captain said we had a tail wind which would help make up some time but it was not enough. Once we landed in Anchorage we had 10 mins to try and make our connection. Chris and I made a run for it once we got off the plane but it was not going to help since we had to go to a different terminal which meet we had to go through security again, so we missed the connection. So back to the phones again to try and get on another flight. Luckily the Anchorage airport had free WiFi so Chris got on the phones and I started to look to see what our options were online.

It looked like the next flight out of Anchorage that would get us to Raleigh would be at 7am via Delta. By the way we are now into Day 9 of our Adak Adventure since we landed in Anchorage at 1:20am Monday. We eventually got everything worked out and made to to Raleigh by 11pm. It only took us 22 hours from the time we got on the plane in Adak to when we got back to Raleigh. Of course our luggage was missing in action due to the missed connection but it was good to be home and the luggage did show up the next day.

Well there you have it, my 9 day Alaska / Adak adventure.

Be sure to checkout my pictures from the trip here.