Thanksgiving travelers spent the day Tuesday catching flights in Anchorage, Alaska, and Honolulu to destinations as remote as the Alaska village of Pitkas Point and as far away as Saipan.
Some were cashing in on holiday deals on hotel rooms in Las Vegas or in the case of one Anchorage family, escaping to golf courses in Hawaii.
Here’s a sampling of travel tales from the largest airports in Alaska and Hawaii:
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IN ANCHORAGE:
Ruth Riley was sitting at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport, waiting for her flight home to the tiny western Alaska village of Pitkas Point, a Yup’ik Eskimo community of about 100 people. She had been attending a meeting of shareholders of Calista Corp., the Alaska Native corporation for her region.
For Thanksgiving, she and her husband are splurging on a turkey in the village, where a 10-pound bird runs in the $40 range. They will also enjoy traditional Native foods such as dried chum salmon strips and her version of akutaq, or Eskimo ice cream, with her ingredients including a concoction of shortening mixed with sugar, berries and mild whitefish.
A family reunion with her daughters will have to wait until Christmas, when she and her husband go to the hub town of Bethel 100 miles to the south.
“Since my husband is a dog musher,” she said. “He didn’t want to leave his dogs.”
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Larson and Alice Hunter and their two young children were in Anchorage, heading home to the Yup’ik village of Scammon Bay on Alaska’s western coast.
Larson, the city manager of the village, had been in Anchorage on business and his wife and children came along as a vacation treat. His work paid for his trip and he had enough airline points for the family because he travels a lot.
In Scammon Bay, the family will have two Thanksgiving feasts - first with Alice’s parents then with Larson’s mother. Along with turkey and the usual fixings, they will have akutaq. Larson’s mother also will prepare some other Native food, but they won’t know what until Thursday.
“Moose is typical,” Larson said.
“If we’re lucky, snow goose,” Alice said.
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Dennis Kline picked up his son Isaiah from the airport after the 14-year-old flew home from the southeast Alaska town of Sitka, where he attends Mount Edgecumbe boarding school. Kline, his wife and two children would return to the airport later for the flight to Hawaii, where they planned to hit the golf links.
To keep down the high cost of traveling, Kline, a retired Army colonel, and his wife plan ahead. They are both retired and can afford the luxury of fitting their schedules to the best flight deals while avoiding travel crunch days.
“The holiday rush in winter season seems to be a real tough time to travel,” Kline said. “There’s a lot of sometimes delays and weather and things.”
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Lexi Cherry and her father, Bryan, were sharing a cinnamon roll at the airport after her flight from Juneau, where she is a history major at the University of Alaska Southeast.
She had split the cost of the flight with her parents, who live in the Wasilla area north of Anchorage. Cherry said it’s her first Thanksgiving back home in a few years, and she’s looking forward to her mom’s whipped sweet potatoes and getting lots of sleep.
“Wait until you see the list of chores we have for you,” her father said.
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IN HONOLULU
Alfreda Camacho was hoping to get home to Saipan in time for Thanksgiving. She had attended a conference in American Samoa then visited family in Honolulu and was rearranging a suitcase to make room for Christmas presents she was taking home.
“I feel that it’s going to be a really full flight and … I got here about an hour and a half early than check-in time,” she said about her flight from Honolulu International Airport to Japan. After a layover, she would catch another flight to Saipan.
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Joel Akins and his girlfriend Alex Tingat were at the airport on a layover from Brisbane, Australia. They opted for a Las Vegas vacation because they found deals on accommodations during Thanksgiving. After flying to Los Angeles, they planned to take a bus to Vegas.
“We figure no one wants to go to Vegas on Thanksgiving,” said Tingat.
Hotel prices were cheaper, but flights were more expensive, Akins said, adding that he was bracing for travel to be more hectic once they got to Los Angeles.
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Justin Hornsby was seeing his wife, Mayumi Hornsby, off at the airport She was traveling to Japan to spend the holidays with her family. “I’m surprised it’s not more crowded,” he said after arriving several hours before her flight.
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Kelleher reported from Honolulu, and D’Oro reported from Anchorage, Alaska.
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