Bristol Palin
In the lower forty-eight, mothers complain of their kids taking long road trips that get them home late at night and complicate homework. But in Alaska, sports require long road trips and even airplane rides to remote locations hundreds of miles away. Instead of quick trips to nearby towns, our “away” games took us to faraway towns. While we lived in Wasilla, most of our trips were manageable and within a few hours. But travel for Juneau basketball was a lot more difficult.
Competition required taking “milk runs,” Alaskan Airline flights more like city buses than flights because they stop in every small town to let passengers off on the way to the destination. (The jets on the milk runs have large cargo areas sometimes loaded with Cordova salmon and other high-priced fish to take to Seattle.) We took about four basketball trips during the season, during which the whole team would fly into small towns like Sitka (in the southeast part of the state that faces the Gulf of Alaska) for a game. Instead of staying at the high school or at a hotel, however, the entire team would be “housed out” with local families willing to let us sleep in an extra bedroom or, all too frequently, their floor next to the couch. Even when my mom was governor, I’d travel to remote villages, go to complete strangers’ homes, and sleep on their floor. I think the only special treatment I got was once I was housed out at the house of the Ketchikan mayor, whose daughter played basketball. Most of the time, I was sleeping on whatever pull-out sofa or spare bed people had. Frequently, when people realized they were housing the governor’s daughter, they’d stick a business card in my hand and ask, “Hey, we love your mom. Can you give this to her? I’d love to work for her on …” Otherwise, I was just part of the team.
Now that I’m a “sports mom,” it’s a lot more convenient to be in the “Lower 48,” because no one travels like they do in Alaska.
I’m proud of Tripp!
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