“With this tail wind no more than two hours,” Parker said. “We should be landing a little after ten. Your dad and the professor want to fly back to Juneau this afternoon.”
Sandy nodded. “From there we’re taking a commercial airline back to Seattle.”
Parker put the ship on automatic pilot and turned sideways in the seat. “Not driving back down the highway?”
“No. Professor Crowell decided the trip was too rugged in the winter. He’s leaving his dogs up here until spring. Anyway, Jerry and I have to get back to school, so we were planning to fly back in any case.”
Listening to the conversation with one ear, Jerry looked up from the book he was reading. “Hey, Sandy, back in Valley View the guys are just steeling themselves for a session with Miss Remson in English Four. Isn’t that great? And here we are three thousand miles away and two miles in the air. Think we’re safe from her?”
“Sure,” Sandy said. “And Miss Remson would probably be just as glad if you stayed that far away from her.”
Parker pointed out a range of mountains just visible on the northwest horizon. “Too bad you don’t have time to visit the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes.”
“That’s an interesting name. What is it?”
“Before Mount Katmai erupted in 1912 it was a fertile farm region. Then the whole top of the mountain blew off—two cubic miles of rock vaporized into thin air. One hundred miles away in Kodiak they had to shovel the dust and ashes off the roof tops.”
Sandy whistled. “That’s as bad as having an H-bomb drop in your back yard.”