friday 6.30.2006 (minneapolis to anchorage)

Posted in alaska on July 10th, 2006 by jenni | No Comments »
Tags: alaska, anchorage

[If you want to view the entire Flickr set from this trip, here's the link!]

Stephanie and I hopped on a plane to Anchorage at 5:15pm, after the longest day at work, ever. The flight was uneventful until we flew over Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. The mountains were incredible.

We arrived in Anchorage around 8:30pm, and got our rental car, which we promptly named Captain Morgan (we’d have named him Captain Cook in honor of Alaska, but we’d already used that name in Hawaii). We found our hotel and checked in at 9:30, then followed the front desk lady’s directions to the Glacier Brewhouse. We were dazed by the time we got a table, due to the time difference; it was after 1am for us. I had a peach mojito and medium veggie pizza, both of which were excellent.

We got back to the hotel at midnight, and it was still light out. That didn’t impede our sleep much, though; we were exhausted.

saturday 7.1.2006 (anchorage to denali)

Posted in alaska on July 10th, 2006 by jenni | No Comments »
Tags: alaska, alaska railroad, anchorage, denali, journey, mountains, national parks, talkeetna

We awoke at 5:30am (which happily felt like sleeping in), and checked out of the hotel. We got us some Starbucks downtown, then stopped at a supermarket for the supplies we felt might be hard to come by in Denali. They were playing Don’t Stop Believin’ over the loudspeaker, just for me. I also stocked up on decongestants, because I’d stopped being able to breathe since we’d gotten to Alaska.

We were well up the Parks highway by 8:30am, passing through the few suburbs of Anchorage, and then out into what felt like the middle of nowhere. It looked kind of like northern Wisconsin for a while; pine trees, cabins, and the occasional tavern. We stopped at Montana Creek to look around and climb under the railroad trestle, then headed to Talkeetna, a little town about 15 miles off the highway. It’s reportedly the model for the town in the show “Northern Exposure”.

talkeetna mermoose

Talkeetna is ridiculously cute. It’s all outfitters, gift shops, a famous old general store, and restaurants. Everyone is friendly. We wandered around a bunch of artsy little shops, stopped to talk to Stubbs the cat, the mayor and mascot of Talkeetna (as one of the locals informed us), and walked up to see the depot where the Alaska Railroad pulls up along the Susitna River.

this tiny airport is where almost all Mount McKinley/Denali climbing expeditions begin.

stubbs!

We had lunch out on the patio at the West Rib Pub, then wandered around the town some more.

We went back out to the Parks highway and continued towards Denali. We stopped at a few overlooks in Denali State Park, where we encountered our first bear warning signs, and got our first (very limited) view of Denali.

in denali state park

my obligatory sideview photo

We reached Denali National Park around 6:30pm, and drove up to our hotel, located in the little community across the highway from the park entrance, which doesn’t even have a name; directions are given based on the mile marker on the Parks Highway.

The Denalis Crow’s Nest was spectacular. It’s a bunch of cute little cabins lining the side of Sugarloaf Mountain. Ours was on the fourth tier at the far end, with a great view of Mount Healy and the park entrance. It was set up like a rustic hotel room inside, and had a couple of chairs and little table out front on the deck. We couldn’t have picked a better place to stay.

the denali party cabin (ours is the last on the left)

We unpacked and went downstairs to the Overlook Bar and Grill for dinner. We sat on the patio drinking girly drinks from milk bottles and staring at the park. It was kind of hard to believe we were actually there. After dinner, we went up and sat on the patio, reading. We had trouble deciding when to go to bed, because the sunset never actually happened.

wednesday 7.5.2006 (denali to the kenai peninsula)

Posted in alaska on July 10th, 2006 by jenni | No Comments »
Tags: alaska, anchorage, denali, kenai peninsula, national parks, seward

We got up, checked out of our awesome party cabin, and headed back south. We saw a moose crossing the highway with two babies along the way. Traffic sucked in Wasilla, so we got to Anchorage around 1pm.

the igloo

We stopped for food and a memory card for my camera (apparently Denali is photoworthy?), then continued toward the Kenai Peninsula around two.

leaving anchorage: turnagain arm

The highway takes you along Turnagain Arm, part of Cook Inlet, then heads south. The landscape changes quickly; it’s all bridges and streams, and mountains covered in pine trees. The rivers were turquoise, and reminded me of Montana.

canyon creek

kenai lake

sideview: kenai peninsula

It also became very clear and sunny for the first time since we’d gotten to Alaska! We stopped a few times along the way to look at lakes and mountains, then reached Seward and checked into our hotel around 4pm.

small boat harbor, seward

One of the very awesome things about Seward is that everything is walking distance. We went down to the harbor and wandered in and out of the shops.

tsunami!

There were a bunch of fisherman on the docks, butchering fish. As they removed the heads and innards, they’d drop them through a hole in the pier into a waiting barge. The barge would take them out into Resurrection Bay and dump the guts; it was pretty much the seagulls’ best day ever.

The only way I could even stand being around the shark heads was by looking at them through the viewfinder. Shudder.

a barge full of fish heads and guts

seward harbor

We went all the way out onto the breakwater, then decided to head into the cute little downtown. I loved Seward immediately.

downtown seward

puffin!

As we wandered, my head began to hurt worse and worse. I realized that I was extremely dehydrated, so we stopped into an ice cream shop for water. We decided to go back to the hotel and drive to the store for food, because neither of us felt like dining in another restaurant that night. We got monstrous salads at the Safeway, and had dinner on our beds at 9pm. I was asleep by 10.

memorial to the kid who created the state flag.

saturday 7.8.2006 (seward to anchorage)

Posted in alaska on July 10th, 2006 by jenni | No Comments »
Tags: alaska, alaska railroad, anchorage, kenai peninsula, seward

Saturday morning, there were brand new cruise ships in the harbor. Sadly, we checked out and headed back up the Kenai Peninsula. We decided to take a short side-trip to see Hope. We liked the name.

hope

Hope was a ridiculously cute little town, and from the looks of it, completely deserted. That wasn’t true, exactly, it just had the feel of a ghost town. Everything was closed, and the only movement was around one trailer down by the waterfront. There was obviously a lot of regular camping there, because there were weird piles of abandoned stuff around campfires. Like this engine, for example.

I was on the verge of peeing my pants, nothing was open, and it was far too light out to go outside. Instead, I visited the most terrifying handicapped port-a-potty in the universe. I’m still scarred.

Near Turnagain Arm, we encountered a lot of traffic for Alaska. We didn’t really mind, considering the scenery. We slowly made our way into Anchorage, and had lunch before checking back into the same hotel as before. This time, there were cops in the lobby, evicting a guy who’d apparently made himself too-much-at-home.

We headed downtown to wander and shop. It was gorgeous outside, warm enough that we didn’t even need to wear jackets. I bought about 50 hoodies (or so it seemed), and a bunch of stuff for the friends back home. We headed down to the Saturday Market (I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before, but I have a deep, burning love for open-air markets in other cities), and wandered around the booths. I discovered the ak starfish company and swooned.

Once I was done buying half of Anchorage, we got in the car and headed to Earthquake Park, near the airport.

anchorage from across cook inlet

The park had an impressive memorial and intepretive site dedicated to the 1964 earthquake, and great views of Anchorage from across Cook Inlet (we were told that on a clear day, it’s even possible to see Denali from that point). We walked a mile or so down the hiking path, then decided to go see more of Anchorage.

We went to a pizza place for dinner, then to see the Captain Cook monument. I liked him because he’d been our first rental car’s namesake in Hawaii. Also, I like seamen.

captain cook monument

We parked down near the Alaska Railroad station and walked to a bridge over Ship Creek to watch the salmon fishermen. Coming from a decent-sized city, it was kind of scary to think that people would eat fish that were in a city river. Then again, they were coming right out of Cook Inlet.

salmon fishermen at ship creek

Also, I learned the five types of salmon, and how to remember their names, but i won’t tell you the trick: pink, silver, king (chinook), sockeye (red), chum (dog).

A train was arriving as we walked back, so we went down to see it. Half the cars were owned by Holland America. There’s something so amazing about the trains there. I really want to do that next time, and maybe stop along the tracks and see if I can hail one. Yeah!

We went back to the hotel to pack for the flight and chill before leaving Alaska. We may have had a little party involving our leftover booze from the 4th of July. I discovered mushrooms growing in the bathroom, and didn’t really mind at all. We went to bed around midnight, and it actually looked a little like the sun might set for once.

sunday 7.9.2006 (anchorage to minneapolis)

Posted in alaska on July 10th, 2006 by jenni | No Comments »
Tags: alaska, anchorage

We got up at 9, stomped on our suitcases to close them, and said bye to the mushrooms in the bathroom.

I think I saw them waving back!