|
The rest of our trip was almost equally as great as the first part. We're back in California now and recouping, since the last few days were very tiring, with the bus ride through Denali and the long drive back to Anchorage. That was expected, though - the last part of any trip is always hard on me because the playtime has to end.
Part of me wants to say that Fairbanks was a little depressing - I kind of had a feeling of "Is this all?" as we explored the town. However, I think it would be unfair to judge it on the basis of just what we saw within the city limits over the course of 24 hours - the charm of Fairbanks seems to be that it's a good hub for a lot of outdoor activities in the really far north. There were various Chena River activities that I wish we had made time for. We went to Creamer's Field but didn't see too many birds (duh, it's summer), and we went to Pioneer Park, which would have been more fun if we had kids. We were going to meet up with a friend from North Pole, but she totally flaked on us. That's not Fairbanks' fault.
The Parks Highway didn't strike me as nearly as scenic as the Richardson or Glenn Highways, but the section through the canyon near Denali is amazing, and our B&B in Healy was just far enough away from all of the tourist hoopla (up on Stampede Road) to feel very quiet and secluded. I'll admit we did get sucked into some of the tourist shops right outside Denali. What can I say, my wife likes exploring any gift shop she can find.
Denali National Park lived up to expectations, despite how long it took our bus to get to Toklat River and back (again, I was prepared for that ahead of time). We had some time to kill before the bus ride so we hiked to Horshoe Lake and back, which is an easy but beautiful hike. On the way back, we saw a moose where the road meets the train tracks - the only time we saw a wild animal while not in the safety of our car. The moose was across the road from us, and three road workers had stopped what they were doing to watch the moose, so I felt like there was some safety in numbers, but we quickly took pictures and went on our way back to the Visitor's Center. I think our total moose sighting count for this trip was about 8, including two in a watering hole just north of the Canyon in Healy.
Though we didn't see the mountain, I didn't think that was a big deal, because the rest of the park was so beautiful. (From what I understand, most people never get to see it.) From seeing Dall Sheep and caribou (one casually walking down the road directly in front of the bus, doing his best impression of an RV from the lower 48 by not pulling over to let us pass), to the expansive views at Polychrome pass, to the lonely feeling of how really far out there we were when we stood on the bank of the grey, silty Toklat River, I was awestruck for almost the entire time - except for the trip over Polycrhome Pass when I was terrified of looking down, and the last weary hour or two as we got back into the taiga and the views weren't as expansive any more. One experience I'll never forget was standing in the bright, warm sunshine at one of the rest stops and then getting pelted with hail out of nowhere. I've experienced rain on warm, sunny days in Hawaii several times, but in Alaska, I guess I didn't realize the weather could change so quickly. Really weird to have ice pellets falling all around you, and look straight up and still see the sun unobstructed.
The drive back to Anchorage was very tiring. That's partially because we didn't have time to stop and check out interesting places like Denali State Park or Talkeetna - we had to get up at 6:15 to make it back to the airport as it was. I would have planned a later flight out, but we wanted to spend the evening in Seattle with friends before returning to L.A. the next day. As it turned out, Alaska Airlines had to delay our flight an hour and a half, so we would have had time for one of those side trips after all, but of course we had no way of knowing this until we were already at the gate.
Did I mention that I really, really hate the Anchorage Airport? I mean, I hate LAX too, just because it's so big and noisy, and I hate flying in general, so I always feel a bit neurotic whenever I'm in an airport. But most airports in cities with less than a million people, I find to be much easier to deal with. Anchorage gave us problem after problem - and part of it may be Alaska Airlines' fault (putting my wife's bag on a later flight on the way up, miscounting the passaengers on our return flight and having to return to the gate once we were already en route to the runway - which made everyone feel real secure because we didn't know who that unaccounted person on board would turn out to be), but there were some things like a fire alarm going off in the terminal and nobody bothering to point out to us where to exit (everyone just stood around and looked clueless, because how do you exit an airport terminal quickly when it's such a long and difficult ordeal to get in there in the first place?), or a kamikaze shuttle driver who overstuffed his shuttle and gave me motion sickness on the way from car rental return back to the terminal, that I can't blame on the airline. I'm sure these sorts of things happen at LAX even more frequently, and at other airports, but Anchorage's airport has more or less scarred me for life. It doesn't mean I'll never return to Alaska... but maybe next time I'll take more time off and drive up.
All of you helped to make this the vacation of a lifetime. The only regrets I have are not making more time to visit places like Valdez, Homer, and Talkeetna, and arriving at Denali too late in the morning to catch the dogsled demonstration (my wife really wanted to see some sled dogs, but I didn't know she was interested in this until we got there). But no worries. I'm sure we'll be back eventually - probably later in life after we have kids, but Alaska will be seeing us again.
|
Welcome to City-Data.com forum! Make sure to register - it's free and very quick! You have to register before you can post and participate in our discussions with 400,000 other registered members. User profiles and some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your free account you will be able to customize many options, you will have the full access to over 14,000 posts/day about local topics and you will see fewer ads. Within the last few months our forum was cited in an article in 15 newspaper and in a story on AOL's homepage.
07-02-2007, 10:16 AM
my experiences in alaska
Linear Mode
