North to Alaska (with Milepost detail)

I have been to 49 states, everywhere but Alaska. Jerome had planned to visit Alaska in the 1990's, but never had there been either. Monica, Jerome and I are excited about our upcoming adventure.

We get up early on Tuesday and take the Park and Fly to the airport. This involves parking in Ramp C, downtown Minneapolis, then taking the rail to the airport. It is fortunate that we allowed time, as Jerome did not appreciate the long walks that were included between ramp, station and check in.

Our flight path goes over Juneau and above the clouds. We view snowy Mt. McKinley out of the window, as it is also above the clouds. We imagine this is the best view we will get. The bay looks like it might have ice on it, too, but this is sand. We must be arriving at low tide.

We pick up brochures at the airport visitor center, then take a taxi to pick up the rental car, as there are high taxes for renting at the airport. We drive to Sarah Palin's favorite place, the Wasilla Walmart, to stock up on snacks and a $13 pair of binoculars. The Dog Musher's museum, our first Roadside America attraction turns out to be closed, so we continue toward Denali, stopping for ice cream and pictures along the way. Our Healy motel, which has a railcar theme, turns out to be well suited for us. Monica and I walk up the hill and find a golf course/country club with taxidermy on the wall. (We see a lot of moose heads on the trip.) We try out the fresh salmon.

There is no food served in Denali Park, so I bring a styrofoam cooler on our 6:15 Wednesday bus ride to Wonder Lake. Beth, the driver, tells us that wildlife sightings are hit-and-miss. It is a rainy day, so visibility may be limited. Within 15 minutes, we pull over for a moose on the road, then see three moose right there, including a mother and foal, before they scurry into the brush. About an hour later, we see a mother bear and cub on the side of the hill. We are to yell "stop" if anyone on the bus sees anything. I am the first to yell stop. It is a false alarm as I notice a brown-bear-colored-bush not far beyond our sighting of the actual bears. But, we do find more bears attacking berries. The bus stops for five bears on the trip. I see one or two more and some see three more. Monica is taking great pictures. I am happy to have binoculars. At Wonder Lake, loons serenade us in the sunshiney-rain, and we eat berries off the bush. I have difficulty spotting caribou at first, but we see a few herds of them. We also spot flocks of sheep. The second flock, I actually notice first. As our bus ride comes toward an end, at the same spot as before, we see the three moose a second time. I also notice them first, which makes me feel better about my false alarm. Then, we have a nice meal in Healy. I have meatloaf. Monica and Jerome have fish. We sleep before it is dark.

On Thursday, we have a long drive to Homer. Homer is not so far from Anchorage for birds, but as Alaska essentially has one road, it turns out to be a substantial distance. With the short summer nights, the sun wakes us early and we are always up around 6 am. So, we get an excellent start. Before noon, we are at Denali view and Monica is taking great pictures. It is rare to have a good view of Denali, as it is generally in the clouds. But, the sun is cooperating for us. At 1pm, we are in Anchorage, where we stop at the Lucky Wishbone. I order a "Mama chicken" and share most of my fries as the serving is large. There are photos of the owners on the wall, showing highlights of their fifty plus years of operation. George and Peggy Brown were national small business owners of the year. We see why as waitresses kiss the head of the elderly George Brown as he busses tables and fills glasses with ice. Peggy died in April per an article on the Internet-- http://articles.ktuu.com/2011-04-19/anchorage_29449447. We arrive in Homer at 7 pm, and confirm at the ferry office on Homer Spit. We have a picnic lunch in the car as Monica has had bad experiences with sea travel and wants something light. We souvenir shop. I park the car on the Spit. I should have dropped off Jerome and luggage at the ferry office instead of having everyone walk. Our ferry cabin is spacious, with two bunk beds, a sink, a bench, and a large window. We look at volcanoes, islands and birds on our overnight trek.

We arrive at Kodiak Island on Friday noon, where Mary, a tour operator meets us. I had planned to find a downtown hotel, but they seemed to be full. So, Mary sets us up some distance from the center of town in a vacation home owned by a man who gives fishing tours. Then, Mary drops us off back in town. We buy fresh sockeye salmon and smoked halibut, asparagus and potatoes. Kodiak Island was first settled by Russians, so we stop at the Baranov museum. There are nice visitor centers, as well. Our home-made meal is excellent. Then, Monica and I take a long walk across a bridge to the boat dock, where after some suspense, we find sea lions doing laps in the water. We also get a nice view of a camera-shy, cartoonish-colored Puffin. On a second trip to the grocery store, I find a Milepost Alaska travel guide-- http://themilepost.com/ , which gives detailed descriptions of every mile and every turnout (views, services) of every Alaska Road. Wonderful!!!

Mary meets us at 8 am Saturday for a bear tour. She tells us about the town and herself, then we drive the road south for more than an hour. We see salmon on some of the rivers, but no bears. Finally, at Olds River, we see trucks parked and a photographer shooting. A two year old cub pulls a filleted salmon out of the river. There are ten people watching from less than one hundred yards away, including us. Our tour ends at the Powder House restaurant, less than 1/2 mile from our vacation home. It is an authentic Japanese Restaurant, better and less expensive than any I found in Japan. Each of us orders a box lunch lunch special. This turns out to be Jerome's favorite restaurant of the trip. Mine, too. We nap and watch the water. The server at the restaurant turns out to live next to us, so we talk to him more about Kodiak Island and the sights. Whales swim by in the Spring. At 4:30, Mary picks us up and takes us downtown where we see the brewery and sample Sarah Pale Ale. We eat at Henry's then watch the water some more from a public gazebo. We get tired of that, then stop at the Best Western, where the elevator to the restaurant is out of commission. We call Mary and she drives us up the hill to the windmills where we find a panoramic view before meeting out boat at 10 pm. All of us are tired, so we sleep right away. It is a rockier trip than before, so Jerome feels sick during the night. Monica and I sleep well.

The boat docks at 10 am Sunday, then we revisit a gift shop where I buy a Homer, Alaska jacket. Then, we stop for a German Chocolate ice cream cone and internet service. We are going to go as far as we can today, with hopes of driving the Richardson Highway to Fairbanks with our remaining time. First, we want to see Exit Glacier. But, before that, we need lunch and we have already passed Soldotna and Sterling. The river view is filled with fisherman-- we learn later this is the final day of fishing season. A BBQ place is hopping, so we stop for some good food. A boy plays the house piano. He is exceptional. Then, what must be a cousin of Willie Murphy performs. Alaska is full of people who are larger than life. At 3:30, we find Exit Glacier. A Ranger walks with us halfway, and Monica and I walk the remaining 1/2 mile. Weirdly, flies are surrounding a couple from Montana. The travel guides say to bring layers, especially here, but for our whole trip, the weather has been warm. As I reach the glacier, I remove layers of fleece-wear that I could have left at home, as every day is in the 60's. We look for Beluga whales on our way north. Monica finds Bird Creek motel in the guide book, which turns out to be very nice. They even give us two breakfast items per person as we check in. The area reminds me of Pigeon Point, California, south of the bay.

I drive north Monday morning, with a short unplanned detour at Elmendorf Air Force base, as Anchorage has no bypass. Monica drives starting at Palmer and immediately spots a moose crossing the road. Then, we find Matanuska glacier, which is the largest glacier you can drive to. In Glennallen, we stop at the Caribou restaurant, with more heads mounted on the wall, and eat fried halibut. Milepost tells us about Sheep Mountain. We see our best view yet of Dall sheep just south of it. We stop and touch the Alaska pipeline at another Milepost recomendation. We look for Bison at another turnout, but they are not present today. At 5:30, we enter North Pole, AK, where Dot and her daughter tell us about Santa Claus' house and reindeer. Dot sometimes misspeaks (her daughter corrects her), but is filled with the spirit of Christmas. We do some North Pole shopping before driving to the Museum of the North on the Campus of UA- Fairbanks. The Room Where You Listen to Music is highly touted and thus a little disappointing, but this is an excellent museum with good art, nature and history displays. Blue Babe, a well preserved extinct steppe bison, is a world class display. It is late. We are tired. We have no reservations tonight. We stop at a Super 8 and eat Denny's take out.

Tuesday is our final full day. We drive south. We retrace the Denali Park gift shop. It is rainy and a little cooler. My layers might have come in handy had we taken the bus tour a second time. 100 miles further south at Mary's McKinley View restaurant, we eat lunch. Mary Carey lived there in a tent because she thought it had the best Denali view, then lobbied successfully for the highway. We find a museum with farm equipment just north of Wasilla, where I read wall displays about legendary pilots such as Noel Wein, who flew countless miles over a long life, and C.B. Eielson, who flew over the North Pole and over Antarctica during the same year in the 1920's, then died in 1929. Briefly, we stop at the Iditarod museum and at Mulcahy baseball stadium, where the deciding Mayors Cup game is rained out, so slices of pizza are given away. Royal Suites Travel Lodge gives us an inexpensive first floor suite, where we eat Japanese/Korean takeout and sleep comfortably.

Wednesday morning, I drop off Monica and Jerome at the airport and return the car. We put 2015 miles on the rental, most all of them with great views. Alaska, even the paved areas that we visit, is a wilderness park.

All of us thought Kodiak was a highlight, though it gets only 20000 to 30000 tourists per year. Mary was an excellent tour guide, though I would have reserved a downtown room and car had there been any available for a reasonable price on the internet. (Reasonable cars and lodging exist, but I was not persistent enough to find them.) I liked the ferry boat, though Monica and Jerome were apprehensive about it. One option would have been flying back from Homer to Anchorage, which is only a little more expensive than the ferry, but then we would have paid a drop off fee for the rental car. Ideally, I would visit Fairbanks and drive the Richardson Highway just after our Denali Park bus ride. This did not work logistically as the ferry to and from Homer is not available each day, and we did not need another day at Kodiak. It might have been possible to plan a better trip. To do so requires arranging the ferry trip prior to arranging the flights to and from Anchorage and prior to reserving the Denali Park bus ride. Though, we did a little back-tracking, I am not sure that any of these ideas would have made our trip any better. It seemed everything, weather included, worked out for us.

Monica's Photos