Alaska to Texas - Final Thoughts, and Souvenirs

We woke up the next morning feeling pretty rough. The hotel store had COVID tests and we bought a couple, and sure enough we both tested positive. 

The cruise portion of our trip wasn't scheduled to leave for a couple more days, so we contacted UnCruise and cancelled our cruise. We extended our hotel stay in Anchorage a few more days and stayed in the room (thank goodness for Uber Eats!). 

We flew Alaska Air back to Texas.  We had one stop in Seattle then straight through to San Antonio. It was a lot easier flying back to Texas than flying to Alaska. 

Final thoughts: 

Don’t go to Alaska in the middle of the summer!!!

It is the peak of tourist season and the towns and popular parks are packed. The weather is warm and it is pretty much daylight 24 hours.  

We had a wonderful group of people on our tour but it reminded us that we really like being able to go at our own pace.  We prefer to get up early and avoid the crowds. 

While UnCruise does an excellent job of creating a unique small-boat cruise experience which is much different than the larger cruise lines, their land tour package was pretty typical. 

This trip also reminded us that National Parks have become some of the worst places to find either solitude or nature. While the adjacent Denali State Park was delightful, Denali National Park was a zoo. 

Finally, we learned that Alaska in July 2022 was a great place to catch COVID. With tens of thousands of people arriving from all over the world, crowding into airports, buses, trains and restaurants, there was a lot of COVID being transmitted. We learned that 19 of 65 people on the cruise that we missed ended up with COVID. We've also talked to a couple of folks back in Texas with friends that went to Alaska and contracted COVID this summer either on cruises or land tours. 

Souvenirs:

We bought t-shirts when we kayaked.  I bought a hat because I only brought warm hats and I certainly didn’t need them!  The little pin in the shape of Alaska was given to everyone from Andrew (our driver).

We had tried this syrup made from birch.  It's good (not as good as maple syrup from Maine) but we enjoyed it.

I bought a few magnets:

On the train I bought this magnet:

People that see Denali are said to be in the 30% club.  Since we saw Denali several different days, we joked that we were in the 10% club.

I mistakenly bought 2 of these magnets! One just says Denali National Park but the image is the same.

I really liked this one. We saw everything on this magnet.

This little stuffed bear has magnets in his feet.

A very wiggly moose. I like the action type magnets.

It was a nice birthday trip even though it didn't turn out quite like we expected. Alaska is a beautiful state. 

We have a credit for the cruise portion of our trip, and we'll plan to take it early next year, in the off-season!!

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Alaska – Denali to Anchorage

After being in Denali for 3 days it was time to start back to Anchorage.  We woke up to a rainy day and it rained gently all day. Since we were going to be on the bus most of the day, it was really quite enjoyable to see the rain. 

We had a quick breakfast on our own then we were on the bus at 7:30. 

Shortly after setting out Andrew saw a couple of cars pulled over and knew that usually meant an animal of some sort. Sure enough, a moose was walking alongside the highway.  

We continued on to Palmer where we stopped for lunch. 

After lunch we had a couple of hours to walk around Palmer.  I don’t think there is really anything special about Palmer, it was just a good place to have lunch. 

Palmer is the 9^th largest city in Alaska (pop. 7,400).  The Alaska State Fair is held here and it’s about 40 miles from Anchorage.

We all had lunch together then walked down to the visitor center.  There were some beautiful gardens to walk through.  They had several displays about the enormous vegetables that are grown in Alaska during the summer. Twenty-plus hours of sunshine makes a difference! The rain had let up and it was very pleasant.

Click to enlarge.

We walked around the museum/visitor center for a while.

We were back on the bus by 2:00.  Since there were only 17 people on our trip, we each could have our own seat, if we wanted.

We were in Anchorage by 2:30 and drove straight to the Anchorage Native Heritage Center. 

We had a little time to walk around before the demonstration started.  There were some folks set up with tables with hand made items for sale.  There were very nice displays. 

A very talented group of young people entertained us. 

We got back to the hotel (Hilton) about 4:30. That is when the trouble started.  

Annie started handing out room keys and breakfast vouchers.  She discovered that she had given the wrong keys to a couple and while we were waiting for that couple to come back down to the lobby other people started coming back saying they didn’t have luggage in their room or they had someone else’s luggage, or it was a mixture of their luggage and someone else’s.

We didn’t have a room. Nor did we have any luggage.  When you travel with the kind of camera equipment we do, it is very worrisome when you are told that your luggage isn’t where it’s supposed to be.  We always have our binoculars and one camera and one or two lenses with us, but there is a whole suitcase full of other gear.

Annie soon figured out that her list of rooms was completely different from the list the front desk had given to the luggage handlers.  Besides us not having a room at all, another couple had two rooms.  We found the luggage handlers and they remembered our luggage and which room they had put them in. 

Annie eventually got everything straightened out, everyone met back up to walk to a restaurant for our final meal together.

We said goodbye to everyone and we were back in our room by 7:30 and ready to be finished with the day. We were feeling run-down and a little under the weather. We thought maybe it was from the smoky air that we'd been breathing. 

Next time:  The flight home, final thoughts, and souvenir magnets.

 

Alaska – Denali National Park

We were up early to pick up our sack lunch from the hotel restaurant (The Perky Moose).

The Denali Tour bus arrived at 6:30 a.m.  This was an older bus and not nearly as comfortable as the luxury bus we had been traveling in.

Besides our group there were also people on the bus from 3 other hotels.  It was packed.

It didn’t take long to get to the National Park.  After a certain point, only Denali buses are allowed on the roads in the park.  We stopped a few times to get off the bus. 

This tour ran 5 hours. Our week long trip was all inclusive but I believe the cost of this 5 hour tour was $128 each.  We had beautiful views throughout the day.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t a lot of wildlife to be seen. At the very beginning of the trip a moose came out on the road behind the bus. Unfortunately no one had figured out how to get the windows open yet, so this shot was taken through the dirty window. 

The driver/interpreter was from San Antonio, Texas and had been driving this tour for over 15 years. He was very knowledgeable and kept talking about what we might see here or what could be over there, but all in all the animals just weren't cooperating. 

We finally spotted a single Brown (Grizzly) Bear feeding on a slope. It was pretty far away but we'd gotten the windows open by now and I managed to get a few good shots. 

There was still snow in the mountains. 

The buses each have a certain time to arrive.  Even being picked up at 6:30 we were not the first group of buses to arrive.  We saw a couple of other buses before getting to the visitor center.

Everyone was given a snack box with this handy map of the park printed on the box. 

The bus could only get to a certain point and then had to turn around because of a landslide on the road. The landslide occurred in 2021 and the road will be closed through 2023 while it is rerouted. 

On the way out we saw the same bear in the same spot and took some additional pictures. 

After five hours and a lot of scenery (but few animals!), we arrived at the visitor center.  We could either stay on the bus and go back to our hotel or catch a later bus back to our hotel.

We decided to stay in the park.  Buses back to the hotels run every hour. 

It was a very warm day for sitting outside eating our sack lunch.

There is a working group of sled dogs used in the park and a demonstration was scheduled for 2:00.  We had a couple of hours to kill and watched two short movies while waiting.  They were well made. 

It looked like everyone still in the park was waiting on the bus to take us to the dog sled demonstration.

We were told the dogs were friendly and we could pet any of the dogs that came up to us.  

It was so hot, none of the dogs bothered getting up. 

Finally, the demonstration started.  The dogs were ready to go. 

They took off, out of sight, then came around the corner and a dog fight started.  The handlers rushed to pull the 2 dogs apart.  Those dogs were taken away and the remaining team trotted in front of us.  

It really wasn’t worth waiting 2 hours to watch.

Since everyone in the park was waiting for buses to return to their hotels, we had to wait in line for a little while. 

Dinner was on our own. We had each been given a $50 dinner voucher for the hotel restaurant, but between the two of us we barely broke $50 total. The waitress was really puzzled as to why we didn't want desserts or perhaps a bottle of wine to use the vouchers up, but we were full and ready to get back to the room. It had been a long day.

Next time: A stop in Palmer then back to Anchorage.

 

Alaska – Talkeetna to Denali National Park

Alaska is 570,374 square miles.  It’s the largest state in the country and is about one-fifth the size of the Lower 48 states.  It is about 2.5 times the size of Texas, but with only 2.5% of the population!

Today was going to be an odd day.  The only thing we had planned was the train ride to Denali.  We had breakfast on our own then walked around on the hotel trails for a little bit.

By far the most common wildflower throughout our trip was Fireweed, named because it is one of the first plants to come back after a fire. It starts blooming at the bottom of the stalk, and moves upward. We were told that when the top flowers open Alaskans know that summer is coming to an end.

Denali was showing again this morning.  

Denali

The back of the hotel has some nice sitting areas. 

The view from there is pretty awesome. 

Foraker, Hunter, Denali

There is a very nice map showing the different mountain ranges. 

Our luggage was picked up at 9:30 and we were on the bus by 9:50. We didn’t need to catch the train until 11:30 so we were dropped off in Talkeetna to shop and walk around.  I managed to pick up a few souvenirs.

We hopped on the bus for a very short ride to the Rail Depot.  This is the same train we took from Anchorage a couple of days ago.  On that day we were getting off the train at this time.

This time we were in the next to last car.  Still a double decker with great views. 

Lunch was served fairly soon after we started the trip.  Mark had a halibut wrap and I had a French dip sandwich.  The food was very good. 

With a five-hour ride, we had a few refreshments along the way.

Wild blueberry cream soda.

While we were on the train, Andrew – our driver, was driving the bus to Denali to pick us up.  

Our 2 days on the train took us from Anchorage

to Talkeetna then on to Denali.

The train stopped in Denali NP and we spent a little time taking pictures before getting on the bus and heading to our hotel. 

Andrew (our driver) and Annie (our guide)

As we neared the park, we noticed that the air was getting hazy, and were informed there was a smoke advisory.  We were told there were about 400 fires burning in Alaska.  Even with the closest fire being 40 miles away, the air was thick with smoke.

We got to our hotel about 5:00. 

Fortunately, we didn't notice many bugs.

Our room looked comfortable but without air conditioning or a fan. It was warm and smoky. Again, not the plan!!

Our room had a small balcony with a nice view but with the smoke, we didn’t spend any time on it. 

We were all back on the bus by 5:30 to head out for a group dinner.

If you have seen the movie Into the Wild, this is the bus from the movie.  We had not seen the movie but watched it after we got back home. 

We were back at the hotel by 8:00 pm and ready for a warm night.

Next time:  Back on the bus.  This time a different bus.