Alaska: Anchorage and going Home (Days 15-16)

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Day 15 (Sept 10): Exploring Anchorage
Day 16 (Sept 11): Going Home

Day 15: Breakfast at Gwennie's, Jacket Fiasco Amplified, Dinner at Wendy's

Breakfast at Gwennie's

With a weird day in store for us, we decided to have a filling breakfast at Gwennie's to start things out. We had to return our rental car at 10am, so we made it to Gwennie's at 8:30am for breakfast. It was, once again, delicious! Mark had the reindeer sausage with eggs and potatoes, and I went with a delicious omelet with ham, mushrooms, onions, tomatoes and avocado in it, which was served with potatoes as well.

Jacket Fiasco, continued

The day in general, as I said before, was just weird, and we spent a lot of it waiting around. In an effort to get Mark's lost jacket back, we ended up needing to wait in our hotel room until around 3pm for a call from the charter bus to let us know they were at the airport. We munched on snacks, but weren't really hungry for lunch. When it got to be 2:30pm, we were getting a little concerned, so we started walking the 2 miles to the airport to make sure we were waiting there when the bus arrived. Of course, it never did, and when we called the hotel to make sure it got on the bus (this would be our 3rd conversation about this stupid jacket), they finally told us that they had forgotten to send it with the charter bus, and it was, indeed, still at the hotel. What a headache!! We finally convinced them to send the jacket in the mail, but there was 4 hours of our vacation we wouldn't get back.

The Rest of the Evening

We ended up pretty tired from the whole fiasco with the jacket and crashed at the hotel for another hour or so before walking down to Wendy's to have some chili for dinner. I had been craving chili the last half of the trip, and sadly, it didn't squelch my hunger for it, as it wasn't nearly as good as my chili, but it was what it was. We watched TV the rest of the night and got to bed early.

We wish we had a little more time to enjoy the sights in Anchorage, but it is what it is. It's tough to get around town without a car, and quite frankly, we were pretty wiped out from our previous 15 days. We'll just have to explore the city more the next time we're there.

Day 16: Heading Home

We were luckily able to sleep in a bit on our last morning in Alaska, as our flight wasn't until 11am. We checked out and took the airport shuttle from our hotel around 9am and got everything checked and in order once we arrived.

It was a little sobering as shortly after we arrived, they announced a moment of silence for the 10 year anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, after which we watched some of the coverage from 10 years ago on the TVs while enjoying some breakfast at McDonald's.

We made it to our gate with an hour to spare and killed some time visiting with some guys from Minnesota heading back home after a big Alaskan hunting vacation. We all compared wildlife-sighting stories, and they told us about the big bull they got while they were up there. It was fun to reminisce about our trip with others who had also just experienced Alaska for the first (or second, or third) times while on our trip.

We had an excellent time on our Alaskan vacation and would love to go on a return trip at some point in the future. :) It helps when you have such a wonderful travel companion who tends to be on your same interest (and energy) level.

Alaska: Denali National Park to Anchorage (Day 14 - 9/9)

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Leaving Denali National Park
Coastal International Inn
The Jacket Fiasco
Exploring Anchorage
Romano's Italian Restaurant

Leaving Denali National Park

Our last morning in the Denali National Park area, we were up early to get things packed back up and checked out of the hotel around 10am. We stopped to pick up some breakfast before heading out of town, and Mark was so kind as to attempt to help a girl who had a horribly flat tire to no avail: She had to call in some buddies with better tools. It just goes to show how sweet my hubby is to be a thousand miles from home and STILL willing to try to help a damsel in distress :)

While he was helping her, I grabbed another Vanilla Chai Latte and a cinnamon roll from my favorite place:

After doing all he could, Mark finally settled on a Subway breakfast sandwich, and then we headed out on our long drive back to Anchorage for our final 2 days in Alaska.

It was a LONG drive that seemed even longer than the way out was, but after a couple short pit-stops, including lunch at McDonald's in Wasilla, we finally made it back to Anchorage and across town to find our hotel for the next 2 evenings: The Coastal International Inn.

Coastal International Inn

It was, as expected, pretty dumpy, but we weren't particular, and didn't want to spend a fortune, as the other hotels in the area were going for around $200/night! It also had an airport shuttle, and we had an early morning flight on the 11th and were dropping off our rental car on the 10th.

The Jacket Fiasco

When we were a good hour out of Denali National Park, we realized that I had put Mark's really nice Columbia jacket in the closet at the last hotel we were staying at. Of course, after freaking out about the idea of an additional 2 hours on the road, we finally found reception and called the hotel and made arrangements for the jacket to make its way on down to Anchorage on a charter bus coming from that location the next day. Or so we thought...but that's a story for Day 15 lol

Exploring Anchorage

After checking in and getting settled for the next couple days, we hopped in the car and headed downtown, as we were planning on going to dinner at the highly-recommended Glacier Brewhouse. It was CRAZY downtown, which we found out it was because they had this huge Taste of Mardi Gras event going on down there (which was $30pp, and by the time we got there, all the food vendors were already gone, so it made no sense), which was why it was so packed downtown.

We were starving at that point, it was almost 8pm, and finding parking was horrific down there, so Mark finally just dropped me off at the door so I could put our names in and went to find a parking spot further away. Unfortunately it was going to be a 90 MINUTE wait, so I called him back right away and told him to come pick me up and we would have to find something else.

Romano's Italian Restaurant

At that point, we were so hungry and tired of driving around, so we finally settled on Romano's Italian Restaurant, which wasn't downtown, nor was it one of the "widely acclaimed" restaurants in Anchorage, but the food was good, service was good, and food came quickly.

We split the Penne Primavera, which was delicious, and just enough to split without leftovers and feeling satisfied.

Alaska: Seward to Girdwood to Anchorage to Talkeetna (Day 9 - 9/4/11)

Overview

Girdwood
Alyeska Tram
Lunch at Glacier Express
Stop at Walmart in Anchorage
Arrive in Talkeetna
Check into Meandering Moose Lodge
Laundry and Vikings/FB with pizza

Leaving Seward

With another long, gloomy travel day ahead of us, we decided to sleep in and pack our things up before having a later breakfast in the lounge and checking out.

It wasn't too bad a drive to Girdwood, except for the weather being so dreary and drizzly outside, so we didn't have much of a view. We happened across a long bike relay race which went, from what we could tell, from Seward to Anchorage; what a day for that!

Girdwood

We planned to make a stop in Girdwood to take advantage of our BOGO tram ride to the top of mount Alyeska and have lunch there. We arrived right around lunch time, and the weather wasn't looking any better, but we decided to go anyway.

Alyeska Resort Tram Ride

There was a great view of the Alyeska resort from up here, but with it being so drizzly and gloomy, it's kinda jaded in the picture.

Glacier Express

When we got up to the top of the mountain, we were hungry, so we stopped in at Glacier Express for some lunch.

Mark had the chicken strips and fries while I had the battered halibut and fries.

We could have very easily split a meal up there and both been stuffed, but we didn't.

With the weather being so dreary, cold, windy and rainy, we didn't stick around long, but we did peruse the little bookstore before taking the tram and heading back down the mountain.

We made a short stop in Anchorage at the Walmart to stock up on more water, pop and snacks before heading back on the road for the drive to Talkeetna.

Talkeetna

We arrived in Talkeetna around 6pm and checked into Meandering Moose Lodge for the night.

Meandering Moose Lodge

The lodge was beautiful, but to get there you end up on miles of dirt roads and feel completely lost until you see the next road that the directions say is supposed to be there. It didn't seem as long the next day heading back into town, but it felt like we were driving forever!

We were pleasantly surprised with our suite in the upstairs of the lodge, which was enormous with a beautiful view, a huge master bathroom (complete with laundry facilities!), and some comfy chairs and TV, allowing us to feel a little more at home and relaxed.

The view out our window was beautiful, and I spent a lot of time just watching the golden leaves fall off the trees and blow gently to the ground there.

We planned on this evening being a pretty lazy one, including leftover pizza from Christo's Palace for dinner, a little catching up on Seward pictures on Facebook and Picasa, and watching Vikes pre-season game while doing laundry.

Fortunately, we had a washer and drier right in our beautiful suite, so we didn't have to cart loads up and down the stairs.

After feeling like sedentary bums, having been in the car all day and comfy chairs most of the evening, we decided to go for a walk to see if we could come across any wildlife shortly before sunset.

We came across these cool old broken down vehicles on our walk and decided we needed pictures with them lol


It started getting darker, and while we were anxious to see wildlife, we weren't anxious to have a big bear sneak up on us in the dark, so we started to head back to the lodge. We had heard some grunting earlier whenever we walked by this one particular site, so we knew something was in the woods, but we didn't want to encounter it when we couldn't see as well!

Just as we were beginning to think we were going to be completely out of luck as far as wildlife sightings go, we happened across a cow moose and her calf in the woods just right out by our lodge! Of course, it was getting too dark to get a decent picture of them, but Mark got some great video footage!

We hung out and checked them out for quite some time, then headed back to the lodge to finish up laundry and get some shut eye.

Alaska: From Home to Homer (Day 1 - 9/27/11)

With an early morning flight out of Minneapolis, we were up at 4:45am to get ready and be at the airport by shortly after 5:30am for our 7:40am flight.

The flight was pretty uneventful, just long. We played a little Canasta together, I finished reading Water for Elephants, and before we knew it, we were touching down in Anchorage. We made it to Anchorage at 10:20am local time (about 1:20pm MN time).

After gathering our luggage, we took a cab to the car rental place and picked up our car - a tiny little Ford Fiesta. We might have put up more of a fight, but the little thing gets great gas mileage and gas has been spendy!

We found some lunch at Gwennie's, which came highly recommended in the travel forums and books.

I had the reindeer sausage and eggs while Mark enjoyed the burger and fries. He immediately had food envy when our food arrived - the sausage was delicious!

After lunch, we took a tip from a travel forum I'd researched and stocked up on a few essentials at the local Walmart.

After our short Walmart stop, we began the long, albeit scenic drive to Homer: About 4 hours.

Mark did a great job of testing out our new video camera at our pit-stops.



The water in the rivers was this brilliant teal blue color, which was pretty awesome!

As we got further south, we started to see the changing scenery: No more mountains, and lots more trees! The trees were interesting. We're very used to large, bushy pine trees back home, but these were skinny/stickly looking ones.

Also, the weather began to clear, and the sunlight began to peek through!

Before we knew it, we finally arrived in Homer, greeted by this incredible view of Homer Spit and the surrounding area in Kachemak Bay.


Welcome to Homer!!