Alaska, Part 6: Denali National Park and Preserve and Fairbanks (July 21)

We made it to Fairbanks, our "final" destination, safe and sound. For some reason, I thought that we were spending the day tooling around Fairbanks, so I booked a late flight home: 9:05 p.m. Turns out that we were not spending the day tooling around Fairbanks. Mary and Sue booked their return flight for the morning and had to be at the airport around 10 a.m. I didn't have a car, so I thought I'd just go back to the airport when they went and read for 11 hours. (I have been known to read for 11 hours.)

But then I thought, "I don't really have to leave the motel at the same time, so why have three people trying to get showered and packed on a deadline when I can just hang out for a bit longer?" So I packed while they were showering and blow drying and whatnot, and then when they left, I showered and got a cab to the airport. This turned out to be a fortuitous decision.

Because the thing is, I wanted to see Denali. We "only" booked our trip a year and a half early, so we were too late to get any lodging at Denali, and that's why we booked the Wilderness Train. Unfortunately, it was cloudy and rainy, as you already know if you read the previous post. Weather is the tourist's greatest foe, especially in Alaska. And even if it isn't cloudy or rainy (which only happens an average of seven days in July), Denali makes its own weather. So seeing the peak is a crapshoot at best.

In the cab on my way to the airport, we somehow got on the topic of how you can see Denali from Fairbanks on a clear day. And despite the previous three days of overcast skies, this sky was not just blue. It wasn't turquoise or lapis. It was actually cerulean. (I mean, it would probably be more accurately described as azure, but that is not one of the colors Miranda Priestly chose in this scene from The Devil Wears Prada. After we watched this movie, Vic often described things as cerulean. He was so funny.) He suggested renting a car and told me where to go in Fairbanks to see the mountain.

But when I got to the rental car counter, the rental agent wanted me to go to a different spot. She wanted me to go to Denali. "Why would you stay here when you could drive down there?" I knew Denali was within driving distance from Fairbanks—about 2.5 hours—but I was nervous about being on the road by myself for five hours and having something happen to me and not making my plane. But she finally convinced me and told me where I should have lunch because this restaurant had a patio with a great view of the mountain.

So I plugged the restaurant name in my GPS and off I went.

About an hour and a half into the drive, I rounded a bend and saw this:

No, not the RV. The mountain! Here. Look closer:

I mean, I'm still 100 miles from the restaurant, and I'm seeing ... this. Now, I'm not gonna lie. I do not know what "this" is. I have never been to Alaska. I have never seen Denali. But whatever "this" is, it is jaw-droppingly stunning. I had tears in my eyes not only just looking at it but also thinking about how I almost didn't see this because I was worried I'd get a flat tire.

Still, I hoped it was Denali, so I took a picture. (FYI: I did plug this image into a Google image search, and Google did say this was a view of Denali from the George Parks Highway, which is where I was, so I'm just gonna say that it is Denali!) And all I could think was, "If it looks like this from here, what is it going to look like closer?!" So I hopped back in the car and kept going.

As I got closer to the restaurant, I was also getting closer to the park. I started doing the math. I left around 10:30 a.m. It's a five-hour round trip, so that gets me back into Fairbanks around 3:30 p.m. if I don't do anything but look at the mountain, turn around and go back, a la Chevy Chase at the Grand Canyon in Vacation. But I don't really have to be back at the airport until maybe 7 p.m., which gives me plenty of time to have a leisurely lunch. But why wouldn't I go into the park if I was so close? I need a picture of me at the sign—we always take pictures at the sign. And I need to go to the visitor center and get a map—we always get maps of the national parks we visit.

So I skipped the restaurant and went straight to the park—my actual final destination!

At the visitor center, I asked the ranger, "I don't have a reservation on the bus that goes into the park, and I don't have hiking boots, and I'm in a rental car. But I have two hours until I have to get back to Fairbanks. I know I can't drive into the park, but are there any roads outside the park you would recommend?" And she said, "Yes, there are a lot of them, but you can drive up to 15 miles into the park, and that's exactly what you're going to do today, because the mountain is out." She said this with great drama. Or maybe I heard it with great drama, I don't know. Anyway, I grabbed a sandwich from the food court and I drove into the park, just as she said, and this is what I got, exactly where the ranger said it would be. The mountain.

Denali

Then I took a bunch of selfies that sucked and ended up asking a complete stranger to take a picture of me in front of Denali, which she was more than happy to do because, as she said, she'd lived in Alaska for 20 years and had never seen Denali before because every time she had come to the park, it was socked in.

I stayed there looking at the mountain for quite a while, thinking about how much Vic would have loved it and the park. There may have been tears. (You know there were tears.)

Around 3, I realized that if I left right away, I could still ... uh ... get to the yarn store in Fairbanks before I had to get to the airport, so that's what I did. Bought some yarn, gassed up the ol' rental car and returned it, checked in and still had plenty of time to hit the gift shop and do some reading.

As we left Fairbanks, I took some pictures of some of the geological features in the Hayes Range as we flew over them—I liked these glaciers:

And then this happened:

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We will be flying right over Denali National Park and Preserve and should be able to get a fantastic view of Denali out the right side of the plane."

Arrrrrggggghhhhh! I AM ON THE LEFT SIDE OF THE PLANE!!!

But just as I think, "Surely, someone will let me lay across their lap to get a good view," this happened:

"And we've been cleared to do a little teardrop turn so that everyone on the left side will see it, too."

So I patiently waited, and I was not disappointed:

It's hard to see just how close it felt like we were at this point, as if I could have reached out and touched it if I'd been in a hot air balloon. A hot air balloon with supplemental oxygen so I didn't pass out.

Here we're just going around and getting a different view, and as you can see, the sky was cerulean.

Ditto

(Note: I told my flight attendant on my Anchorage–Denver leg about this, and she said, "Wow, you were really lucky! Not only is it particularly rare to see the mountain [I can't tell you how many times I heard this in the 24 hours before I left for home], but they don't always get clearance to do the teardrop turn." Lucky indeed.)

I got one final Alaskan sunset as we took off from Anchorage around 1:45 a.m.:

It really was a beautiful trip.

Bella was particularly excited to see me when I got back:

After having been up for more than 24 hours, I went home and promptly crashed! I slept for about 12 hours, and Miss Bella was right next to me when I woke up. She even "let" me take this selfie of us!

That afternoon, I pulled out all the yarn I bought. Maybe I overdid it. I'm not sure.

One last thing, which I think is a funny story. You be the judge. I have a driving app on my phone. If I drive safely (it keeps track of my speed, how often I brake too hard and whether I swipe while driving), I get a discount on my car insurance. It is supposed to know whether you're the driver or a passenger, and usually it's pretty good about it. But not always, so I like to check it every few days (it only keeps five days of driving in the app). I checked it on the Tuesday after I got back to see how well I did on that last day in Alaska and the Saturday I got home. I saw the screen below. Notice how it shows "Not A Car." I thought, "That's weird, because I totally drove to Denali." But then I looked closer at the route—from Fairbanks to Anchorage. That's when I realized what it was—it had recorded my flight from Fairbanks to Anchorage, complete with that teardrop turn. I took a lot of flights in those three weeks, and not a single one registered on my app. Except this one. I just think my driving app really wanted me to remember this trip.

 And I always will.

Thanks for coming along on my Alaskan vacation!

Alaska, Part 5: Sitka, Anchorage and the Wilderness Train (July 18–20)

Here we reach the end of our voyage—but not the end of our trip.

We spent a delightful day in Sitka at the end of our voyage, even if it did mark the beginning of three days of cloudy, misty, rainy weather. Sitka is kind of a cross between a mountain town and a funky city like Portland. It had fish bike racks all through town:

This is the view from the library:

As you can see, it's really green because it's the middle of summer and because it rains a lot. But that means there are also a lot of flowers, which I love. These peonies were everywhere:

Among the most popular attractions in Sitka (besides Sweet Sisters Caramels) is St. Michael's Cathedral. You'll have to imagine what it looks like outside because my photographer was not with me and I didn't think to take a picture from the outside. But I took a lot of the inside, and this is my favorite:

And what would an Alaska city be without a totem pole?

As we were walking through town (yes, I went to a yarn store in Sitka—do you wanna make something of it?), I saw a stuffed bear outside of a pharmacy, and the first thing I thought of was how Vic would make me pose with this bear, so I had Mary take that picture:

Vintage Victor R. Love pose

After Sitka, it was off to Anchorage. We arrived there in the morning, but our train to Fairbanks didn't leave until the next day. One of our guides on the ship, Christina, said we should visit the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center in Anchorage, so that's exactly what we did with our extra day! We drove down the Seward Highway, through the Chugach National Forest, with the Turnagin Arm on the right side. This drive, even through the misty rain and with cloudy skies, was breathtaking. I couldn't stop staring at how beautiful it was. This is just one of the gorgeous pictures I took:

The wildlife center was fun but, again, rainy and cold. Still, I saw moose, elk, musk ox, reindeer and regular deer. Also a bear, but I only took videos of her, so no pictures below.

 The next day, it was off to Fairbanks via the Wilderness Train!

We were sitting in the domed area at the top, but where you see windows in the white section of the picture above, that's the dining area. Delicious food, generous portions. 😀 Anyway, this is us in the dome car:

It was cloudy and rainy almost the whole way, but the sun did show itself at the end of the day. I took lots of scenic pictures of the trees and mountains around us and spent a fair amount of time standing on the platform between the cars breathing in that cool Alaska air which made my lingering hacking cough go away for short periods of time.

See those little white specks on the water? Swans.

It was a no-stress way to get to our final(?) stop: Fairbanks.

Alaska, Part 4: Tebenkof Bay – Whales! Plus Petersburg, Tracy Arm-Fords Terror Wilderness and Kake (July 14–17)

The next day, we went out to Tebenkof Bay in the Kuiu Island Wilderness Area in our Zodiac boats. (A lot of people have asked me, "What's a Zodiac boat?" So here is a picture of two of our guides in a Zodiac boat. A couple of pictures of me in a Zodiac boat come later in this post, but this shows you more of what it looks like from the side.

The only thing I wanted to see in Tebenkof Bay was otters. I love otters. (Who doesn't love otters?) They are so stinkin' cute! So we're driving around in our Zodiac boat (which is to say that one of our guides, Nate, was driving us around in our Zodiac boat), and we see some fish, and we see some birds, and we see lots of water, but no otters. I was promised otters. If I don't see otters, it's going to be a complete disaster of a day.

So we round the corner, and Jeremy (ship's photographer who promised me otters) says, "Patty! Otters!" So I get my binocs out. Sure enough, otters! I mean, really super far away otters, but I can see ... I don't know, the vague outline of a head? Even though I know I'm not going to get anything good, I get my phone out. Snap a few shots. They are terrible. So I get my real camera out, zoom in. But before I can get anything good, we start pulling away. I'm all, what in actual heck??? And I mean, we're really cruising. I'm starting on a pretty good Patty Pout™ when I see it.

A breaching humpback whale.

Now I have a Sophie's choice. If I want to get any good pictures of the whale, I have to use my real camera. But if I want to get any good videos of the whale, I have to use my phone. This is because [insert an explanation here that I understand but can't fully explain without putting you to sleep]. And I really can't have both out, because I don't know how long it's going to last, and I don't want to be going back and forth, so I decide that this is an action shot. It requires a video.

Little did I know that this whale would breach over and over and over. I took 9 videos, but we lost count after 9 breaches. 25! So here are a couple of videos, and then I have a couple of stills that Jeremy took. Along with a Jeremy otter.

Jeremy whale

Also Jeremy whale

Jeremy otter

The day ended with this gorgeous sunset. (Note: The sunsets were simply stunning. I could have put in a hundred sunset pictures.)

We then woke up to this scene:

We are now in Petersburg. Petersburg was a charming little town. The main industry is fishing, and the people who live there tend to stay around. The highlight was at the Sons of Norway hall, where a group of young people (ages 11ish to 16ish) performed some folk dances for us. This is the hem of one of the dresses, which the girls make themselves, with embroidery representing the local flora.

On the way back to the ship, we saw another beautiful vista as well as my third seal sighting!

Back on the ship, we had a lovely dinner (I should say that all of our food on the ship was yummy. I've never had such delicious salmon, which we took on board, freshly caught, every few days.) and went back to our room to read. This was a very common occurrence.

Despite the fact that we were in Alaska and on a cruise, we had the door to our veranda open almost all the time, letting in that crisp, fresh Alaskan air. Well, this night, we heard these pfuussssshhhh-ing sounds, and lo and behold, thar be whales! We were cruising right through a pod of humpback whales blowing out of their blowhole and making that very distinctive sound! I would go out on the veranda and take some pix and videos, and then when it looked like they were gone, I would go back in. Then we would hear another pfuussshhh, and there would be more whales. I must have gone in and out of the room a hundred times in the hour and a half that we spent with the whales. With our cabin only a short distance above the water and the whales swimming fairly close, it was a groovy show.

This day was also punctuated with a fabulous sunset:

At this point, I should tell you about the crud. A few days into the cruise, COVID-19 made an unwelcome appearance. The passengers who had tested positive were quarantined, and that must have sucked balls. Fortunately, we didn't get COVID, but that didn't spare us from illness. A few days into the cruise, Sue caught a nasty cold. She spent a day in bed and a couple of days doing fewer activities, and then she was fine. A few days after Sue's worst day, Mary got the bug. She did the same thing—spent a day in bed and a couple of days doing less.

The day we got to the Tracy Arm-Fords Terror Wilderness Area, it was my turn. But it was glacier day, and I 100% was not letting some stupid cold get me down, so I bundled up in my coat that my stepson bought for me and my hat that my stepdaughter made for me and went. to. the. glacier.

We passed by waterfalls and brilliant blue icebergs ...

Look closely—those little black specks at the bottom of the iceberg are ... SEALS!

... before getting to Dawes Glacier. Let me tell you something. Glaciers are cold. C-O-L-D. Here's how it was described to me by our guide Emily: As wind and weather meet the cold air of the glacier, the surrounding air becomes increasingly chilled. Because colder air is denser than warmer air, it floats down to the surface of the water. So although it was a relatively warm day, by the time we got to the glacier, it was only 35 degrees. Brr!

This is Dawes Glacier. Let me give you some perspective: It is 600 feet tall (the size of a 60-story building) and a half-mile wide. You can't even begin to imagine what this thing looks like close up.

Here's me in front of the glacier, doing the traditional "point at the thing you're looking at" pose from Crocodile Dundee. Emily took the picture, and she wasn't even alive when that movie came out, so I'm sure she thought I was just a complete idiot. 

Fortunately, the ship sent out a hot chocolate/hot rum boat! This is the view of the Zodiac boat I promised earlier. I'm in the back row, second from the left, freezing my ass off and being sick as a dog.

Jeremy got some great video of the glacier calving, but I did not, so you'll have to take my word for it. There's nothing like the crack of ice breaking off a glacier and the whoosh of the glacier falling into the water. It was fantastic.

The next day was Kake. Did I mention I was sick as a dog? So this is the only view I got of Kake. I woke up, snapped this shot, and didn't leave the ship for the rest of the day.

See you in Sitka!