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!