I landed at LAX at 5:15AM on a Sunday, after some fitful dozing on the 5+ hour flight from Anchorage. The good news is that Uber got me home in record time — turns out there isn’t any traffic at that time anywhere in LA. So I was able to get horizontal in my own bed for the first time…
Category: Alaska
August 11: Last Day in the Last Frontier
They call Alaska the Last Frontier because of its distance from the lower 48 and its rugged landscape. I would add that driving hours and hours with rarely a stop sign or gas station also demonstrates just how very large and remote everything is. On our last day, we had planned to visit two well known restaurants in Homer, a…
August 10: Kachemak Bay
Another sunny day! Miracles! We headed down to the spit and a last minute reservation got us onto the Rainbow Connection, a wildlife touring boat over to Seldovia on the other side of the bay. We left the harbor at 10:30 and headed most directly towards Gull Island, a bit of rock in the bay that is a wildlife haven.…
August 9: Summit Lake to Homer
We said goodbye for a second time to Summit Lake Lodge and began the drive towards the southeastern tip of the Kenai Peninsula — the town of Homer. Known as the drinking town with a fishing problem, Homer is where big game fishermen head out to troll for halibut, but is then processed and flash frozen and sent home with…
August 8: More to see in Alaska
We pointed the rental car south aiming for the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center, which is near Portage, AK, and just before the start of the Kenai Peninsula. We had heard that this is where abandoned and abused and orphaned wildlife are cared for, often to live out their lives, so a visit to see up close some of what we…
August 7: The Alaska Railroad
We said goodbye to our guides at noon today, and the 10 hikers boarded the Alaska Railroad from Denali station to Anchorage. The line runs from Fairbanks to Seward, over 470 miles, and is the only year-round reliable transportation to the interior. It doesn’t travel fast, and there’s running commentary throughout about the history and wildlife and scenery and the…
August 6: Triple Lakes Trail
Another rainy and chilly day was in store for us, but our intrepid group geared up and prepared for a 9.2 mile hike on the edge of Denali. As one guide has reminded us throughout: “there’s no such thing as bad weather, just bad gear and bad attitudes”. We were offered options throughout the day — to turn back, or…
August 5: A drive through Denali
Early call today — breakfast at 6AM! The plan — a bus tour Denali National Park and Preserve — which are timed and fill up quickly. The park entrance is about 30 minutes away, so we joined the many visitors and waited for our converted school bus to load up. Destination: the Eielson Visitor Center, 66 miles in on the…
August 4: Denali State Park
We left our beautiful accommodation after a lovely and filling breakfast and headed north to Denali State Park. Adjacent to the National Park, a 325,240-acre state park located in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough adjacent to the east side of Denali National Park and Preserve. The trailhead was about an hour away, and once there we geared up and headed up the Little…
August 3: Seward to Talkeetna
The skies started cloudy and chilly and rainy in the Kenai Peninsula, but we were headed north, and due to spend a fair amount of the day in the van so it didn’t much matter. We gathered at 7:30AM, stopped for coffee (good coffee for those who cared), at a cute spot in town before pointing the van north and…