Welcome! Day 17/18 (Aug
25/26) of North to Alaska
Although I was awoken at 1 AM I still awoke around six
as I normally do. We had discussed the night before that we (I) would like to
be on the road by 8:30. So I finished packing the car with everything I could.
So things had to wait for Cassie. She began to move around 7:15. Once I had the
car packed we went to the café which opened at 7 AM. Café had coffee and frozen
breakfast sandwiches. Cassie got her coffee and sausage and egg sandwich that
was enough for her. I had a diet coke and chocolate chip muffin. We were on the
road by 8:55. I considered this to be good. This was our coldest morning the
temp was around 28 degrees. It felt good. By the time we reached Fairbanks it
was in lower 40s.
We made it into Fairbanks around 10:00 and stopped for
gas. 3.919 per gallon. We got some
snacks and headed toward Denali. Seemed like we immediately began ascending into
the mountains. The scenery was breathtaking. It was a clear day. We saw many
snowcapped peaks but it was about one and one half hours before we saw Mount McKinley.
We stopped several times and finally got a couple of decent pictures. We learned
it is better viewed from the south.
We stopped in Denali for lunch and to explore the
various centers while we had our car. Next week when we return we will be
limited to where the shuttle wants to take us. Denali is not very big like most
towns in Alaska but it had a good bit of activity in the middle of the day. After
a few hours of looking we again headed south toward Anchorage. We did have two
long construction delays. It was after six when we finally arrived at our
hotel.
Anchorage is the largest town in Alaska with nearly
300,000 population. It has most major stores. Looks a lot different than in
1996 when I was last here. It seems not to fit with the rest of Alaska which is
made up of mostly small communities.
Monday we had planned it to be laundry day. After some
exercise in the exercise room and then some breakfast it was. We did four loads
of laundry and repacked our bags for the coming week as we depart tomorrow by
train south to Steward then to Fox Island. After a few other overnight stops, I
will write about them later as they happen we return to anchorage on 8/30 to
leave again on 8/31 returning to Denali then after a few days on to Fairbanks.
On 9/6 we again return to Anchorage. We can’t take everything on the train so
we packed for the south trip, the Denali trip and the Fairbanks trip. This was
tough on Cassie as she had to make some decisions as we are limited on how much
luggage we can take on each leg of our trip.
Later in the day after some sightseeing in Anchorage,
Cassie was able to talk with both the girls and some of the grandkids. I even
talked with a couple of the grandkids. All is well.
Stop north of Denali
Mount McKinley
Mount McKinley
Mount McKinley
South of Denali
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