Day-by-day look at Alaska

Day 10, Aug. 11

 

• I visit bird banding

 

• Checked out of Wedgewood

 

• Drove from Fairbanks toward Glennallen

 

• Lunch at Rika’s Roadhouse

 

• Checked into Caribou Hotel

 

• Dinner in Glennallen at Caribou Cafe

 

• Lodging: Caribou Hotel

 

 

 Day 11, Aug. 12

•  Drove from Glennallen to visitor center of Wrangell-St.Elias

 

• Drove toward Anchorage

 

• Lunch in Chickaloon

 

• Dinner in Anchorage

 

• Souvenir shopping

 

 

 Day 12, Aug. 13

•  We depart Anchorage with nearly one-hour delay

 

• Scheduled for 12:45 a.m., didn’t fly until nearly 1:45 a.m.

 

• Missed 8:05 a.m. flight in SLC.  Got flight at about 11:30

 

• Arrived JWA about 12:15 p.m.

 

 

Lou’s Version (the details)

Day 1 — We fly to Anchorage

We got into Anchorage late. It was an easy flight (5 p.m. Delta from Orange County with plane change in Salt Lake City), no hassles. We picked up our rental car (a gray Subaru Forester with all-wheel drive).

The guy at Avis told us to make sure that the windshield didn’t have chips or cracks. It did. Seems that about one out of every ten cars — and half the trucks — in Alaska have cracked windshields. That’s because even the paved roads in Alaska have gravel on them because of constant road repairs. Gee, do you suppose minus 50-degree weather, winter frost heaves and summer thawing of permafrost due to global climate change have anything to do with that? We joked that people in Alaska who aren’t boat captains or bush pilots must work for the gravel industry, spreading new loads of it on the roads every day. The car rental places tell you to stay off gravel roads, but that’s impossible. They’re all gravel roads, even the paved ones.

We drove to Microtel Inn and Suites in Anchorage, arriving at around 1 a.m. We checked into our LOVELY room, which had wall-to-wall mirror at the head of the bed, kitchenette separating the bedroom from the living/dining room, view of mountains and a meadow of wildflowers right outside our room.

Day 2 — Anchorage