Oops, it took a little while (I’m a great procrastinator
when it come to writing), but the second week of our Alaska trip was a whole
different Alaska experience. This week
was more about wildlife, both up close and far away. When we disembarked the ship, we took a bus
from Seward to Anchorage. It was a
beautiful route up the Kenai Peninsula and the Turnagain Arm of the Cook
Inlet. We made one stop at a wildlife
conservation center where we could see some local animals up close. Then we went on to the Anchorage airport
where we picked up our rental car for the week.
We drove around Anchorage a little, out to Earthquake Park, an area on
the inlet that had been at the epicenter of the devastating 1964
earthquake. It is nicely wooded, but we
didn’t walk around for too long before the mosquitoes found us.
After spending the night in Anchorage, we headed up to
Denali. We got rained on hard for a
short while, but the rest of the drive was very nice. Although you are surrounded by mountains, the
drive is not mountainous, nor are you ever at a very high altitude. We stopped at a lookout to see Mount
McKinley, the highest mountain in North America, but it was mostly cloudy. The mountain has its own weather system that makes
it hard to see, in fact it is only visible about 30% of the time. At the end of the four or five hour drive, we
checked in to our motel just past the national park. The next day we went in Denali National
Park. Cars are only allowed 15 miles
into the park, so we took one of the busses that take you in farther. We did the seven hour tour that goes 53 miles
in. That may seem like a long time for a
little over 100 mile round trip, but that’s because you make frequent stops to
observe the wildlife along the way.
Although most of it is at a distance, it was really cool to see animals
in their natural habitat. We saw several
mama bears with their cubs, moose, elk, Dall sheep, and a big red fox that cut
right in front of the bus. The
binoculars we’d bought came in very handy, but it was on this part of the trip
that I wished I’d bought a camera with a longer telephoto lens. I usually don’t like the bulk of a big
camera, but I really couldn’t get the shots I wanted with a smaller one.
The next day we drove up to Fairbanks. There we went to an excellent auto museum
(Chuck’s hobby) that had many cars from the early days of automobile
development. It was one of the best car
museums we’ve been to. We also went to
Pioneer Park that had a nice mix of old buildings and museums. Other than that, Fairbanks isn’t exactly the
nicest city we’ve visited; kind of old and run down.
On our last day at Denali we went back into the park and
visited the sled dog kennels. They are
beautiful dogs that are used in winter for the park patrols. We also managed to join the 30% club – that’s
the percentage of people that actually get a good view of Mt. McKinley. Then we headed back to Anchorage. We got stopped for road repair along the way,
and the woman holding the “stop” sign recommended to us that we visit the town
of Talkeetna, a short side trip along the way.
It is a cute town of shops and restaurants. As we almost got back to “civilization”, the
highway suddenly stopped up. We thought
there must be an accident, but it turned out to be a couple large moose
crossing the highway. The next day in
Anchorage we did some souvenir shopping and then went to the Alaska Zoo. They have many animals there that are not in
other zoos because they need the colder climate. We finished up the week with dinner (food and
restaurants are expensive in Alaska), and flew home the next morning.
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| Musk Ox |
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| Bears at wildlife center |
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| Caribou |
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| caribou in the wild |
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| the vast expanses of Alaska are awesome |
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| bear with cub in the wild |
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| at car museum |
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| Fairbanks pioneer park |
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| Denali sled dogs |
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| Mount McKinley |
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| Moose crossing highway |
