Last Day in Alaska

On Sunday, our second to last full day in Alaska, we made our final push to Anchorage.  After a really good night at the Caribou Cabins we hit the road heading southwest towards Anchorage.  Like just about every other day up here the drive was incredibly scenic yet desolate, at least until we got closer to Anchorage.  The first couple of hours were mostly overcast.  While the scenery was still really good we really just drove so we could make some time and get on to some of the other things we had planned for the day.

We stopped at what was really the first town, Glennallen, after 140 miles.  There was a gas station and visitors center along with some more signs of civilization that we hadn’t really seen in a few days.  The gas station was open, we did not fill up as we still were doing well with gas and the visitors center was closed for the season.  We did see a food truck parked over in the far end of the parking lot so we decided to pay it a visit.  As it turned out they had excellent Thai food.  We ordered a plate of Pad Thai which we ate on some nearby picnic tables while enjoying the excellent view from the gas station.

Where else can you get a view like this from the gas station?

We ventured on after our nice lunch down the Glenn Highway towards Matanuska Glacier.  Before we got there we passed through a mountain pass where the snow obviously gets pretty deep in the winter.  There were really tall poles along the sides of the road which we learned were guides for the snowplows in the winter.  We were surprised because these poles were easily higher than even the tallest vehicles we have ever seen.  We don’t think we would want to be here when they get all of that snow.  While there was no snow on the road yet the snow on the mountains seemed to come down to a lower elevation than it had just a week before, probably a good indication that winter was not too far off. We continued towards the glacier with amazing views around just about every single turn.

Snow plow guides

Our next stop was Matanuska Glacier.  This is one of the few glaciers that is easily accessible by just about anyone in Alaska.  You can get up close to many glaciers on boat rides or by landing on them with a plane but this one is relatively close to the city plus you can pretty easily walk out on to the glacier.  There was an admission fee to get close up but we didn’t mind paying for this once-in-a-lifetime experience.  We first spotted the glacier from a few miles away while we were driving on the main road.  As we got closer we realized we were going to have to turn off and drive towards the glacier.  We turned off of the main road and twisted our way down a narrow dirt road towards the bottom of the valley where we crossed the glacial fed river, then up to the glacier.  Walking on the glacier was really not much different than walking on hard packed snow.  The only real difference was that this snow was pretty dirty, at least up close.  You could sure see signs of global warming though as the edge of the glacier seemed to be melting relatively quickly.

After we left the glacier area we started hitting much more in terms of civilization, mostly it was traffic, we still did not hit a traffic light for another hour or so of driving.  We did notice a big change in scenery though as we got closer to Anchorage.  As we descended off of the mountain we started seeing color in the trees again.  The fall colors created a nice contrast against the snow covered mountains.

We made one final stop before we went back to our hotel in Anchorage: at an unusual cemetery.  The cemetery was located on the grounds of a Russian Orthodox Church.  The melding of the Orthodox Christianity and native practices resulted in the brightly colored spirit houses.  We were not certain if any dead were actually placed in these spirit houses or if they simply were built on top of the graves but they sure seemed pretty interesting.  Some were quite elaborate and it made for an interesting stop.

We then went back to our hotel and packed before our last full day in Alaska.  We initially planned on just kind of lounging around but we instead decided to pay a visit to the Alaska Zoo in Anchorage.  The zoo is by no means a large zoo but they do specialize in animals that are native to the state.  We figured that since we had not seen much in terms of wildlife on our trip that we would go to the zoo to see them.  Besides the cool animals like bears, moose and caribou that had eluded us on our trip, they had a handful of exotic animals that are obviously not native to Alaska as well.  We spent a few hours at the zoo before calling it a day and going back to the hotel for the final time.

Harbor Seal

River Otter

Female Polar Bear

Big feet on that girl!

Male Polar Bear

Snowy Owl

Musk Ox

Tibetan Yak

Alpaca

Bactrian camel

Caribou

Black Bear

Bald Eagle

Tiger eating hopefully not another zoo animal

Gray Wolf

Sheep 

Snow Leopard

Brown Bear.  This is what the bear spray had been for!

Fox

The one thing we decided upon leaving Alaska was that we could not wait to go back.  We have now experienced it in two seasons, summer and fall and we think next time we might head up there in the winter to get a real shot at seeing the Northern Lights.

Only in Alaska can you get a view like this from the Walmart parking lot

Fairbanks to Tok

Friday and Saturday we drove the long way to Anchorage.  Rather than driving straight south back down the parks highway we decided to stay a little more east and see more of the state since we had some time to kill.  We were in no hurry on Friday because our hotel that night would be in Tok, AK, which was only about 180 miles from Fairbanks.  As a result we got a late morning start after eating at a great little restaurant in town called The Cookie Jar that Chris had printed out a Groupon for before leaving home.  We had a nice big breakfast before hitting the road.

About a half hour outside of Fairbanks we stopped at a cool little store (which was also slightly overpriced) called the Knotty Shop.  While we did not buy anything they did sell quite a few wood carvings and other pieces of art made from wood burls.  We enjoyed looking at their wood sculptures and other stuff for sale.

Notice the muddy car, two days later.

Our route from Fairbanks to Tok would take us down the Richardson Highway and the Alaska Highway.  The Richardson Highway, like the Dalton Highway, parallels the Alaska Pipeline.  The major difference is that the Richardson Highway is completely paved and sees considerably more traffic than the Dalton.  For anyone travelling between the lower 48 and Fairbanks, they would more than likely use the Richardson Highway.  At a town called Delta Junction, we stayed a little east of the pipeline and took the Alaska Highway.  The Alaska Highway is the only route one would take between the lower 48 and Alaska.  It is an all season route designed for all modes of transportation with a good number of small towns along the way.

Since we really had time we stopped at lots of little rest areas along the way.  At one particular rest area Chris saw a giant puddle and decided to have some fun.  We think he hit the puddle at about 50 mph and it made for a nice big splash.  Just for kicks we drove through it at high speed several other times until we thoroughly dispersed the water to all parts of the paved rest area.  We also got the car pretty well cleaned off by doing this.  It was like a free car wash.

We also had the opportunity to visit a pottery showroom which was a little bit of a different experience.  The showroom was advertised by a sign on the side of the highway.  We drove up a dirt road to someone’s house.  We were met by a couple of barking dogs and we saw that the showroom was off to the side in the garage.  We entered and were surprised to find some really nice pottery, most pieces for sale and some of them costing well over $100.  What surprised us the most was that there was no one home.  However, you could buy any piece you wanted to, all you needed to do was put the right amount of money in the box and be on your way.  We noted that Alaskans are far more trusting than just about anyone else we have met.

The pottery store

Some of these pieces were over $100.  Pretty expensive for self-service

At one of the rest areas we noticed what is commonly referred to as the Alaska state bird: two giant mosquitoes in the parking lot.  We had to get a couple of pictures of those guys.  We also had a good conversation with the lady working at the information center in Delta Junction.  She seemed pretty bored and was very willing to talk to us.  She suggested we divert from our route for a few miles for the chance to see wild bison.  So we drove south a bit, down the Richardson Highway, keeping an eye out for the bison herd.  We didn’t see the bison but we were treated with some really great views of the mountains in the distance.

Long lonely road

We drove back to the visitor’s center where we turned back southeast toward Tok on the Alaska Highway.  We had a lot more great scenery before we arrived at Tok, AK a little before dinner time.  We had booked a couple of cabins just the day before at a place called Caribou Cabins.  When Chris e-mailed the owner he told us that he was about to close most of the cabins for the season but he’d keep them open one more night for us.  When we checked in we learned that the owners were originally from a town nearby us in MA.  A few years back they, like us, were on vacation in Alaska.  They liked it so much that on that very trip they bought some land on their credit card!  They sat on that for about 6 years before finally building a house to live in and opening up the cabins that we stayed in.  We thought that was a gutsy move but it seems to be working out. 

The main house where we had breakfast

Bedroom

Upstairs loft

Our cabin

All the cabins

We ventured out for dinner and noticed an interesting business on the way out:  a combined motel/liquor store and grocery store.  They sure are efficient up there.  We enjoyed our night at the cabins and decided that we would one day return to Caribou Cabins.