Visiting Alaska, Again (and hopefully, again and again and again…..)

In my story about an Alaskan vacation that I posted a few weeks ago, I mentioned that Ally loved Alaska so much that, the next year, she quit her job in Virginia, packed her bags, and went to Seward, Alaska to work for Kenai-Fjord Tours (KFT).  This was the tour company we used for our day whale watching cruise when we took our family vacation in Alaska.

Since my kids have grown up and have moved out of the home, I can’t go more than three months without being able to put my arms around them.  There have been times that each child has lived in a different time zone, so this has resulted in quite a bit of traveling for me and often for my husband, Greg, as well.  Which is not necessarily a bad thing, as far as I am concerned.  I’m not sure Greg necessarily agrees.

So naturally, while Ally was living in Alaska, I had to go visit her.  Greg was not able to go, so I was traveling by myself.  In July, 2019, I made plans to fly into Anchorage. Ally was driving the two hours from Seward to pick me up.  My flight went from St. Louis to Dallas to Anchorage.  The flight from St. Louis to Dallas was uneventful.  I boarded the plane in Dallas, took my assigned aisle seat and settled in. A few minutes later, the man sitting next to me asked me if I would mind changing seats with his lady friend. He said she was flying for the first time and she was nervous, and it would make her feel better if she could sit by him.  I agreed, before I realized that she was sitting in a middle seat.  Oh well.  I didn’t mind helping them out.  I moved into her seat.  The flight attendant walked by and noticed that I had changed seats and asked me about it.  I explained the situation to her.  She seemed more concerned than I was that I had traded an aisle seat for a middle seat.  I settled into my seat, and a few minutes later, the flight attendant approached me and said she had an aisle seat available and she would like for me to have an aisle seat. I gathered my things, again, and moved into the aisle seat.  That was very nice of her, and I appreciated it.  I settled into my new seat.  A few minutes later, another passenger approached me and asked me if I would trade seats with her friend.  Was this a joke?  Was I on video? What was happening? This time I was smart enough to make sure I was trading my aisle seat for another aisle seat.  I gathered my things, again, and moved to the new seat a few rows up.  The flight attendant walked by and expressed her surprise that I had moved seats again.  I explained the situation to her and assured her I was not moving again.  I settled into my new seat and a few minutes later, the plane took off.  When the flight attendants began serving drinks and snacks, I asked for my Coke.  I don’t know what it is about flying, but I always want a Coke.  When the flight attendant served my Coke, she handed me a snack box.  This was not the usual bag of peanuts-this was a snack box that costs extra, something I never do.  I assumed the passengers sitting next to me ordered it, so I tried to give it to them.  They said that they did not order it.  The flight attendant told me it was a gift to me from the flight attendants because I had been so nice and willing to trade my seats to other passengers.  How about that?

Several hours later, I arrived in Anchorage and was picked up by Ally and some of her friends.  I had booked a room at the Breeze Inn.  The Breeze Inn is near the harbor and cruises, so it was close to where Ally was staying.  Ally had been provided lodging by KFT, which was kind of a dorm room situation that she shared with three other girls, so staying with her was not an option.  This is a picture of the place where Ally was living.

Ally had to work the first day, so I was on my own.  Now, anyone who knows me will assume that I stayed in the hotel room, reading a book, because I was scared to go out on my own.  But you would be wrong.  I went down to the front desk at the hotel and asked them to suggest something for me to do.  They suggested the aquarium in town.  This was a bit of a walk, but I was able to walk along by the water for a big part of it, and I was able to explore the little town of Seward. 

Am I a solo traveler, or what? I went to their little aquarium

and then I walked back to the hotel.  I wanted to get some snacks and drinks to have in my room, so I asked the hotel staff where I could find a grocery store.  It was at the other end of town in the other direction.  I set out on another walk and bought my snacks.  I had now explored the entire town of Seward.  On my own! 

One of the first things Ally and I did together was take an evening dinner cruise with KFT.  Ally was not working this cruise, so she was able to just sit back and enjoy the cruise. We saw whales, eagles and puffins.  It was beautiful. 

The next day, Ally had to work the day cruise, so I went on the cruise with her.  I was a little nervous about this because she would be working all day, so I was going to be mostly without her company while on the ship.  Is this also considered solo traveling?  The seating on the ships is mostly tables with booths, so I was likely going to have to sit with people I didn’t know. I quickly found a booth and burrowed myself in, hoping that no one else would sit with me. But as the boat filled up, it quickly became apparent that I would not get to keep this booth to myself. I saw a family looking for a booth, so I got up and gave them mine. I sort of wandered around the ship, hoping to find a single seat somewhere. Ally noticed me wandering around and she found a place at a table with two couples-one older couple and one young couple. Ugh. Would I be expected to make conversation? Would they be rude? Nice? Annoying? But it was fine.  It was fun seeing Ally at work.  She got on the speaker to give instructions to the passengers, regarding life jackets, safety procedures, food, etc.  She started out with, “Hi! This is Ally from the galley!” The older lady at my table said, “Oh, she’s so cute! I wonder if her name is really Ally.” And I had the privilege of saying, “Yes. That is really her name.  That is my daughter.”  They were all impressed and I was now the cool one at the table.  I became even cooler when, later that day, Ally brought me some cups of warm cookie pieces left over from when they baked the cookies, and I shared them with my table mates. I am never the cool one in a group, so this was a new experience for me.

Ally also took me to meet the captain.  She had warned me that he could be a little gruff and that I should not be offended.  But he ended up being very nice.  He showed me around the wheelhouse.  We didn’t stay more than a few minutes though.  Ally had to get back to work, but I also think she was concerned about how long the captain could maintain his niceness. 

It was really cold that day.  We did see some whales, but I did not spend a lot of time outside looking at them.  I have my limits where cold is concerned.  The return trip was very rough.  A storm was rolling in, and the waves were huge.  They hand out barf bags to all of the passengers at the beginning of the cruise, but I had given mine to another passenger who needed it.  After all, this was my third KFT cruise.  I was seasoned and I was way beyond getting sick because of a few waves.  Right? Ummm, no.  It soon became apparent that I may have made a mistake in giving my bag away.  I made my way to the front of the ship where the cruise workers were standing.  The ship was being tossed so much that I was walking like I had been drinking at the bar for a few hours. I didn’t even have to say a word. The staff member looked at me and handed me a bag.  The green coloring on face was likely his best clue.  At least I was in good company.  I would not have wanted to be on the cleaning crew of the ship that day.

The next day Ally was off work, so we planned on hiking the trail to Lost Lake. 

This was one of her favorite hikes in the area.

This is a very scenic hike with beautiful views of mountains and high alpine terrain.  It was a long hike, 13.7 miles round trip, so we got up early that morning to get started.  No one else was on the trail for quite a while.  The clouds were very low-in fact, we were walking in them.  We could feel the mist on our faces.  We couldn’t see the mountains very well, but it was kind of cool walking in the clouds. 

Ally seemed tense and a little grumpy.  It was early morning, and I figured maybe the coffee had not kicked in, so I just walked along quietly.  Being quiet is my best defense when it comes to Ally and her coffee.  Later she told me that she had been worried about running into bears, since we were the only ones on the trail.  She relaxed when we started seeing more hikers.  I’m glad we didn’t see any bears.  We could have tried to make ourselves big to scare the bear, but between the two of us, we barely make one tall person, so I think a grizzly might have just laughed at us.  And then he would have eaten us.  We reached the lake at the top of the mountain.  It was beautiful! It was so quiet and peaceful.  We could hear birds, bees, the water running over the rocks. 

We stayed at the lake for quite a while, rested, had a snack, and just enjoyed the peacefulness and beauty of the area. 

Then we began hiking back down. 

This was a great day!  My hands were numb when we got to the car, which I don’t think is supposed to happen. I probably didn’t drink enough water, which seems to be a consistent theme for me when I hike.  I guzzled the rest of the water from my water bottle, pretty soon my fingers started to tingle, and I had full use of my hands again. We went to the restaurant at the Breeze Inn and had dinner with some of Ally’s co-workers/friends that night.

The next day, Ally and I took another hike.  We went on a trail called the Tonsina Trail.  The trail goes through a thick spruce forest.  The trees have moss on them and the whole area looks like a page from a Dr. Seuss book. 

The trail took us to Resurrection Bay.  We spent some time hanging out by the water and then we headed back. 

This trail was a lot shorter than Lost Lake.  It was three miles, in and out.  

I had to go home the next day.  Ally and her friends took me to Anchorage, where I stayed at a hotel near the airport and flew out early the next morning.  It was hard to leave her, knowing she would be so far away, but she was loving her time in Alaska. 

A few weeks later, Ally called and said she was going to leave just a few days earlier than she had originally planned, which meant the people she had planned to caravan with would not be traveling with her.  She asked if I could fly out to Alaska and drive home with her.  Of course!  In September, 2019, I flew back to Anchorage.  Ally picked me up and we started our very long drive back to Illinois. The first day, we drove out of Anchorage with plans to stop that night in White Horse in Yukon, Canada.  We had not booked any hotels ahead of time because we could not be sure how far we were going to get each day.  But we had some loose plans.  Ally was sick with a respiratory thing, so she wasn’t feeling very travel ready, but here we were. I tried to video our trip.  I’m not much of a videographer, but I made an attempt. Here is one sample of my skill. After watching this, you will understand why I did not put anymore of them in this story.

The scenery was so beautiful for most of the trip. Here are some pictures from our first day of travel.

As we approached Yukon, Canada that first day, we started searching for hotels when we were able to get cell service. We booked a room at the Days Inn in the town of Whitehorse in Yukon, Canada. When we arrived, at about 9:00 pm, we could not figure out where we were supposed to park. Ally let me out of the car, and I went into the hotel and asked the lady at the desk where we were supposed to park our car. She said there was parking in the back of the hotel, where we could park and then enter at the doors back there. I asked her if the back of the hotel was a secure area. She responded by saying, “Yes. We have video cameras back there.” We drove around to back of the hotel where there was a very dark, scary looking parking lot next to a very sketchy looking building with a bunch of trash scattered around it. We reluctantly got out of the car and went to the door. The door had no handle. It was not designed that way-the handle had been removed. Not a good sign. We tried another door, hoping it belonged to the hotel and not to a brothel or something even scarier. It turned out that it didn’t really matter what was behind that door, because we couldn’t open it anyway. It was locked and we didn’t have a key. We drove back to the front of the hotel and told the lady at the front desk that we were unable to get into the doors in the back, and that we did not feel safe back there. She said, “Oh yes. You can get in. And it is safe-we have video cameras back there.” Somehow, just knowing that my murder will be recorded does not really offer me a lot of comfort. Ally drove back around to the scary parking lot and I went through the hotel to the back door with the front desk lady. She opened the door, we both stepped out, and she let the door shut behind her. She turned around to open the door to show me that we could get in and she said, “Oh. Someone stole our handle.” She went to the other door and said, “You can get in this door.” I told her we couldn’t get in because it was locked. She took out a key, unlocked the door, turned to me and said, “No. It is not locked.” I looked at her, paused for a second, blinked a couple of times, and said, “Well, it’s not now. You just unlocked it.” She left the door unlocked and went back into the hotel. So this door, that was locked for the guests’ safety and protection from the very sketchy area at the back of the hotel, was now unlocked so that the murderers could get into the hotel. I went back to the car and told Ally that I did not feel safe staying in this hotel. We got in the car and drove around the town and found another hotel. The guy at the front desk said they had one room left, but it was very small. We said that was fine. He wasn’t kidding. It was a very tiny room. But at least we didn’t feel like we were going to be murdered in our sleep. To be honest, I don’t think the murderer would have been able to fit in this tiny room with us.

We got up the next morning to continue our trip. We stopped at Watson Lake, at the Sign Post Forest, before we left the province of Yukon. The Sign Post Forest is a collection of over 85,000 signs left by travelers and highway workers. Kind of weird, but interesting.

We managed to find a plate from Illinois.

We entered British Columbia, Canada that day.

The views were beautiful here as well, although it did not seem quite as mountainous as the day before.

We stopped to take some pictures by the Liard River. The Liard River is a significant river in northwestern Canada. It runs through British Columbia, Yukon, and the Northwest Territories. It is named for the “liards” which are the poplar trees that grow along its course.

We stayed at Fort Nelson, British Columbia that night. To be honest, I don’t really remember much about where we stayed, so everything must have gone pretty smoothly.

The next day, we were planning to drive through Banff in Alberta, Canada. I had heard about how beautiful Banff was, and I was very excited to be going there. Everyone was right-it was beautiful.

We were not able to find a place to stay in Banff, so we drove on to Jasper and found a place to stay there. Jasper surprised me. It was a cute little area, and the hotel we stayed in was very nice. And expensive. The dinner we had was expensive. Everything was expensive in this area. But I am determined to go back to the gorgeous Banff/Jasper area to hike and backpack. That is a trip that is very high on my very long list of things I want to do.

The next day, we crossed the border into the US in Montana. We arrived at a hotel late that night somewhere in the US. I don’t remember where. The next day, we planned to drive the rest of the way back home. However, we ended up stopping at my friend Robin’s house in Kansas City, MO. We had been driving for over 12 hours and we simply could not drive another six hours that day. As usual, Robin and her husband, Brad, welcomed us into their home, where we stayed the night and woke up more refreshed to drive the last six hours home. (This was not the first time Robin had unexpectedly become my hostess for the night-that might be another story to tell later). We arrived home, very tired of driving, but feeling proud that we had accomplished such a long road trip.

Tips:

1. I highly recommend the Breeze Inn in Seward.  The staff was really nice, the price was reasonable, and the rooms are clean.  You can find them at www.breezeinn.com.  Their phone number is 907-224-5237.  There is a restaurant attached to the Inn.
2. The Lost Lake Trail is about five miles outside of Seward.  It is also called the Primrose Trail at the north end. It is a popular hike for backpacking as well.  I think this trail would make a great overnight backpacking trip.
3. The Tonsina trail is one of Seward’s most popular trails.  There is a $5.00 parking fee at the trail head on Lowell Point road.  In late summer, you may see salmon swimming up Tonsina Creek. The trail is open year round to hikers.
4. The name of the aquarium in Seward is Alaska Sealife Center. You can find more information about it at http://www.alaskasealife.org.
5. It is a LONG drive from Anchorage, Alaska to Southern Illinois. But the scenery is beautiful, and you can get lots of ideas of places you want to come back to and spend more time.
6. Jasper National Park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is the largest national park in the Canadian Rockies. It is known for its beauty, wildlife, and unique attractions.
7. Banff National Park is Canada’s first national park. It is part of the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is a great area to camp, hike and backpack. It is also known for its beauty and wildlife.