Road Trip: Are We There Yet?

Day 7 on the road began, like most of the others, with the alarm clock going off at 6:00 a.m.  Not only was it dark, it was, yep, you guessed it, raining.  We were so tired of traveling at this point.  Nobody wanted to get out of bed, let alone get up in the rainy dark and get in the car yet again.

BUT, this was supposed to be our last day on the road. Day 7 was slotted to be the day we actually arrived in Alaska!  We were so nearly there, the little town we'd slept in was just a bit over 200 miles from the Alcan border.  This was it!  This was the day we would end our crazy driving marathon journey.

So we got up with only a little grumbling, and hit the road.  Almost immediately, we spotted wildlife, a coyote right in town.  About an hour later, a very large bear ambled across the road in front of us.  Not sure if it was a grizzly or a brown bear but it was very tall. Looks black in the picture, but in real life you could tell it wasn't a black bear, the body shape was different.

That was exciting.  We kept our eyes out, but this was the last bear we would see on our trip.  Further down the road, we did spot something we'd never seen before.

 A very recent wildfire.  In fact, the air smelled like charred wood, and as we drove between Snag Junction and Beaver Creek, the air got smokier.  Then we spotted flames moving lazily along the ground.  This was the Snag Junction wildfire that had begun back in July and was apparently still burning.  Being an unpopulated area, the fire was being allowed to die out naturally (I'm sure the wet weather was helpful).

I confess, it was rather creepy driving along a road where you could see fire on the ground on both sides of you.  This definitely doesn't happen in Michigan!  I also confess I later did some research on wildfires in northern Canada and Alaska, and was amazed at how prevalent they can be. Also amazed that they can continue to burn underground for months.  Learn something new every day.

Just before crossing the border between the Yukon Territory and Alaska, we spotted these, which (with  her binoculars) DD2 identified as tundra swans.

Finally, finally, we had made it to Alaska!!

THE END


Nope, not really.  For, as the guard at the border crossing informed us, handing back our passports and wishing us a good day, we still had 90 miles to go before we would regain cell service (which we would lose, and gain, and lose repeatedly), and 400 miles to go to reach Anchorage.

So. We. Drove. On.

And on.

And on. We were in higher elevation, still climbing, and as we climbed the temperature dropped. It was still raining.  Until, around a curve, it wasn't.

Instead of raining, it was snowing!  That lasted for about 20 miles, until we were heading downhill again.  We learned the next day, that this snow has a special name.  Apparently the first snow of the season in  the higher altitudes is called Termination Dust, because it 'terminates' summer. 

We drove and drove, through the snow, through the rain, getting closer and closer to Anchorage.  There was more wildlife the see (a red fox, a trumpeter swan, a moose calf on the shoulder of the road!) as well as more scenery.

Finally, about the time we were all ready for dinner, we made it to Anchorage!  Hooray!  I'd love to say much rejoicing commenced, but really, we were all tired and just anxious to get out of the car and eat a hot meal.  Speaking of hot meal, if you're ever in Anchorage and have a craving for Mexican food (road trip crazies? I mean, who thinks "I'm in Alaska, let's eat Mexican tonight"?!?), I highly recommend El Dorado.  Their enchiladas mole were excellent, and thanks to their horchata, I have a new favorite drink.

After a really good night's sleep, in which we didn't set the alarm for six a.m. (YAY for sleeping in!), the next day we set out for DD2's new home, which is roughly an hour outside of Anchorage, on the Turnagain Arm. And for once, it wasn't raining, although the sky sure was gray and heavy with clouds.

It just so happened that that day was the annual beluga whale count in the Turnagain Arm, and at every turnout along the highway there were people watching the water for signs of the small whales.  DD2 was eager to get to her new place of employment (and home, since they offered her onsite housing through the winter), so we didn't stop. But we kept an eye in the Arm as we drove, and actually spotted a few beluga ourselves!  That was really an unexpected experience; when you're from Michigan you don't think about spotting whales, let alone from a car!

After DD2 checked in and signed her housing agreement, we finally opened those two doors on the car that had been taboo the entire trip.  Surprisingly, nothing except a sheet came popping out as the door opened.  With DH running things from the car to the stairs, and me running things up the staircase to DD2, and DD2 taking things from the landing to her new bedroom, emptying the car took much less time than packing it had.  Probably only 10% as much time!  Of course, it took DD2 a few days to get all her boxes unpacked and arranged in her new home, but she did that later, after DH and I had returned to Michigan by plane.

We took some pictures of the scenery DD2 now gets to enjoy every day, all day, and then headed out for a brief jaunt down to Whittier, a place we'd wanted to go back in 2017 but hadn't had time to fit into that Alaska trip.

Wouldn't you like to see this from your yard?

Glaciers and wilderness?

Or have a view like this from your kitchen window?

We managed to hit the tunnel to Whittier at the perfect time; no waiting in line.  The very long, very narrow tunnel is one lane, two miles long, through the mountain.  Each direction of travel is slotted a time, either top or bottom of the hour, in which vehicles may pass through the tunnel.  It was kind of eerie driving through the murky darkness with water dripping down onto the car.

entrance to Whittier tunnel

In the tunnel.

Will we ever get to the other side?

We did, after a while, exit the tunnel into the town of Whittier on Prince William Sound.  We watched for more whales, but didn't see any, instead spotting several sea lions playing in the water.  As the clouds burned off a bit, we parked the car and went for a brief hike.

On the way back to our hotel in Anchorage (where DD2 was going to stay with us for one last night, then take us to the airport so DH & I could fly home) we spotted some white shapes up on a cliff near the road.  DH found a place to pull over, and, to DD2's complete enjoyment, we observed about six mountain goats just hanging out doing their wild goat thing.

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It was a good wrap up to a long trip. We had made it. DD2 was in Alaska, her new state, with all the wildlife a recently graduated Wildlife Ecologist could ever imagine.