The Great Alcan

The sunrise as viewed from our apartment.

Today we got up early to start our trip along the Alaska Highway (also called the Great Alcan), said to be one of the most scenic routes in America. We didn't do the whole thing from Fairbanks to Dawson's Creek; we were just planning to go as far as Haines Junction, then head south to Haines to catch our ferry to Juneau. The first part of the route from Fairbanks to Delta Junction was noted as "relatively unscenic" by Lonely Planet, but I guess the people who wrote Lonely Planet have never driven through Nebraska if they think the below is "unscenic..."

Then"unscenic" part of the Alaska Highway.

 

But the rest of the route was definitely even better - the Alcan goes between two mountain ranges, the Alaska Range and the White Mountains with cloud-wreathed views of both all the way through. The road also borders several lakes and rivers, and of course the ever-present black spruce forests. We stopped several times to take pictures, and also noted the following:

1. Don't be fooled by the signs in Canada denoting "Rest Areas." EVERY SINGLE "rest area" in Canada along this route is an OUTHOUSE. :) When I finally couldn't wait any longer, I had to use it with the door open because it smelled so bad...

Canadian "Rest Area."

2. The instant we crossed the border into Canada, the road went from a lovely, smooth, paved road to a pot hole-ridden, bumpy, part gravel monstrosity. We also went through a 15 mile construction zone behind a pilot car.

3. We maybe saw 10 other vehicles the entire day, which made it easy to stop for pictures and even wander in the middle of the road to get the perfect shot!

4. Out of those 10 vehicles, probably 7 were RVs. :)

5. Gavin insisted on peeing in the wilderness almost every stop we made. To try to guilt trip him out of it, I took pictures. At the end of the day I had 5 pictures of him peeing in various scenic locales. Photos not for public consumption, but check out the awesome stuff below!

Mountains peeking through as we approach...

...then the view suddenly opens up into the mountains!

Black spruce in front of the mountains.

Seriously, this is the prettiest drive ever!

Look at this Caribbean-blue water!

 

We stopped for the night in Haines Junction, where we would turn off the Alaska Highway and head south to Haines. Our day ended at after about ten hours of driving. We stayed at a cute little motel where the main attraction to us in picking it was that it had a laundromat. (it was a novel experience for us to pick a place to stay without Trip Advisor/Lonely Planet/Yelp guiding our way...) We had dinner at the little Northern Lights restaurant next door that was just about to close (it was 9pm), but they kindly stayed open and let us order our dinner. I tried poutine for the first time. It was an Italian style poutine, basically french fries covered in mozzarella cheese and spaghetti sauce. Not the healthiest thing I could choose, but hey, we're on vacation... :)

We ended our rainy, drizzly evening reading books and sipping red wine in bed.

 

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Delightful Day in Denali.

Today we got up early to catch the shuttle back to Denali. We grabbed a lovely breakfast at the Creekside Cafe, including a delicious fresh cinnamon roll the size of my head. We grabbed the Alaska Mountain Hostal shuttle again at 8:20am, and we had our first wildlife sighting - a unfortunate moose lying dead by the side of the road after being hit by a car... (our driver tried to distract us by having us gaze out the other window at the pretty mountains, but her distraction technique didn't work. :) ) We arrived at the Wilderness Access Center around 9am and were ready to shuttle in to the park. We had decided that since we had to be back to the train station at 3pm, we couldn't take a paid bus into the interior of the park. Instead we opted to take the free bus 15 miles into the park and do some hiking around the park entrance.

Ready to hitchhike outside of Carlo Creek Lodge in case we miss the one shuttle... :)

This is a SERIOUS cinnamon roll...

We discovered to our dismay that the free shuttle runs only every two hours, and the next shuttle was not for another hour and a half. If we wanted to get a paid shuttle, we would have to pay full price to the final destination i.e. 60 miles into the park no matter how far into the park we were going. So we wandered on the nearby bike trail to the Visitors Center and back to kill time until the shuttle picked us up.

The shuttle ride was uneventful other than stopping to catch a quick glimpse of a bear. It dropped us off at Savage River loop trail, which followed the glacially-fed Savage River for about a mile, crossed it on a bridge and went back. It was an easy loop with beautiful views of the mountains through the river valley, and it didn't take us very long. It was still another hour and a half before we could catch the bus back, so we decided to walk along the park road and see if we could catch a ride with someone going back. I stuck out my thumb and hitchhiked for the first time in my life - the second car we saw stopped for us, and we got to ride in the back of their pickup (first time doing that since I was a kid!) back to the Park Headquarters, and we even got to stop and see a moose along the way!

Beautiful Denali!

Savage River - not looking all that savage right now.

Walking the Savage River loop trail.

View from Park Road as we tried to hitchhike a ride back to Park Headquarters.

Riding in the back of a pickup truck, just like we used to do on the farm! :)

At Park Headquarters we took the peaceful Rock Creek trail about two miles through the forest, then it joined the Taiga trail, which we followed down to the Wilderness Access Center - a grand total of about 8 miles of hiking/walking today. :) We stopped by the Morino restaurant near the train station for more price-gouging food before catching our train up to Fairbanks.

View from the top of the Rock Creek trail.

The train ride to Fairbanks gradually left the mountains and came into flat permafrost land covered with the only trees that can live on permafrost: the black spruce. We also got a quick glimpse of a moose through the trees. The scenery wasn't nearly as dramatic as the approach to Denali. We arrived in Fairbanks at around 8pm and caught a taxi whose driver was kind enough to take us to a grocery store and wait for us while we shopped for our dinner food, then she drove us to the house we rented outside Fairbanks. We were excited because it was out of town and would hopefully have a good view of the northern lights, but unfortunately it was completely cloudy. We made a late dinner and ended our evening relaxing with a glass of wine.

The Alaska Railroad engine.

 

The Alaska Railroad follows the river up to Fairbanks.

 

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All Aboard the Alaska Railroad

This morning we got up early to catch the train to Denali National Park. Our slightly odd host made us a delicious breakfast of fresh coffee cake, toast and omelets, all the while making strange, offhand comments like "This refrigerator would make a good coffin." He also kept on talking about "the owner" of the B&B, which prompted me to ask how he knew the owner. He replied, "I've been married to him for 25 years..."

Our host dropped us off at the train station, where we picked up our tickets and "Gold Star" pins and boarded the train. The Gold class of the Alaska railroad are seats on the upper level of the train with domed glass ceilings and a private bar. It was another rainy day, so our views of the Alaskan wilderness were once again obscured by fog. Our best view of the eight hour trip was of Hurricane Gulch, the longest bridge on the Alaska Railroad which crosses a gulch that is over 300 feet deep. As we got closer to Denali, the fog lifted a little, enough for us to see the lush, green, cloud-dusted mountains of the Alaska Range, and just enough for us to see Panorama Mountain, which is 1/4 the size of Mount McKinley.

The Gold Star car of the Alaska railroad.

Our view through most of the ride was something like this. :)

A view of the train from the outside platform.

Hurricane Gulch.

Fog and foliage in front of the Alaska Range.

When we arrived at the train station at Denali, almost everybody on the train had a shuttle to their hotel and quickly disappeared, leaving us the only lonely people outside the station. We called our lodge, the Carlo Creek Lodge, to inquire about a shuttle, and they told us to call a shuttle service that would cost $45 PER PERSON to go the 12 miles to Carlo Creek! Luckily I found another shuttle from the Alaska Mountain Hostal that would drop us off near our lodging for only $10 per person, but that shuttle would only pick us up at the Wilderness Access Center. We had to wait a half hour for a bus to take us to the Wilderness Access Center, then another hour for the shuttle to Carlo Creek! (we had assumed we could just take a taxi, but there were no taxis at all in Denali!)

After finally settling in to our cozy little room at Carlo Creek Lodge, we walked over to the Perch to have dinner. It was a cute little restaurant perched (hence "Perch") on the top of a little hill with view of the mountains and forest. It was one of only three restaurants in the Carlo Creek area, and it definitely charged accordingly, i.e. $14 for tortilla chips with cheese dip!!! While we munched on our appetizer, a very grouchy woman sitting behind us reamed the owner/server for her disappointing meal; I felt really bad for him. THe owner of Perch let his dog in toward the end of our meal, and Gavin snuck him a few bits of his hamburger. The dog then proceeded to sit and quietly stare at Gavin for the next half hour, pointing out the guilty party who had fed him. :) The owner came out and showed us the many tricks the dog could do, such as "Go find zombies," shake both right and left paws accordingly and balance bits of sausage one on each eye and on his nose while the owner left the room entirely. Gavin and I felt sorry for him and tried to guess the command to release him and let him eat the sausage. I tried "Okay," but Gavin guessed it correctly as "Go," and the relieved dog was munching his treat as the owner came back in to release him. :) Since we were stuck in the Carlo Creek area for the night, we ended our evening by moving to the cozy couch at Perch for some wine after dinner, browsing through the various Alaska coffee table books, looking at the lovely views we would hopefully see tomorrow during our day at Denali National Park.

View from the train as we approach Denali National Park.

 

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Rain, rain, go away...

After an early 6am departure from Hartford, we arrived in Anchorage just before noon. Our first view of the city through the airport windows showed a lovely, sunny day over a city surrounded by mountains. We caught a taxi from the airport, and our taxi driver perfectly fit the "Alaska Mountain Man" stereotype with his long, wavy, salt and pepper hair, full beard and flannel shirt. All he needed was the Carharts to make the stereotype compete. :) Our driver nicely pointed out one of the bike paths that we could ride through the forests around the city (there are over 100 miles of bike paths in Anchorage!) We decided to spend the rest of the day on the bike paths, after our first order of business - a much needed nap!

We checked in to City Garden B&B. Our room was LOVELY with well over a dozen orchids, mostly in bloom, a little succulent garden and huge ficus tree in the mini solarium beside the bed. It is located on the park strip, which is a long park between 9th and 10th ave that originally was Anchorage's first air strip. Now it is a several blocks long strip of grass housing a soccer field, sand volleyball, tennis courts, a veterans' memorial and more. We decided to take an hour nap to help us adjust to the four hour time difference and be able to stay up later, and also to give us energy to do a bike ride. Unfortunately, an hour later the sunny Anchorage skies had clouded up and it was raining in a steady drizzle; it was not longer the best weather for a bike ride. Instead, we grabbed our umbrellas and walked into the downtown area to have some coffee and a snack at Kaladi Brothers Coffee. The rain showed no sign of letting up, so we passed the time until our dinner reservation by doing a little wandering around 5th and 6th Aves, the main shopping strip of Anchorage, which was filled with kitschy tourist shops selling t shirts, little wooden totems and tons of variations on the famous Alaska Ulu knife. Gavin and I bought some rain gear, since according to the forecast we will have rainy weather for our entire two weeks here...

Having exhausted our short-lived interest in shopping, we went to our dinner restaurant, Simon and Seafort's Saloon and Grill, which had been recommended by both by our bed and breakfast host and our Lonely Planet. We arrived an hour early for our reservation, so we sat in the saloon and had a couple drinks. The view from the restaurant overlooks the water of Knik Arm and supposedly Mount Susitna, Anchorage's active volcano, also called "The Sleeping Lady." The fog was so thick we could barely see the water, much less the volcano. It cleared a bit, and the most we could see was the very base of the volcano.

A panorama of the Simon and Seafort's Saloon. I am holding the highlight of my meal - a lavender cosmo. :)

We moved to the dining room for dinner, and both of us were excited to try fresh, wild-caught Alaska salmon. I ordered sesame crusted salmon, and Gavin ordered curried salmon. Both were specials of the day, and both were highly disappointing. I am definitely spoiled by how nicely Gavin cooks salmon, but both the salmon and vegetables were overcooked in both of our dishes. My sesame crusted salmon had a lot of sugar in the sauce, which completely overpowered the taste of the salmon, and it came with deep fat fried balls of fried rice (deep fat fried fried rice - sounds like a State Fair food...) with reindeer sausage, the only saving grace of which was that now I can say I have tried reindeer meat and put another check on my "animals I have eaten" list.* Gavin's vegetables were a puree of squash and carrots that could have been mistaken for something from a Gerber baby food jar...

After dinner we wandered back to the mall to pick up some waterproof shoes that Gavin had been coveting, especially after walking around with damp feet the entire evening. Then we walked back to our B&B, hand in hand in the rain... :)

*I don't really have an "animals I have eaten" list. But if I did it would include zebra, warthog, kangaroo and more... :)

 

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Bonus vacation!

Our flight from Bonaire to Curacao was uneventful, then we had a six hour layover in Curacao, which wasn't so bad since we were able to go sit outside in the sun and read for a bit, plus they have free wifi... Winter Storm Nemo was in full force, however, so we tried to talk to the gate agent about rescheduling our flights. She said we had to wait until we fly to Miami to reschedule, which we knew was going to be trouble...

We arrived in Miami just in time to see that our flight from Miami to Hartford was canceled, as we expected. We waited in line at a separate area for rescheduling flights (the wait was a half hour!), and they informed us that all flights were booked until WEDNESDAY! (this was Saturday) She keep looking for ways to reroute us, and finally figured that we would have to spend two nights in Miami, then fly an extra leg to Chicago, spend the night there, and then finally fly to Hartford on Tuesday morning. All of course on our own time - no help with hotel rooms, etc.

Well, I'd never been to Miami other than the airport, so we rented a car and decided to make the most of it. :) We checked out the Sunday market on Lincoln Road in South Beach, where I was delighted to find a Desigual store - one of my favorite stores in the WORLD since our Barcelona trip! We ate dinner at a nice restaurant called La Lupa di Roma - delicious Italian food and nice outdoor dining. Then we drove the half hour back to our hotel, only to find that Gavin had left not one, but BOTH our iPads (in one bag) at our table at the restaurant! So we had to drive right BACK and pick them up! We were really lucky they had found them!

Obviously a bit windy on Ocean Drive. :)

Me on Ocean Drive

Miami Beach - a kite surfer in the background.

Panorama of Ocean Drive

Our second day we didn't have to fly out until later at night, so we checked out late from our hotel and headed over to The Filling Station - one of the top restaurants in Miami! And I was craving a burger. :) It was a bit of a dive bar atmosphere, but DAMN good burgers!!! Then we headed over to Ocean Drive to happy hour - every bar along the drive said "two for one drinks," so we just picked one at random and sat down. I ordered a mojito, and Gavin ordered a beer. My mojito arrived, and it was the size of a small fish bowl... Luckily we had plenty of time for me to sit and drink it slowly... It was a really good mojito, and I am pretty picky about those...

...but it was DEFINITELY not worth the price... Gavin and I got the bill a couple hours later, and it was THIRTY TWO DOLLARS for my mojito, and he got his measly $8 beer for free! We checked with the waitress to see if this was correct, and she said that it is $1 per ounce, and the mojito was a 32 ounce mojito. Wow. Ocean Drive is too rich for my blood! :) She tried to soothe us by saying I could get free refills, but we had to leave to go to the airport, and I was plenty tipsy already. :)

Well, I'd never make a special trip to Miami - not really my kind of town (even the mannequins had fake boobs), but it was fun to hang out since we were stuck there anyway!

 

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Almost paradise... in martini form. :)

Today we decided to head over to Klein Bonaire for some snorkeling and a "real" white, sandy beach. Klein Bonaire is a tiny, uninhabited island off the west coast, and it is only a half hour boat ride to get there. We tried to catch the 10am ferry, but missed it due to another Carnival parade that blocked off all the main roads through Kralendijk! So we found a parking spot and watched the parade, then headed over to Gio for some more delicious gelato to pass the time until the noon boat to Klein Bonaire. I also bought myself some fins for snorkeling.

Revelers blocking the road. :)

Gavin enjoys gelato at Gio.

When we arrived at Klein Bonaire on No Name Beach, we were delight to see a real, white sandy beach. We weren't sure where the best snorkeling spots would be, so we wandered north along the coast, following a couple women who appeared to be "serious" snorkelers with tons of gear. :) When we caught up to them, they ended up being from the US (the first people we had met from the US in Bonaire!), and they said we could just let the current keep pulling us north and then swim back. We tried their suggestion, and we ended up in a really nice, shallow coral reef that dropped off into the deep blue probably about 100 feet from shore. We let the gentle current pull us north for a while, then turned around to swim back... The current didn't feel as gentle on the way back. :) We got a little tired, but made it back to the exit point.

The shallow coral reef around Klein Bonaire.

Me snorkeling. Yes, I AM wearing a baseball cap turned backwards under my mask... My head was getting badly sunburned by all our time in the water, so I needed to protect it. :)

Wow, we actually got a semi-decent and in focus picture here... :)

 

After that, we walked down the beach (Gavin tried not to look at the nude Dutch women sunbathing on the beach... :) ) toward the south end of the island, where there were a few marked snorkeling sites and we could see a few snorkels sticking out of the water, which we took to mean there was something to see. :) This time we left our stuff DOWN current and walked up current, and once we were in the water the current carried us right to our exit point. :) Much easier that way.

We took the 2pm boat back to Kralendijk and tried to find somewhere to eat lunch, which proved to be harder than expected at that late hour. We really wanted to try Maiky Snack for some "real" Caribbean food, but they were closed. So was every other restaurant along the highway to Lac Bay. So instead, we went back to our apartment and had some snacks, then drove over to the 18th Palm snorkeling site, which had been recommended by the guidebook at our apartment; the book said there were a lot of fish at this site. 18th Palm was inside the Plaza Resort - we had to go through a gate to get in, and it felt a lot like trespassing, but legally all the beaches and dive sites are public in Bonaire - Plaza Resort couldn't charge us unless we tried to use any of their beach chairs or equipment. :) So we wandered into the water with a large SCUBA diving class that was going at the same time - and right away not even 10 feet from shore I saw another one of those cool peacock flounders! It was so close to shore it kept moving because all the SCUBA divers were in danger of stepping on it! We did see a wide variety of fish on this site - it was really fun! We swam under a dock and there was another school of those lovely yellow and silver fish hanging out underneath, and we also saw several small barracudas swimming along the top of the water. When we finally decided to head back, at the entry point some woman had brought a handful of bread with her and was surrounded by swarms of fish. I don't agree with feeding the ocean life, but it was fun to see all the fish. :)

After this last snorkeling trip of the day, we went back to our apartment to get ready for dinner. We headed over to Wil's Tropical Grill in downtown for our last dinner of the trip. We saved it for last since it is a top restaurant in the Lonely Planet book and TripAdvisor. They almost didn't let us in, since we didn't have a reservation and they were fully booked, but they had one table left and said we could have it if we didn't mind the service being slow. We were fine with that, so we waited for them to have time to serve us. I ordered one of THE MOST DELICIOUS martinis I have ever had - called the Almost Paradise martini, aptly named! My dinner of Wahoo (a kind of fish that is everywhere on the menu in Bonaire, and I hadn't tried it yet!) was tasty, but the highlight food wise was the chocolate lava cake, which I of course can never resist. :) Yet another Carnival parade went by while we were having dessert! As we had to get up early for our morning flight, we headed back to the apartment to pack - an unimpressive end to a delightful day. :)

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More windsurfing blunders

Today we decided to try our hand at windsurfing again. We took the second beginner level lesson, which taught us how to turn around 180 degrees and how to sail upwind. This instructor seemed to be a lot better than our first instructor, and I really started to understand the mechanics behind using the sail rather than just trying to stay upright on my board. :) First he taught us the Jibe turn, for which Jibe City, the windsurfing place we have used here in Bonaire, is named. To Jibe is to turn downwind, and just entails turn the board around and shifting the foot position. The other turn, which I forgot the name of, consists of turn the board upwind and requires the rider to walk all the way around the sail to the other side of the board, which was a bit harder to keep your balance. To sail upwind we learned how to balance speed with turning to make a kind of zig zag to go upwind. Eventually, you could get the right balance of speed and turn to not have to zig zag and maintain a constant speed. It was a really useful lesson, and I found myself able to now steer away from possible collisions instead of screaming "I can't steer!" at anyone who came near me. :)

When we headed back to land for lunch, Gavin and I met at the beach and as he walked out of the water, I noticed he must be feeling a little extra breeze windsurfing... He had completely ripped the crotch out of his shorts - a good eight inches! And he hadn't even noticed!! He had no other shorts with him, so he had to buy some shorts for $75 at Jibe City - they didn't sell anything cheaper!! After that, we had lunch at Jibe City's bar, then we went out windsurfing again for a couple hours. I was feeling pretty proficient with the turns, but after the first hour I started to get really tired; the wind was stronger and I was also trying to use a bigger sail. I started making more mistakes, and I finally crashed on my back in water only a couple feet deep, and it happened to be one of those few places in Lac Bay that jagged rocks instead of soft, white sand... I scraped and bruised up my hands and back a bit, so adding the the pile of "battle scars" I had gained on my first day windsurfing... Gavin survived the day with no more wounds other than a pretty bad sunburn on his back. :)

After our day of windsurfing, we headed back to the apartment to relax until dinner. We made some more tasty piña coladas and took them down to the small pool that is part of the apartment complex - we were the only ones swimming, so nobody to tell us that drinking by the pool is not allowed... :)

For dinner we went back to Jibe City's bar/restaurant. On Thursdays nights they do a special candlelight dinner where they put a tiny charcoal grill on your table and several kinds of meat for you to grill on it. We got steaks, pork chops, hamburgers, chicken breasts and fish, all nicely spiced. As if that wasn't enough, they also gave us salad, baked potatoes, bread and dessert, and also offered us more meat if we wanted it! This was by far the best meal we had in Bonaire - lovely spiced meat, and we did a great job grilling it, too! And yes, we finished all the food; Gavin and I are not amateurs at gluttony. :) We ended our night sipping wine in the outdoor bar, listening to the wind and the ocean waves...

Jibe City at night.

 

A meat-tastic candlelight dinner.

Grilling on the table.

 

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