Seattle

Posted on July 13, 2013July 13, 2013 by Dusty Roads

This time I’m traveling to Seattle on Southwest. It’s been awhile since I’ve flown Southwest so I was surprised by their open seating policy. It worked out ok and it was a pretty uneventful flight. The only issue was the plane change in Baltimore. When they transferred the luggage it was pouring rain. I guess Southwest doesn’t believe in covering luggage with a tarp. The luggage was so wet that water was running out of bags on the baggage carousel.

I took a cab to my hotel and when I unpacked all of my clothes were soaked and had to be hung up to dry. I was not a happy camper but maybe the downpour had surprised them. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.

Now about my digs for the week.

My new employer is putting me up until Friday when it will be time to head back home. My accommodations are in the Hotel 5 which is located in the Belltown section of Seattle.

I feel like I’ve been dropped into one of J.A. Jance’s novels. She writes a series of novels about J.P. Beaumont, a Seattle Homicide Detective. She often describes places in Seattle which until now were just fiction.

But back to my Hotel, I walked in with my luggage still dripping water to see plastic draped through the lobby. Apparently they had a construction project going and they ran late. The poor night desk clerk looked quite harried. Another “guest” and I use the term loosely was reading him the riot act. I’m not sure about what but nothing the clerk offered him was good enough. I really felt bad for the clerk..not the guy yelling.

As soon as the clerk could break away from Mr. Irate, he checked me in and in spite of having just been reamed out like that, he was pleasant and professional to me.

The hotel was filled with bright colors, nothing calm or subdued here. At first I felt like I was getting a wake up call at 10 pm with all the bright colors but slowly they began to grow on me. The floors in the room were hardwood which surprised me since most hotels have industrial carpet. I have to admit I liked the way the hardwood looked.

There was free WIFI in the rooms, always a big plus in my opinion.

I unpacked and hung my soggy clothing in the shower to drip dry…I’m serious, it was that bad! Then went back down to find a restaurant. It was quiet in the lobby now so the clerk sent me one block down to the Palace Kitchen

where I had a lovely if expensive dinner with a ceramic chicken.

Tomorrow I’d find the home office and meet the staff.

Alaska Wrap Up

Posted on July 9, 2013July 9, 2013 by Dusty Roads

I thought I’d finish my series on Alaska with a few stats for you to mull over. It’s no wonder they call Alaska “The Great Land”.

Alaska is home to 17 of the 20 tallest mountains in the US. The top ten starting with Mt McKinley are:

Mount McKinley 20,320 ft. Alaska Range
Mount Logan 19,541 ft. Saint Elias Range
Mount ST. Elias 18,008 ft. Saint Elias Range
Mount Foraker 17,400 ft. Alaska Range
Mount Lucania 17,257 ft. Saint Elias Range
King Peak 16,972 ft. Saint Elias Range
Mount Bona 16,550 ft. Saint Elias Range
Mount Steel 16,470 ft. Saint Elias Range
Mount Blackburn 16,390 ft. Wrangell Mountains
Mount Sanford 16,237 ft. Wrangell Mountains

Alaska has an area of 571,951 miles and is the largest state in the U.S, more than twice the size of Texas, its closest rival.

With a population only 686,293 this translates to an average of 1.2 people per square mile. the rest od the US has an average of 76 people per square mile.

Alaska has over 70 potentially active volcanos!

The Alaskan coast line is 6,600 miles long. Include the islands and it balloons to 34,000 miles! There are 3000 rivers and more than 3 MILLION lakes!

Over 50% of the world’s Glaciers call Alaska home.

30% od Alaska lies within the Arctic Circle.

There’s so many more fun facts, like the Alaska Bachelor’s Club but if I tell you everything what will that leave you to discover on your own trip?

Newark International Airport at 5am. Almost home.

Day at the Zoo

Posted on July 7, 2013July 7, 2013 by Dusty Roads

It’s the last day in Alaska and I’m so glad we are spending it at the Zoo. I love zoos. I even went to the zoo in Hawaii.

So we arrived via the Zoo shuttle right to the entrance. When it’s time to leave the shuttle will pick us up right in the parking lot. There’s even a little bench to sit on while we wait.

We bought our tickets and picked up our maps and followed a family of rambunctious little ones onto the paths. The paths cross crossed and meandered so we picked the “must see” animals and figured we’d go there first. Grizzlies were on that list but they were also on the far side of the zoo.

There was a little deer in an exhibit that was just full of mischief. A Maintenance worker was repairing the enclosure and she just followed him everywhere trying to chew on his pants. When he finally shooed her away she took off to pick on a poor , abused looking turkey that shared her enclosure.

The tiger was sleeping and wasn’t going to move for anyone.

The wolves were pretty riled up. They paced along the fence line. A family with very young children were watching. The wolves seemed to be fixed on the kids. Did they think they were prey? A snack? The kids started making howling sounds and the pack joined in.

Once the family moved on the pack dispersed back into the trees in their habitat.

We saw a snowy owl, one of the birds that winters in MA and that I am still trying to get a photo of in the wild.

There was a beautiful bald eagle. They are so majestic that it always makes me feel bad when I see them in captivity. On the other hand many of the captive eagles were injured and couldn’t be rehabilitated enough to survive in the wild. I guess being captive is better than the alternative.

We passed the black bear, a moose hiding in the shadows, and a pretty little red fox snoozing in the sun.

We got a close up look at the caribou.

We crossed a bridge over a pond and watched the swan whose very presence owned the pond. I’m not a “birder” but I think it was a Trumpeter Swan. We have “Mute” Swans around home and it wasn’t that. The bill was black while the Mute Swans have yellow bills and a black eye ridge.

Silly me spotted a squirrel and the picture I got of him is one of my favorites.

There was a good exhibit of the Dall Sheep so we finally got to see this elusive animal up close.

Finally we spotted the grizzly bear enclosure. They weren’t cooperating any more than the wild ones. One was sprawled in the brook in the shade down in a corner of the enclosure. No good angle for a picture. The other one was in a hollow taking a nap. His big foot and an ear about all that could be seen.

By now we’d spent more than an hour so we needed to hustle back to catch the shuttle. We passed the otters and stopped for a minute at the Polar Bears.

We skipped the musk ox and probably a few other animals but time was now of the essence. It was harder to find our way out of the zoo than in!

Finally the exit and timing was perfect. The shuttle was pulled up and waiting.

Wilderness to City

Posted on July 5, 2013July 5, 2013 by Dusty Roads

We relaxed in the sun until our bus arrived. Still cool in the shade, it was T-shirt weather in the sunshine. Amazing the difference from when we started this adventure.

Right on time our bus pulled up and once again we went through the head count process as we boarded the bus, this time we were heading to Anchorage. I wondered if it would be quicker than our trip from Whittier on the train.

Going into Talkeetna was one very popular tour that we didn’t get to do. For one thing it involved another bus ride of about an hour to get there. I needed to move now, not ride another bus! Talkeetna is an interesting little town. The TV show Northern Exposure was based on the town and yes , they do have an Annual Moose Dropping Festival. Another claim to fame…the mayor is a CAT! Yes, a feline. And it holds office hours. I would have been able to get my “kitty fix” if we’d taken the hour+ tour into town.

Mayor Stubbs

Alas, this will have to wait for another trip. I was feeling pretty mellow. This was a longer vacation a than usual and a lot more packing and unpacking and climbing on buses and long train rides and…well, I’m not complaining, but I think I was slowing down.

Our bus driver was pleasant, chatting about the different towns we passed. It was all highway so we made good time. At about the half way mark we got a rest stop at a little ice cream shop.

As the bus pulled in I spotted him. Our eyes met and I knew, just knew, we were destined for each other.

“Pierre” was soon sitting next to me and on his way to Anchorage.

“Pierre”

I haven’t been one to buy souvenirs for myself since I started lugging the camera with me. The pictures are usually my memorabilia. But I couldn’t leave “Pierre” behind.

As we entered Anchorage we hit the first traffic we’d seen in all of Alaska! We were in a “Thoroughly Modern City. ” The driver said that moose might be found wandering the city streets and I had seen that on the Discovery Channel too, but we didn’t see any moose on the loose while we were there.

The driver took us around the block a few times pointing out different places to go for dinner or drinks. Like a mother hen he warned us not to go past certain streets after dark. Well who needs to? It doesn’t get dark until after 11pm!

Eventually he pulled up to the Hotel Captain Cook.

Here were didn’t get an envelope on the bus. Princess had a desk set up where we picked up our keys, once again speeding the check in process.

We were on the 15th floor.

Another beautiful room, well appointed as they say. And free WIFI! Finally connected again! And our luggage was waiting!

I have to admit that all of the accommodations have been outstanding.

This would be our last night in Alaska.

Around the MT. Mckinley Princess Wilderness Lodge

Posted on July 3, 2013July 3, 2013 by Dusty Roads

This was my favorite lodge.

It may have been considered more remote but I thought it was much nicer than the Princess lodge we just left. After all, how many times have you opened a door with antlers for handles.

A shuttle takes you around the property and all of the drivers were great. A female moose gave birth to twins the day before we got there. The little ones were too small to move far so she was right there beside the road. The drivers always stopped so we could get a glimpse of her through the trees. Try as I might I couldn’t get a clear shot.

We even walked down in hopes of getting a shot without bus windows but for such a large animal, she and the babies were hidden well.

The lodge was afraid all the attention would stress Mama Moose and that she might charge and injure a guest in an attempt to protect her babies. They said if people kept going down there they would be forced to make her move so we only made the one attempt. We didn’t want her forced to move babies so young.

The main pastime at this lodge was Denali (Mt. McKinley) watching. They even had an alert system similar to a wake up call. If you wanted a call when the mountain was visible you signed up and got a phone call, no matter what time, when the clouds cleared and the mountain could be seen.

I must have been getting tired at this point because there was a horse drawn wagon ride that I wanted to take but I forgot all about it until we were boarding the bus to leave!

We didn’t do any tours here. I was on the courtesy internet quite a bit wrapping up details of my job offer so that I could be sure to have a job when I got back from vacation. They had a great gift shop with some of the most unique and reasonably priced souvenirs of our trip. We did quite a bit of shopping here.

Even though we were farther in to the interior or maybe because we were, spring was really springing here. Temps were getting up to 60+, almost breaking the 70 mark. That was the trigger for Alaska’s unofficial state bird to make it’s appearance.

These mosquitoes are huge and plentiful. One of our new friends had bug repellant plastic bracelets and shared some with us. To my surprise they worked.

Denali (the mountain) watching was really interesting. When we got up in the morning the sky over the Alaska range was overcast but the mountains, except for Denali stood out clearly.

The line of mountain tops was so well defined it was hard to believe there was a “missing mountain”. About mid- morning Denali suddenly popped out of the overcast.

Cloud banks drifted and shifted in front of her but that only added to her mystique.

We spent a relaxing morning mountain watching before we had to climb back on the bus for the last leg of our journey to Anchorage where we’d be reunited with our luggage and spend the night before our flight home and back to reality.