Today we head to Anchorage for our last night in Alaska before flying home.
I slept better last night and finally woke up without having any fever, but I had taken some Tylenol during the night, and I was not sure if it was because of that or that I finally was done with the fever from my COVID. I certainly felt better, and had a little more energy.
We all slept in a little since there was no rush to leave here before our check-out time at 11:00 AM. I let Stephanie sleep in longer, but Ashley and Bryan were already up and downstairs.
I headed downstairs and made a pot of coffee, it had been a long time since I made a whole pot of brewed coffee, thinking Bryan may want some also. I had to guess on the amount of ground coffee to use, and I made it a little stronger than I might knowing Bryan liked it stronger. It took forever for the pot to brew in the coffee machine, I guess I am so used to the speed of my Keurig for single cup servings.
Bryan decided to head to the pastry shop on the main street for some breakfast for him and Ashley, so he was just going to get coffee there.
I had my cup of coffee and ate the last package of the Pop Tarts we had left. At least I had not lost any sense of taste, but I was congested so my smell was not 100%, but it was also still working!
I showered and by that time, Stephanie was up. I started arranging our bags so we could get most everything into the two suitcases, and just use our Walmart duffel for the dirty laundry and some of the things we will eventually place in Stephanie’s backpack for the plane ride home tomorrow, such as our headsets and the GoPro Gimble. They all have rechargeable batteries and can’t be in the checked baggage. We will ditch the duffel in the hotel room in Anchorage and be down to the two suitcases for travel home.
Stephanie toasted and ate one of the last two bagels with cream cheese for breakfast, and we got everything packed up. Everyone was ready by about 10:30 AM, Ashley and Bryan had already gotten all of their luggage down to the Tahoe, but needed our bags so we could pack everything in the same way as we had been doing, it was how we could get everything to fit in the Tahoe.
Ashley had already packed the cooler, mainly concentrating on getting her frozen fish and the ice packs into the cooler as well as a few other of their refrigerated items, including some of the leftovers from their dinner last night and also from today’s pastry breakfast. The cooler was already in the Tahoe, but we had not put any of our refrigerated items into it yet.
Stephanie and I decided what we wanted to take for the cooler, and I went out to rearrange the cooler to try and get them to fit inside. I wanted to take our ham and cheese for sandwiches, we were not sure how we would feel for going out to get any dinner tonight in Anchorage, so that was our backup plan. We also needed to get our small mini boxes of wine into the cooler to keep them cold, as well as the cream cheese for the last bagel for tomorrow’s breakfast at the hotel.
The cooler was not full, but the frozen fish was now inside a large black trash bag, and it was tied with a knot on the end, and that was trapping a lot of air inside the bag and the cooler was not even closing because of the trapped air. I unknotted the bag, and once it was vented, there was actually quite a lot of room in the cooler. There was a bag of ice in the cooler, and it was taking up a lot of space, but I left that there, I guess it was to help keep the frozen fish cold as well as the two ice packs. We were finally able to get our items into the cooler, as well as a few beers that were left over.
Once that was done, we were ready to leave. The plan was to go on a little side trip on the way to Anchorage to an area called Hatcher’s Pass. Anything was better than the normal route, it was full of stoppages for one way traffic for construction activities for replacement of many of the small concrete bridges., and it was not scenic at all.
Seaplane Taxing For Takeoff
First, we stopped off at the place where Ashley and Bryan had stayed the last time when they visited Talkeetna. It was sort of a Hobbit House looking building, and was next to and part of a seaplane base used for tours that was on a large lake. The lake was long in a couple of different directions, sort of in an “X” shape. We arrived in time to see a float plane take off on a tour. It was interesting because it taxied out onto the lake in several different directions before deciding to take off. The wind was definitely swirling and we were not exactly sure which way they would take off to be into the wind. They actually started off in one direction, but we could not see them actually lift off from the water because our view was blocked by some trees. However, we saw it a bit later after it was already in the air, but now it was going almost 90 degrees to the right of its initial take off direction.
I used the apparently “not public” restroom before we all got back into the car. There was a sign, but I did not see it until I had gotten to the separate building up the hill. Part of that separate building was also the private restroom for the Hobbit House, the house itself had no restroom inside, and that was the only negative Ashley and Bryan said about their stay there.
Back on the road again, we drove for about 30 minutes before we tuned off onto the road to head to Hatcher’s Pass. Eventually, the road turned into a gravel road and we started heading higher in elevation. There was a large stream next to the road for most of the way. It was amazing to see how many people were camped along the stream at various cleared areas that had obviously been used for camping over the years. People were sitting along the stream by their campers, and we occasionally saw a tent or two, but not many. We wondered how safe tent camping was here in these remote areas with the possibility of bear encounters.
Horay Marmot
In some areas, it was large enough for several campers, but most were single campsites. We guessed if you wanted to stay in these apparently “public” campsites, you just drive along hoping to find a suitable spot that might be empty, or stop and ask if people are leaving. I doubt there is any organized system, but who knows.
We drove for quite a distance before we really started to go up in elevation as we approached the summit of the pass. We stopped off in one scenic overlook area, and we saw two different types of furry animals, (we looked them up after we got home)
Arctic Ground Squirrel
One was a Horay Marmot, but smaller than the marmots Stephanie and I saw in Austria. The other one was a small Arctic Ground Squirrel, he was small and brown, and stood on his hind legs a lot.
It was not much farther before we arrived at a large parking area near the pass summit. There were a lot of cars parked here even though we had not seen a lot of traffic going our direction. Apparently, the pass is much more accessible from the other end of the road we were heading on, and most people came from that direction.
Hatcher Pass Summit Lake
We parked and headed up the pathway to the top of the hill. There was a wedding party already there, and apparently the wedding had ended just before we arrived, and now they were taking wedding photos.
Everyone was dressed up in typical wedding attire, there were several bridesmaids in dresses, and groomsmen in semi-formal attire without coats.
There was a small stream fed lake here called Summit Lake, and several people were fishing for trout. We actually saw several fish caught. The hilly areas around the lake still had some snow on them and people were hiking everywhere.
Chuck & Stephanie – Hatcher Pass
Ashley told us that were going to have their leftovers for lunch, offering us some too, but we were glad we had brought our lunch meat, cheese and leftover loaf bread, so we just made some sandwiches. Glad we had thought to bring that, we did not know and had not been informed we were stopping here for lunch.
After eating, we started off again in the car, and around the next bend in the road was the official Hatcher Pass monument by another parking area a little higher in elevation than where we had just stopped. We opted not to stop here for any photos.
We drove a few more miles, all fairly steep downhill on the gravel road, and then we came to pavement again. It was a LOT closer to pavement from this side to the Pass than from the direction we had come from, no wonder it was more traveled to from that direction, plus it was closer in to Anchorage.
It had been a scenic drive, and we enjoyed it, and the road was in great shape for just being gravel and dirt.
Lunchtime at Hatcher Pass
There was an old, no longer functioning gold mine nearby called the Independence Mine. It was a “hard rock” gold mine that operated until just after WW II. Hard rock mines use tunnels in the rock to follow the gold veins, versus mining gold that is washed into loose dirt or streams It is now called the Independence Mine State Historical Park.
We drove toward that area to see it from the car. There was an entry fee, based on an honor system for pass purchases, but we were not stopping to tour the buildings and grounds, we just drove through the paring lot for a drive by visit, so we did not get a pass. Ashley and Bryan had stopped here their last time in Alaska, and said it was good, but not really worth a lot of time to explore, plus we did not have a lot of time anyway, we still had a ways to go to get to Anchorage.
We started back toward Anchorage, and again, followed a large stream as we drove. It was really flowing full if water from the recent rains, and still melting snow. Most if this area seemed to be in a National Park or State Recreational Area, there were no building anywhere. We passed by some gate arms along the road, apparently they are used to close off this area in the winter, and after that, we started to see a lot of homes and buildings, obviously we were no longer on any protected land after passing by the gate arms.
Not much farther along, we came to a gas station and needed to fill up. It was the most reasonable gas price we had seen in a long time here in Alaska, just $4.04 per gallon. They had showers and restrooms, as well as a laundromat for all of the campers in the area to use. It was nice to see that even though they were the only gas station around, they kept their gas prices this low.
After filling up the Tahoe and using the personal pit stop facilities, we were back on the road. It was still about 45 minutes drive to our hotel, the same one we had stayed in when we arrived in Anchorage on July 1. Check in was at 3:00 PM, and Google Maps indicated we would not get there until about 3:30 PM, so we were making perfect time.
We arrived at the hotel to check in, and Ashley and Bryan went first, and got their room right off. For some reason, we needed to wait, they needed to check to see if our room was ready. We had reserved a Queen Suite, and they did not show any being ready yet in their system, which apparently was not that good, we had issues checking in the first time staying here also. It was 45 minutes past the designated check-in time at 3:00 PM, so we were not sure what the issue was.
We finally were given s room on the second floor, and headed there. It was at the far end from the elevators, and was a designated handicap room. It was much larger inside that our other room had been, and the bathroom was huge, adding a lot mor space for the required wheelchair access. Of course, we had to figure out that all of the dishware was not in the upper cabinets, it was all in the lower cabinets for access from a wheelchair.
After dropping off our luggage, we all headed back to the Tahoe to go to an Antique Store Ashley and Bryan wanted to visit. After that, we were going to head to a Bass Pro Shop we had seen on the way to the hotel, Stephanie and I wanted to try on some of their rain jackets we had been looking at to replace our 13 year old well travelled rain jackets.
The antique store was really interesting, they had some very unique items specific to this area. The only thing we saw that we thought was nice was a lot of the ivory carvings, I guess technically scrimshaw. They had a lot of pieces in display cases, and some were obviously old. Many were carved on what we guessed were walrus tusks, and they actually had a lot carved on elephant tusks. One tusk in particular was carved to commemorate a sailing vessel called “The Bear” from the 1800’s. What was very obvious was that this stuff was apparently very valuable, the prices were mostly in the $4,000 to $6,000 range, and a lot were even higher.
I would need to learn a lot more about the value of these pieces before I would pay that much. I don’t know enough to figure out how to determine real from “fake”, or to know why some pieces were more valuable than others. They were quite fascinating.
We spent about an hour there. Ashley bought one small Moose Antler for a project at home. It was small enough to put into a suitcase, it was only abut 18 inches long. It was fun to look around there and see a lot of items specific to Alaska that we don’t normally see in antique stores at home.
I had thought the Bass Pro Shop was in the same direction as the antique store, so we headed in what I thought was the correct direction. Apparently, it was only because Google Maps made it look that way initially, but once we started the actual driving directions, the map inverted, and we were really going the opposite direction we needed. I did not have my glasses handy, so Stephanie took over as navigator for Ashley and we had to turn around at the next exit.
It was only a few miles to the Bass Pro Shop, and it was really crowded with cars in the parking lot. We parked and all headed inside. It took Stephanie and I a bit to find the rainwear section, but once there, we found the jackets we were looking for. They had a lot of all of the the sizes and colors for the men, and I tried on a couple of sizes before deciding that the Large Tall was what I needed, and I think that is what I have now. I wanted the Grey color, which I initially did not see because it was on the other side of the rack. My original jacket was from the same line of “Guidewear” at Cabellas when I ordered it long ago, now Cabellas and Bass Pro shops are all one chain.
We found one ladies version on the rack in grey, it was a Medium, so Stephanie tried it on. She wanted to try on a large for comparison, but we only saw the one ladies jacket, thinking that there must be another rack of ladies jackets somewhere else nearby. We asked a nice sales lady and she pointed us to a rack of ladies rainwear, but there was no Large size, there were just a few jackets on the rack compared to all of the ones available for men. The rep asked someone else in apparel and they were able to fine a large in the back and Stephanie tried it on and it fit better. We had no intention of purchasing them here, we just wanted to check out sizes so we knew what to order online from home. We had no space for jackets in our luggage, and we told that to the lady helping us. She actually looked them up online for us while we were there.
Stephanie did find a sweater on sale, and of course, had to have that, so she purchased it. One more item for the suitcases!
Bass Pro Shop Display
Stephanie And Her New Friend
The store was really interesting inside, they had large aquarium on the back wall full of various fish from Alaska including most all of the Salmon species and some trout. We did not see it initially, but while I was checking on the sale price of the sweater, I saw the aquarium display.
We had thought the sweater was on sale and was supposed to be 50% off, but when I went back to the rack, and looked ad the sale display, the sign clearly said the sale was 25% to 50%, so the sweater price was correct at 25% off. Stephanie did get some discount for being in healthcare, the lady had asked before we started checking out, it was supposed to be a discount for military, law enforcement and “first responders”, but she gave it to Stephanie anyway for being in healthcare as a Therapist.
After checking out, we went to the back of the store to look at the aquarium. There were two large stuffed bears on either side and we got photos with them. The display was amazing, above the aquarium, which was supposed to represent a stream, was a display of mountain goats, and other animals on some simulated cliffs above the water.
Bass Pro Shop Aquarium
Ashley and Bryan were waiting on some benches at the entrance to the store, so we caught back up with them and headed out to the Tahoe to head back to the hotel. We needed to stop by the Fred Meyer grocery store for Ashley to purchase a special insulated shipping box for the frozen fish she was going to take on the airplane with her tomorrow. We had seen them there on our shopping day two weeks ago when we arrived in Alaska.
They also had a gas station, so Bryan and I headed there to top off the rental car while the girls went inside for the box.
With that mission completed, we headed back to the hotel. We were going to order food from the nearby restaurant, the Beat Paw. Stephanie and I planned to walked over there to order our food “to go”. Ashley and Bryan took all of their stuff to their room, they were going to call in their order from the room, they had already looked at the menu and knew what they wanted. We had not looked at any menu, so we walked to the restaurant and headed inside. We told the hostess we wanted to place on order to go, and she told us there was a special side area for To Go orders, who knew that!
We headed there and ordered our food. It was going to take about 15 minutes, so I headed back to the hotel to start repacking the suitcases while Stephanie waited on the order. I got her sweater out of the car and also moved the car closer to the entrance to the hotel, there were no open spaces that close when we first got there and parked. I needed to go and get our items form the cooler, which Ashley and Bryan had taken to their room so they could put the frozen fish into the freezer in the kitchenette we all have in the rooms here. I got the cooler and took it up the stairs one floor to our room. Stephane arrived about 10 minutes later with the food. We ate our food and had some of the Alaska Amber beers we had brought in the cooler. I had a pulled pork sandwich with fires and Stephanie had a jalapeno burger with fires. The food was good, but not great.
After dinner, we started back on arranging the suitcases so that we had space for the few items we still had packed in the duffel. After about 15 minutes, we were set and the suitcases weighed about 47 pounds each, so we were good on weight. Ashley came by to get our luggage scale to weigh their bags, they had also been packing everything up for tomorrow. A short time later she returned with the luggage scale, her heaviest bag was 53 pounds, but she though that was close enough to the 50 pound airline limit. We both thought that was not going to get approved at check-in without some reduction and told that to Ashley, but that recommendation we made fell on deaf ears. We will see what happens tomorrow.
We took showers and then relaxed and enjoyed some wine from our mini-boxes of Pinot Grigio. Stephanie took a rapid test just to check if she was infected with COVID. Her test showed negative, which was good. I was going to take our last test tomorrow morning before we left for the airport. We called it a night about 10:30 PM. We set an alarm for 5:00 AM tomorrow morning, we had all planned to meet at the car to be packing up everything around 5:45 AM. Our flight is at 8:00 AM, so we needed to have enough time to drop off the rental car, check in and get through security.
We had a nice day on our last Day in Alaska.