On leaving Denali (under a light rain) we did not spot the Great One (it was still shrouded in clouds). We did spot caribou, which was a pretty cool, and take in a dogsledding demo. From here we headed south towards Anchorage. Withought any final destination in mind we thought to stop at Talkeetna and their Flying Squirrel Bakery. A nail biting 2 hours later I realized I had miscalculated the mileage (when your tired and thinking km things get dicy) and we were running low on fuel having not filled up in Cantwell. Thank the fates for Trapper Creek and their restaurant/fuel bar. After passing through Talkeetna, an oddly touristy town that cruise ship passengers are bussed to (feels a bit like Tofino), we headed South. The weather broke as we finally made it to Anchorage and we got to watch belugas swimming in Turnagain Arm before making the decision to head East to Whittier.
The approach to Whittier includes one of the longest tunnels in North America. It was constructed during World War 2 to hide a US Military base in Alaska. Now it serves as a cruise ship stop (only one at a time thankfully), fishing/boating outpost, historic derelict military structure, ferry terminal from Valdez, and officially my favourite city in Alaska.....possibly all of the US. This is quite possibly the most underrated town we've visited. I just about gave it a miss in our travels based on all the literature available. Yes, it has some very soviet/military looking buildings (one a shell of a structure with graffiti and caution signs, the other converted to a condo complex that acts as an indoor town for locals through the winter......complete with a tunnel for the 45 kids to get to school) but it isn't trying to pass itself off as something its not. Half the population is still shipped to work for the summer (just like the rest of the tourist towns in Alaska) and they do cater to cruise ships but its not the song and dance that many of the towns put on during the day. As a funny, I saw some "local native art" memorabilia and I thought, "that looks so much like the Haida and Musqueum artists that BC Ferries has been carrying. Sure enough, the label said designed in Canada or designed in Vancouver, BC.
There aren't words for how naturally beautiful this town is. You literally come out of a crazy tunnel (its a perfectly straight single-lane tunnel, that you can't see the end as you enter, nor the entrance as you leave) into a valley filled with glaciers and waterfalls. The ocean is turned a vivid blue/green with all the glacial silt and the mountains are shifting tones of green. Our campsite (at the back of a long parking lot full of boat trailers) was a simple grass square, separated from its neighbours by low shrubs and trees. Waterfalls, mountains and glaciers surrounded us. The noise of the motorhome generators (truly my nemesis now) totally drowned out by the sounds of nearby falling water. The bugs of course thrive with all this water but our "princess tent" kept them at bay and our night was lovely.
Waking in Whittier, we decided to go on one of the local hikes. The hike to Horsetail Falls is a quick 2km broadwalk/rock step hike up to a viewing platform that is stunning. We headed back to town for pizza and icecream and then made plans to head to Seward for an evening paddle and camp......those plans were thwarted when a highway patrolman knocked on our window while we waited for the change in tunnel direction. Did we know we had a flat tire? Um , well, no, as the speed limit in town is 10mph, it was our right rear, and it had lost most of the air while we waited in line. A gentleman hopped out of his car to try to convince me to reinflate the wheel and make it into the tunnel but I wasn't feeling like entering a 10minute long tunnel with a reinflated wheel and hoping I made it......so off came the bikes, out came all the food and equipment, out came the spare and jack and we swapped out the flat for my spare.....which was low (not as low as my tire, but low enough to be a worry with the load on my car and the train tracks running in the tunnel (did I mention the single lane tunnel is also a train tunnel). Luckily, the highways people had a compressor.....and a generator for fun....so we were on our way back to Anchorage on the next direction change......slowly, so very, very slowly, on a mostly single lane 65mph highway doing not-above-35mph with my 4-ways on and trying to drive on the shoulder to let people pass. This was met with an odd combination of happy waves, and angry honks depending on whether people caught on that I wasn't a tourist taking photos while driving but a motorist with a spare tire driving to the nearest tire place.....about 100km away.
I want to take a moment to thank Dave of the Whittier highways group. He's a year round resident of Whittier who runs a towing company, owns one of the only houses in Whittier (which he runs a B&B from) and works for the Highways directing, enforcing and helping to maintain vehicle and train traffic through the tunnel year round. He is the gentleman who took off my tire nuts while I jacked up the car for the first time, swapped my tire out, got the compressor/generator from the other side of the tunnel (returning with the next wave of traffic) and showed me how to work the built in gauge on the air pump. The man is incredibly patient and helpful. If you're ever in Whittier and need a place to stay, look his B&B up.
Things you learn in Alaska.....Arriving in Anchorage at 5pm on a Saturday means:
A) Every automotive place in town except the Express-Auto guy is closed
B) Every automotive place supplying tires will be closed until Monday morning
The Express guys had a total of two tires in their shop......of two different models, neither for my car. I had my tires checked before I left but apparently my rear alignment issue (a factory defect that is not an easy repair) meant that 6,000km later and one shale side-road was too much for the rear tire. Now all I needed was to find two new rear tires on a Sunday in Alaska, then the Express guys could install them for me because they worked Sundays.
In the meantime, we looked into a hotel for the night but they start at about $200US in Anchorage. This is not a cheap place to stay on the fly and I knew that going in. We tried an RV Park in the city but they refused to allow a car to pay for an RV site. So we booked it, slowly, across the city to the City owned and operated Centennial Park Campground. For $25 per night they have a welcome lounge/log cabin for guests with free wifi, unlimited hot showers (that are really hot), potable water, and electrical hookups for RVs that meant..... no generators! Emma and I both had a laugh about how the nearby highway noise and planes flying overhead felt like home. The most bizarre thing is that there are mushrooms of enormous sizes and differing varieties/colours growing everywhere here. People are walking around collecting them.
We realized we have a little over a week left of our trip, it feels too soon but also as if we left months ago. We see and do so much in each day that when we talk about things we did, we have to stop and realize that they were only yesterday....not days or weeks ago. This has been such a unique and beautiful experience, its hard to take the time to appreciate and catalogue each moment when all you really want to do is immerse yourself in the next one.
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