The Last Frontier: Alaska – Exploring Kenai (Part 3)

Index:

Sunday, April 8, 2012
With my venture to the extreme North of Alaska and the United States, I figured that on this day I would drive the Seward Highway from Anchorage to the terminus in Seward.  According to Google Maps it would take me roughly around 2.5 hours to get there, which isn’t really isnt that far.  I figured that I would want to avoid as much tourist traffic on the way down (not that I was figuring that there would be much), so I resolved to get up early to hit the road.  Again, thanks to the time difference that wasn’t going to be much of a problem despite going to bed fairly late.  I was on the road shortly after 7AM and ready to start adventure #2 for the trip.

Traffic out of Anchorage was not bad at all, nor was it on the Seward Highway.  Everything was still rather quiet as I started the venture south.  As I made it to the coastal stretch along Turnagain Arm (a branch of Cook Inlet) the Sun was starting to peek out from behind the clouds and mountains, illuminating everything with a perfect morning light.  There was a layer of snow still everywhere and the ice chunks floating out on the water and of course very little traffic.  With no rush to get anywhere or from anyone I took my time driving and I stopped at many pull offs just to look and/or take pictures…It was just beautiful and a great way to start a road trip.

Mountains Across Turnagain Arm

The Sun Is Hiding...

..But I Found It Shortly After.

As I made it towards the end of Turnagain Arm I passed through the small town of Girdwood where I managed to hit a bit of fog. With no one else on the road it felt like I was transplanted into some sort of horror film! It was like I was half expecting something to jump out of the fog at my car, although in this part of the world odds are wit would be a Moose. Luckily, I didn’t encounter one here – that would have been very bad for my rental Camry! I passed the road for Portage Glacier and it was starting to clear up as I made my way across a river plain. Once to the other side I was welcomed with a sign indicating that I was now on the Kenai Peninsula.

Lonesome Road

Venturing Into The Unknown

"Welcome to Alaska's Kenai Peninsula"

As you enter the Kenai Peninsula, it feels like you are driving up into the mountains, although in reality from the sign above to the highest point in Turnagain Pass, there is roughly only about a 1000 foot elevation change.  I think it has that effect due to the road being in a pass/valley between two mountain ranges.  I did stop at the pull off at the top of the pass where I got out of the car for a bit to take a few more pictures and again just sit.  There was no one else out here so I ventured out on the snow a bit from the car.  In retrospect, that snow was probably pretty deep, so it’s a good thing it was still pretty solid from overnight and easy to walk on.

There's Something About Snow Covered Pine Trees...

Turnagain Pass

Mountains Blanketed In Snow

Exiting Turnagain Pass - Can't See The Mountains Ahead!

As I exited the pass on the Seward Highway and the road dropped back down to a lower elevation the clouds cleared up again and I made my way past several small lakes.  Eventually you reach the point where the highway forks and you decide if you continue to Seward or head west towards Kenai.  I obvviously picked to keep on going to Seward.  It feels like that after this point I would see signs of civilization more often with a few small towns spread across the highway here and there.  Still not much in the way of signs of wildlife though…

I did make it to Seward and found myself in a very quiet downtown.  There didn’t really look like much was going on or really open aside from a few restaurants.  Since I didn’t really plan this out I just headed down to end of the road to the shore on Resurrection Bay.  I sat down here for a bit looking out across the water hoping to catch a glimpse of maybe a whale or something else, but didn’t luck out.  Even looking way out there through my telephoto lens gained me nothing.  Oh well.  It was just a good place to sit anyways.  I finished up my time in downtown by walking around a bit before getting back into my car.

Downtown Seward

Resurrection Bay

Only 1910 Miles To Nome...That Seems Like An Easy Hike

I had read about a few places to eat breakfast at the Seward Harbor, so I figured I would see what was open.  Sadly, the first few places I would try were all closed.  I guess it being Easter Sunday kinda screwed with my plans there.  Well that and the fact that it’s definitly not the tourist season at that time of the year…and that is something I unfortunately understand being from a Florida tourist-town.  Since all the places in walking distance of my car were closed I figured I would just walk around the harbor area for a bit before trying a few other options.

Seward Harbor

Eventually, though I did luck out with one fo the places that I had read about – the Smoke Shack.  It’s located on the North side of Seward Harbor and suppossedly has really good biscuits and gravy.  But that’s not even the beginning.  The place is in a retired passenger railway car and doesn’t have much in the way of seating inside, perhaps only 6 or so tables.  It’s actually part of a “complex” of sorts of four railway cars, I think the other three were rented out as hotel rooms.  Not really sure on that, however.

Anyways, to the food…I did wind up ordering the biscuits and gravy with scrambled eggs, potatos and coffee.  I will say that the biscuits and gravy were pretty good and filling too.  A highlight that I wasn’t expecting however, was the jalapeno ketchup.  Man was that awesome with the potatos…and I decided that at somepoint I’m going to see if I cant recreated that at home.  It just works awesomely.

Breakfast At The Smoke Shack

Once done with my “Easter Brunch” it was time to head back in the direction of Anchorage.  I had planned to drive to Exit Glacier, which is suppossedly the most accessible glacier in Alaska.  I turned off the highway and started to drive off into the woods, only to get about a mile or so in before I was greeted with a ‘Road Closed’ sign and what looked like an impassable road.  Obviously, my plans to make it to the glacier were not going to happen and only later did I find out that the road is regularly closed during the winter.  Of course in my Florida mind where April is already almost Summer, it just didn’t quite register that it was still Winter in Alaska!

Road to Exit Glacier

As I headed back north it was the exact same route so for the most part, it was the same stuff that I had seen only a few hours earlier.  Not really anything to comment on, but I did see a Moose though.  First and last encounter of wildlife that I would see during my entire trip!  As I exited the Kenai Peninsula I did pull off the highway and took a side route to at least view the Portage Glacier.  I skipped the visitor’s center that the Chugach National Forest runs (It was built to view the glacier, but since then the glacier has retreated behind a mountain), since you can’t see the glacier from it and continued through a tunnel to an observation point on the other side.  From here you could get a good look across Portage Lake to Portage Glacier.  I climbed up on a snow bank to get a better picture and to get slightly away from some of the tourists only to find myself sinking down into snow that was pretty deep!  I think it was up to some point on my thighs.  It was a bit interesting trying to climb out with my camera in hand.  After that I decided to just give up more or less and go back to the car and continue back towards Anchorage.

Portage Glacier

I think a lot of tourists to Anchorage just bother to drive the Seward Highway to this area.  From Portage Glacier all the way back traffic was noticibly heavier and every turn off along Turnagain Arm was filled with cars parked and people taking pictures.  It made me glad that I choose to head out early in the day and keep the experience from being ruined by crowds.

I got back to the hotel a little earlier than I had anticipated, which meant I had a about an hour or two extra to kill before my scheduled appointment on the 16th floor.  Since this long weekend was the first time off from work that I had taken since my New Year’s trip to Montreal, and work had been rather intense in the weeks leading up, I figured I would treat myself to a massage at the Sheraton Ice Spa.  My seat mate on the MSP-ANC flight a few days prior had talked it up and with a $25 SPG Award Certificate in my pocket it seemed like the perfect idea.  The massage which was scheduled to be 50 minutes, I’m pretty sure lasted longer.  The spa closes at 6PM and I wasn’t out of there until almost 630PM.  Now I know my post-massage shower didn’t take that long, so I’m thinking that massage therapist went a bit long.  Which, is perfectly fine in my book, because it was damn near perfect.

After I wrapped up and made my way back down to my room I got ready to head out for dinner.  I was going to go to Humpy’s Great Alaskan Alehouse, but like many things in Seward, It was closed for the holiday.  I eventually settled on The Glacier Brewhouse around the corner.  The place was pretty busy and the food was pretty good.  I went the halibut and was slightly disapointed when I saw what looked like s small salad as one of the sides on my plate since I ordered a salad before my main arrived.  Oh well.

Halibut - Glacier Brewhouse

Once back at the hotel it was already 830-9PM and I had to get packed.  I contemplated going out in search of a drink, but with a 6AM flight the next morning I just stopped at the hotel bar for an Alaskan Amber before heading to bed rather early (for me).

Alaskan Sunset

Monday, April 9, 2012
A 6AM flight means getting up all way too early.  I think I got up around 3AM and proceeded to make my way to the airport.  Hertz wasn’t even open yet, so I dropped my keys in the box and made my way to the Delta ticket counter.  Checking in was no hassle in the Sky Priority line and the agent thanked me for flying with Delta as much as I do.  Security even was pretty painless too, I didn’t even bother going through the elite line since there wasn’t any reason to really.  It was just notch up from ghost town it felt.  Which is probably odd because I would have thought there would have been a good deal of flights from Anchorage to the lower 48 around that time.

My upgrade had been confirmed in advance and after wandering around a little bit, I made my way to the gate where we eventually started boarding.  Today’s flight must have had an equipment swap as we lucked out by getting a 757 with personal screens at every seat.  Much better than the overhead version that the flight up used.  Once in the air breakfast was served, which consisted of a Gouda and Tomato Omelette, Potatoes, Sausage, Fruit, and Croisssant while I watched a variety of movies.  The nearly 6 hour flight to Minneapolis passed by pretty quickly.

Delta First Class Breakfast ANC-MSP

I had a short layover in MSP about 45 minutes, so I didn’t have any time really to stop at either of the Sky Clubs or meander any.  After picking up a sub from Quiznos I made my way to Concourse B, which I had never been to before.  Since it seems to be only regional jets out here that doesn’t really surprise me – If I’m passing through MSP it’s almost always on mainline aircraft.  The flight attendant on the way down to Nashville welcomed us onboard “United Express Operated by Sky West” before correcting herself.  It got only a few laughs and it turns out they were a Houston-based crew (Houston being one of United’s hubs).   Then as we were heading towards the runway I noticed that the flight attendant had recieved a call from the cockpit, which is usually nothing.  Turns out when we got up to altitude and they started the beverage service she mentioned that the pilots wanted to know who had the Quiznos because the smell of my sub had made it all the way up to them. Haha…

Back in Nashville I noticed a flight for Atlanta boarding and attempted to get on it.  Unfortunately, the agent couldn’t confirm the upgrade so I decided to stick with my original flight an hour and a half later and opted to roam the airport a bit.  Found where all of Southwest’s and American’s gates are and I have to say American seems to control quite a few.  I guess thats the remnants of the hub they used to operate here in the 90s.

Lots Of Delta Activity - Flights to MSP, LGA, DTW, MEM, and ATL Were All Arriving Or Departing

My next flight of the night, BNA-ATL, turned out to be full of errors.  First, since it was a regional jet, I had to gate check my smaller suit case.  Turns out that the handle would get ripped off at this point, which I’ve already documented.  On top of that, after the flight attendant took my order for a drink, she never came back with it.  As I sat there in my First Class seat I thought about whether I should say something or not.  It’s a short flight so it wasn’t like that I needed to have that drink, but I saw it as more or less a test.  A test that the flight attendants failed.  After serving everyone else, they retreated to the galley to talk amongst theirselves and chow down on snacks.  Way to go ExpressJet for making this Platinum feel special.

Broken - It Was Probably Time For A New Suitcase Anyways

In Atlanta I made my way to my final gate with my broken suitcase in tow.  At least now I didn’t have to worry about it being broken for this last leg so there was that.  On top of that, I’m pretty sure I’ve encountered the flight attendant on this last flight before.  Seemed familar for some reason.  Just like the previous flight it was short and before I knew it my journey was over and I was in my own car on the way home.

Alaska was a great place and this trip was fantastic.  I feel like I crammed much more than two days worth of activities into my weekend, but at the same time I know I missed out on so much.  Visiting a place with this short amount of time really doesn’t giving you a true sense of it.  I mean let’s face it I spent not even three hours in Barrow.  I didn’t make it to the actual point.  I wasn’t able to see the Northern Lights or really much of any wildlife.  No hiking or really out in nature activities.  But you know what, it was still incredibly fun and got my mind completely off of work for a few days.  That you can’t argue with.  I know that at somepoint I’ll go back to Alaska and make a “legit” trip out of it.  I would really love to go hiking/camping/backpacking in Denali National Park.

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