We co-ordinated this trip schedule just so well with the introduction of daylight saving in North America. After being up in the middle of the night for the third time in a row to try and see the Aurora Borealis they introduce daylight saving (depriving us of an hours sleep) on the day we had to set out early for the long drive back to Anchorage. :-(
We managed to be on the road a little after 9:30am, which wasn't a bad effort under the circumstances. Our first stop, a couple of hours out, was at Denali National Park. The park proper is not actually open at this time of year but the educational display centre was open and it was possible to drive about 12 miles in, to a point where a few short walks could be done. Aware that we still had a long way to go we had only a brief stop at the education centre and drove to the 12 mile limit to see the wintery terrain but did not venture on to do any of the walks.
Our only other stop was shortly after Denali NP at a small town - well, village really - called Cantwell. Apparently it boasts a population of over 200 people, but that must be roping in surrounding farm houses or something. We drove past the only roadhouse thinking there might be something more promising, but there wasn't so we had to double back. Still, it was passable "truck stop" fare at least.
After that our next stop was all the way back at the Clarion Suites in Anchorage, which was a pretty good run. We were re-united with the bag that we had inadvertently left behind, to Laura's delight.
Then, having been sitting down most of the day, we opted to walk downtown to have dinner at the same nice little Thai restaurant we had had dinner at on our first evening in town. It felt so balmy in Anchorage, compared to what we had experienced in Fairbanks (the temperature was actually positive in Celsius, not just in Fahrenheit!), that I set out without a jacket. Once again the dinner was nice, but a jacket for the walk back to the hotel probably would not have been out of place.
Our plan for the next day was to make the scenic drive down to Seward, and despite the unpromising weather we decided to stick to the plan because there was nothing in particular we wanted to do in Anchorage anyway - or at least not enough to fill in the day until our 5:40pm flight to Nome. The drive turned out pretty much as the forecast predicted - rain giving way to sleet then snow as we climbed over the mountains, then back through sleet to rain as we made it back to sea level in Seward. All of which, of course, meant that we didn't really see much of the fabled scenery.
We managed to be on the road a little after 9:30am, which wasn't a bad effort under the circumstances. Our first stop, a couple of hours out, was at Denali National Park. The park proper is not actually open at this time of year but the educational display centre was open and it was possible to drive about 12 miles in, to a point where a few short walks could be done. Aware that we still had a long way to go we had only a brief stop at the education centre and drove to the 12 mile limit to see the wintery terrain but did not venture on to do any of the walks.
Our only other stop was shortly after Denali NP at a small town - well, village really - called Cantwell. Apparently it boasts a population of over 200 people, but that must be roping in surrounding farm houses or something. We drove past the only roadhouse thinking there might be something more promising, but there wasn't so we had to double back. Still, it was passable "truck stop" fare at least.
After that our next stop was all the way back at the Clarion Suites in Anchorage, which was a pretty good run. We were re-united with the bag that we had inadvertently left behind, to Laura's delight.
Then, having been sitting down most of the day, we opted to walk downtown to have dinner at the same nice little Thai restaurant we had had dinner at on our first evening in town. It felt so balmy in Anchorage, compared to what we had experienced in Fairbanks (the temperature was actually positive in Celsius, not just in Fahrenheit!), that I set out without a jacket. Once again the dinner was nice, but a jacket for the walk back to the hotel probably would not have been out of place.
Our plan for the next day was to make the scenic drive down to Seward, and despite the unpromising weather we decided to stick to the plan because there was nothing in particular we wanted to do in Anchorage anyway - or at least not enough to fill in the day until our 5:40pm flight to Nome. The drive turned out pretty much as the forecast predicted - rain giving way to sleet then snow as we climbed over the mountains, then back through sleet to rain as we made it back to sea level in Seward. All of which, of course, meant that we didn't really see much of the fabled scenery.
Once in Seward we opted to see the
Unfortunately the weather hadn't improved noticeably, so we had no more luck with the view. We noticed that the ground seemed pretty dry back in Anchorage so perhaps the weather hadn't been as bad here, though it still seemed a bit gloomy. We didn't pass a service station on the way to the airport so we had to double back to find one to fill up before we could return the rental car. The cheap toboggan Sam & Keira had bought in Fairbanks - the source of so much fun at the Ice Sculpture Park - was "set free" on a patch of snow adjacent to the rental return office. We hope that it eventually found a good home. Then it was onward to catch out plane to Nome for the finish of the Iditarod.
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