Day 8: Anchorage to Girdwood

Though it looked like rain at the start of the day, the weather soon cleared and we had nice blue skies.

We walked to the airport to pick up our next rental car so that we could drive down to Girdwood and travel at our own pace for the remainder of the vacation. It was a long walk, longer than I had thought after viewing the map. We made it, at last, and headed out of Anchorage, and towards Girdwood.





Our first tour was to view the Portage Glacier. We were there way early for our 1:30pm cruise, so we asked if we could switch it to the noon which was in 10 minutes. They said no problem, because the boat wasn't full, and we left immediately for the glacier.





When it was over, it was only 1PM, and the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center entrance was very close to Portage Glacier, and we had to head back to the Highway anyway. With the toursaver, it'd be $7.50 for both of us to see the animals there, so I decided to call the Talkeetna Air Taxi people to see if the tour was still scheduled for 7:30PM. When I called though, they said the weather was iffy, and they said it'd probably be best to reschedule, even though there would be no guarantee on that day either. Then she mentioned the fact that they hadn't been doing glacier landings for a few weeks due to the conditions up there, so that sealed the deal. We canceled the helicopter tour altogether, which was sad, because it was something we both really looked forward to.

So now we went through the gate of the Conservation Center, and drove to the first animal, which was moose. National Geographic people were there, and there was also a huge puddle of water between the road and the fence to better view the animals. I thought twice, and then decided to try to find the most shallow way to get near the moose, and I took some pictures and moved on. My mother was disappointed that National Geographic took footage of animals like that, having assumed they only took footage in the wild.





We headed around for a bit, and ended up taking a few pictures of Caribou and Musk Oxen, but ended up at the bears.





I sat to write in my journal while we waited for them to come into view. When I had just begun, an ATV came up to the fence, and a guy threw food into the bears and called them, so I went back out and prepared for the bears. While out there, my mother pointed out a coyote on the other side of the water, so I took a picture as well as I could, and then watched as the bears came for their food.





We were lucky to get there right when they had been fed, because there wasn't a huge crowd yet. The crowd came shortly as tour bus after tour bus came through the place.





After we had enough of the bear, we drove down further where I saw a Wood Bison alone near a fence. I walked up to the fence but kept my distance, hoping it'd move away from the fence so I could get up close for a shot. I didn't have to wait too long. It came close again so I had to back up, but I had taken a few shots. I waited for it to back up again, and then took more and decided to leave. I felt like I was taunting it almost just by being there and having the fence between us.





Isn't he cool?

We went back to see if the coyote was anywhere to be seen because I wanted a better picture of that, and it was beautiful. We couldn't find it, but while there, a lady showed us the map of the place, and said there were also Black Bear and I saw the word "Lynx" so I decided to go check that out. The Black Bears weren't out, and the other bears over there were far away and sleeping. I couldn't even see where the Lynx was, so we decided it was time to head out. It had started to crowd from the tour buses anyway, so we stopped by the gift shop, just to look around real quick, and then started back up to Anchorage.

It was a beautiful drive back, and I was looking forward to driving it again the next day.

We walked around Anchorage, checked out some stores, and had some food when we got back. Here are the only pictures I took of the city.

Day 7: Train from Fairbanks to Anchorage

This was a full travel day, so we didn't do much of anything. Here are some pictures that I took from the train though. It was sunny at moments, but mostly overcast, so I didn't take many.

Day 6: Fairbanks

We went to the University of Fairbanks Museum of the North today. It was $10 to get in, and $5 for the movie "Winter", which we decided to see, since it was starting soon after we arrived. They had another show called "Aurora" which was free though, so we decided to check that out later.





A picture of the Museum driving towards it.





It was interesting to hear from the people of Fairbanks, their views of Alaskan winter. Some people said they actually preferred the winter over the summer. And apparently the dry air makes it feel less cold than in wet climates.

It gets so cold that they have to plug their cars in when they go out, so parking lots have what look like parking meters set up, free to use while they shop. Also, we saw the recent climate changes, and heard a lot about that as well.

They play weird games in the winter, and have a lot of competitions to keep active, since having very little daylight can cause mental issues. They play bowling by pushing people in tubes into the pins..better than another area where I hear they send frozen chickens in place of the bowling ball. They also do a lot of cross-country skiing.

After the show, we finished looking around the museum.





I found the Michio Hoshino display extremely interesting. I loved his words and photographs. Just to give you an idea, he wrote,

"We all die and go back to nature eventually. When we are in the city we tend to forget - we don't really think about it. But nature reminds us...It's not a sad thing. It gives us energy. Nature has a kind of power to encourage you to live because Nature teaches - you are going to die."





Unfortunately I didn't really take many pictures in the museum, so this is the only one I have of his work. It's easy to find online however. I was very impressed.

And then there's Otto, a 1250lb Brown Bear. You can see how big he is compared to that man to the right.





And a few more pieces.





We went outside for a picnic style lunch before watching "Aurora". The show was alright, but I almost fell asleep numerous times. After the show, we went to the Georgeson Botanical Gardens, which had a $2 entry fee, just to see flowers.. It was pretty, and it was beautiful out. We took pictures of the flowers, and sat on the benches for a few minutes to relax.





I few of them reminded me of hair.





I was going to head downtown to see about the ice museum, but as we were driving down College Rd, we came across Creamers Dairy, which I'd seen as a place to check out online.





They had a bird sanctuary, some trails, and a small visitor's center. We decided to take a short walk, since it was nice out, and it was free. We also saw signs to the Bird Observatory, so we decided we'd hike towards that. We passed by 3 serious photographers on the way.





When we followed the trail to the end, we were confused for a second. It looked like a housing development area. If we hadn't seen some people go into this small brown place with the door open, we would never have found it. They didn't have any signs. Later I thought that maybe that was the back door entrance, and they may have had signs in the front. We didn't go out to the front, and didn't check out the gift shop at all.





After the walk back, we decided to gas the car up to be returned tomorrow, and call it a day.