After our day in Seward we headed back up to Anchorage to enjoy some big city living for a few days. We decided to treat ourselves to a hotel room for one night and they were kind enough to let us check in at 10am, so we spent an entire day lounging in bed, watching TV and just enjoying being out of the truck. The next day we did some shopping at a few outdoor stores and had lunch at a great little Himalayan restaurant called The Yak and Yeti. We also got to spend some more time with Steve's family at the RV park and tame some of the spring ponies at the playground with the kids. The highlight of our time in Anchorage was dinner and a movie at the Bear Tooth Theater Pub where we say Expedition to the End of the Earth, a really funny documentary about a ships voyage to the Northern reaches of Greenland
After our big city adventure we headed up to Knick to visit Ryan and Erin Redington, some friends from work, and say hello to their brand new baby. Ryan's grandfather started the Iditarod in 1973 and their family has some incredible accomplishments in the sport of dog mushing. Ryan's grandfather even drove a team all the way to the top of Denali! The next morning we drove north to see Denali in person, and the weather didn't disappoint. We stopped at the Southern viewing point and were treated to spectacular blue skies and an unobscured view of the top of the mountain. We had originally planned to drive all the way to the park entrance and into the park, but since we wouldn't be able to drive past the visitor center due to weather we decided to save gas and start making our way back south.
Our only way out of the interior was back through Tok, but rather than go back up towards Fairbanks we decided to head East from Anchorage and drive past the Wrangell mountain range. Just before Glenallen it started to snow, and by the time we reached Gulkana the roads were pretty slick. We camped out for the night behind a gas station, and made the rest of the trek to the border the next morning, stopping in Tok for one more meal at Fast Eddy's. The drive down through Canada took three more days, and the only major stop we made was at Liard Hot Springs. We arrived in Tulare 17 days after we left Skagway, with 6,774 new miles on the truck.
RSS Feed