Our trip to Alaska was kind of a hasty decision, all we knew was we wanted a getaway for the 4Th of July weekend. We had been to talking about Alaska for the longest time but were having hard time finalizing it, I guess due to the high cost. Once we made the decision we were ecstatic.....
The biggest, strangest, weirdest thing was daylight 24x7. You only read that in the geography book in school but to experience it was one hell of a deal.
Day 1, July 3rd: We were traveling light so as to make our life easy while going places within Alaska. We started our day by checking out of the hotel in Anchorage and heading downtown to the Anchorage Museum of Art & History. We were to catch our bus for Denali from this location in the late afternoon. The Museum was very informative and worth a visit.
The bus ride from Anchorage to Denali was amazing, the driver knew her stuff inside out, very talkative, funny and nice old lady. The enthusiasm with which Alaskans do their job is something very impressive.
We stopped over at Talkeetna Resort mid-way for a beautiful surprise. We enjoyed the view of the snow clad mountain ranges from the back deck of the Talkeetna Resort. But we did not see the Mount Mckinley, the tallest mountain in the US from here due to the cloud cover. Clicked a lot of photos sipping coffee, enjoying the weather and view. That night after reaching the Hotel, we had some fresh Salmon, it was amazing. I have never had Salmon that tastes so good. Also had a Reindeer hot dog, donno if that was true but had it anyways.
Day 2: After the spending a night at the McKinley Chalet Resort, we were fresh and excited about seeing some wildlife in the Denali National Park.
We stepped out of the Hotel at about 9AM and headed out for some breakfast. After breakfast, went for a walk into the forest, walked for good 2-3 hours and headed for some souvenir shopping. After buying lot more than just souvenirs, went back to the hotel to catch the bus for the Denali National Park wildlife tour. This tour went on forever........it was good but extremely tiring. We spotted foxes, heirs, Moose, Caribous, Grizzly bears etc. it was pretty exciting as we had not seen any of these animals before. Wish had seen some more bears though... :(
Don't miss the directions pole from the picture below....checkout the Npole distance...
Day 3: After the exhaustive day2, we had river rafting scheduled for the next day. Got up at 6:30AM as we had to leave for the rafting at 7:15AM. We want rafting in the Nenana river, the temperature of this river was close to freezing. We were suited up in the rafting costume from neck to toe. The rafting guides said the water was so cold that if some one was to fall in the river would get a Hypothermia attack within 1 to 1.5 minutes and with costume on, that time would increase to 5-7 minutes...and that's not very helpful......
Nenana means No river river. This river got this name because it is formed from glacier waters and carries a lot of silt, it is an American Indian name.
Then we went to the Train Depot to catch the train for Anchorage. This train journey was beautiful but got very boring in the later part only because it was long. The highest point of this journey was appearance of Mount McKinley, we had finally seen the tallest mountain in the US, 20,320Ft. It had been hiding behind clouds for 2 days but finally decided to come out of its veil for us.
Day 4: We knew from before that the drive betn Anchorage and Seward was going to be spectacular. With the intentions of not missing out on any picturesque frame on the way, we left the hotel at 6AM. Half of the drive was along the side of a river, on the left were mountains with lush green trees and on the other end of the river were mountains with snow peaks. It felt like best parts of Konkan and Himalayas were added to create this route. Almost every 2 miles was a road widening for people to take pictures. Driving on the roads of Alaska is sheer bliss....
On the way, we stopped at Girdwood at a Bake Shop and had breakfast. The Bake shop had a beautiful garden with gigantic flowers, many were as big as an adults face. Girdwood has a very famous resort Alyeska Ski Resort. They say vegetables and flowers in Alaska get so big during summers due to the excessive photosynthesis process as there is sunshine 24x7.
We reached Seward about an hour earlier than required time to catch our 8hour day cruise without knowing that this cruise was going to turn out to be the pinnacle of our trip.
On the cruise, we saw 4-5 humpback whales, 2-3bald eagles, at least 10 Stellar sea lions few in the banana pose (they sit on the rocks with their body shaped like a banana), 2-3 Otters, 1 Dolphin (don't remember what kind), few Puffins (cute lil fella with a colorful beak). I am sure I missed a few. Saw some birds but cant remember their names anymore. To get a glimpse of this wild life, you have to enter rough seas, really deep.....half the people on the boat were busy throwing up....hahaha :)
When we saw the Blackstone glacier the feelings were beyond words, they stop the boat few feet from the glacier, switch off the engine and let you listen to the glacier talk. Every time the glacier breaks forming an iceberg, it makes a sound like thunderstorms and then a chunk of ice comes crashing down and falls into the sea. This experience is something unique to Alaska, it is one of the very few places in the world where you will get to experience this. The cruise ranger told us the glacier looses about 5' from its face everyday but gains 5' as well. The falling of the ice is not due to global warming, it is a natural process which is on for ages. We got back to the shore by 7:30PM and drove back to Anchorage.....again vvveeeerrrrry tiiiiiiiireddddddddd!!!
Day 5, July 7Th: We went back to Girdwood to Alyeska Resort to take a tram ride which is used by Skiers in the winters. This tram drops you at 2,300 ft on top of the Alyeska Mountain. We got to touch the snow here. We just relaxed and enjoyed being at that height for a few hours and headed back to Anchorage to catch a flight for Dallas.
On Tuesday, we celebrated Lakmi Poojan at Vishal-Janki's new house. Together they had cooked a lot of food. Janki had set up pooja, her mom had sent her a lot of pooja sahitya (accessories) from Atlanta. Below is the whole setup by Janki the superwoman of that day. She worked half day at IBM, setup this pooja and cooked a whole lot of delicious food in the other half of the day.
Right after the pooja before attacking the food...
