Day 12 July 15, 2022, Friday

The Nat Hab blurb mentioned one last round of bear viewing and then flying back to King Salmon. I’ll tell you that the Texas folk had had enough of bear viewing. The other four went out there, but we didn’t.

We had to be out of the rooms reasonably early, so soon after we got up, we packed up. The rangers asked us to leave our bags in the room. Staff members would pick up the bags and bring them to the plane. John and I continued to carry the little blue backpack with our water bottle. We had breakfast and lunch in the dining hall.

I wrote this after lunch:

Journal entry:

12:29 p.m. Going home starts now. We take a water plane to a secondary airport in Anchorage and finally to the Hilton Hotel for our farewell dinner. I’ve already put it out to the universe that as soon as I have my luggage and a room, I’m turning on the hot water in the shower. I’ll give it fifteen minutes and if I don’t have hot water, I will call the front desk and ask for a room with hot water. We are leaving at 5:30 a.m. tomorrow morning to fly to Austin (well Seattle) and I want a shower before we leave. Saturday is going to be a long day. We have a 6 a.m. flight to Seattle and a long layover there. Then a 3.5-hour flight to Austin. We get in around midnight. We’ll pick Sadi up sometime on Sunday morning.

 It has been a great trip and I’m ready to go home. Ready to be home. Nothing like being away to make home look attractive.

Card playing

The dining hall where we ate out meals was a large wooden cabin-type structure. When you walk in the front door, the bar is to the left. That’s where I got the ice for my knee the first day we were there. The first thing you see when you walk in the door though is a huge rock fire pit in the middle of the room. It must have been at least six feet across. Above that was a large metal vent hood to take the smoke out of the room. Around the fire pit were Adirondack chairs for sitting and warming yourself at the fire. Generally, in the evenings it was difficult to get a chair because it was such a popular spot to sit and visit. However, in the mornings when most people were out bear watching or salmon fishing, we had plenty of chairs to select from.

Cathy and I found two chairs side-by-side facing the door and played gin as we waited for it to be time to leave. I enjoy playing gin with Cathy. We are at about the same level of skill so neither of us feels like we’ve been soundly beaten. She’d win a few hands and then I’d win a few. We bantered back and forth exclaiming about what rotten cards we’d been dealt or why we couldn’t find the one card that would bring that hand to a gin. My favorite thing to exclaim with disgust (especially if I dealt the hand) was, “Who dealt this hand?”

Once Cathy and I got bored with playing cards, John and I walked out on the boardwalk over the lake and took this picture.

Where’s the group?

At lunch, Tom told everyone to meet at the office at 1. I didn’t understand where the office was and John and I stood around outside the dining hall until Tom came and got us. I knew we were in the wrong place because it isn’t like the rest of the group not there on time. But I didn’t know where we were supposed to be.

As I was standing there wondering what to do, I was talking to a ranger and I mentioned these large itchy welts on the back of my neck. She said they were likely from white flies and she told me that she had three bites on her face once that swelled up so badly her eye swelled shut. Well, I’m glad they bit me on the back of my neck.

Luckily, Tom came trotting up and got us. We were supposed to meet where we’d had Bear School, but I’d been over there only once and totally forgot where it was. No harm done. We boarded the plane and could not leave yet.

One more bear sighting

There were a couple of bears walking down the beach and we had to wait until they left before the plane could take off. One of the rules at this camp was to disturb the bears as little as possible. Taking off loud airplanes with bears on the beach would have been a huge violation of that rule.

I got the best pictures of those bears. They didn’t have a care in the world and just strolled along. Clearly, they owned that beach and knew it. I took a video of them and it is one of my favorite videos. As I was recording them, I felt safe because I was on the plane and they were outside.

Off we go

Finally, the bears went on their way and the pilot taxied out to the middle of the lake and took off. I searched for some earplugs in the seat pocket in front of me and couldn’t find any. One of my posse (Cathy, Karen, or Krista) behind me saw me searching and passed a pair up to me. Thank you. We took off and I read a book on my phone while we flew to King Salmon. The couple sitting in front of me talked to the pilot as if they did this trip often. Not a life I would understand.

Once we got to King Salmon, we went into the building to wait for our plane to Anchorage. We hung out there until we boarded the plane. Unfortunately, the Anchorage flight control people wouldn’t let us take off for a while. The pilot said we could go back inside if we wanted to and some did. I didn’t, but later wished I’d gone back in and used the restroom. Once we landed, I didn’t go then either. I know better and boy, was I uncomfortable once we got to the hotel.

Hello Hilton!

We gathered our luggage from the plane and headed straight for the bus. A short drive to the Hilton hotel on our big bus and more luggage handling. Tom got our keys and our cart of luggage from the hotel staff. Next, we hauled our luggage up to our room. What a lovely sight was the bathroom. I was happy to use the facilities AND we had hot water. I took a marvelous shower.

Farewell dinner

Journal entry

We had a nice farewell dinner at the Glacier Brewhouse. We had a private room, thank goodness. That place was hoppin’. I heard the hostess as we walked in someone that it was a two hour wait. Whew!

We ordered food and drinks. When my wine was delivered, I wasn’t crazy about it. I wouldn’t have said anything but the waitress asked. When I kind of shrugged, she picked up the glass and asked what else I might like. Well, okay then. I got a sparkling sweet wine that was better. Tammy ordered a virgin mojito and didn’t like it. They whisked that up and brought her one with less orange juice and more mint that she liked better. John had a margarita that I tasted. I certainly could have drunk one of those, but honestly, one glass of wine was enough for me. I ordered ribs for dinner and they were pretty good. They had entirely too much BBQ sauce on them for my taste. I scraped that off and ate most of them.

Fireweed ice cream for dessert

Tom had told us there was such a thing as Fireweed ice cream and that he’d get us some before we left. Sure enough, after dinner, he took us to a little hole-in-the-wall ice cream store where they sold fireweed ice cream. Literally, it was a hole in the wall. You ordered from a window in the side of a building and ate the ice cream outside. Luckily, there was a parking garage around the corner, so we could stand in the cold out of the rain to eat ice cream. Yes, we were those kinds of people.

I tasted the fireweed ice cream and didn’t think that much of it. Basically, it was just sweet. Maybe it required a more refined palate than I have to taste the fireweed. I got cookies and cream instead and very much enjoyed it. We went back to the room stuffed and happy.

I repacked our suitcases that night because we were leaving very early in the morning the next day.

Fitbit data for July 16 5,807 steps, 2.28 miles, 1387 calories, 4 floors, 22 active minutes

Bye, Alaska!

Day 13 July 16, 3022 Saturday 6:48 a.m. Anchorage Airport

Journal entry:

 No traffic this morning as we rode in a Prius taxi cab to the airport at 5:30 a.m. The driver was a chatty one and he asked if we’d be back. I said I doubted it and that I liked to visit places I’d not been to before. He predicted we’d be back in two years. Maybe, maybe not. Never say never.

 The flight was uneventful from Anchorage to Seattle. I watched a Disney movie about the bears at Katmai that was interesting. It was a smaller plane with two seats on one side and three seats on the other. We got to be on the side with just two seats, so we didn’t sit with anyone. That’s kind of nice.

Seattle

We had a five-hour layover in Seattle that was a little painful. We wandered around up and down the concourse looking for a restaurant to kill some time in and didn’t see anything we liked. Finally, we found a directory and looked at it for something. We decided to go to a restaurant called Mi Casa Cantina. It seemed to be a fast-food Mexican place. It was right by where we started and I didn’t even see it. Sigh. Well, we had time to kill, so back we went.

The seating in this place was really tight and we were seated next to a table with about two inches between us and the illusion of distance by a metal railing. You can see that in the photo. Yeah, no distance. We ordered nachos and quesadillas.

The group sitting across from us looked like it was a woman and her mother and the first woman’s two kids, one of whom was a two-and-a-half-year-old boy. The little boy seated next to me had a phone he was watching and he ratcheted up the sound. I got his mom’s attention to ask her to turn it down and that turned out to be a mess. I found out that they were returning from an Alaskan cruise where they had not had the child care they had expected. He was tired and he didn’t want to do anything that anyone wanted him to do. When his mom tried to get him to turn the phone down, he screamed. Ugh. I told her never mind and I apologized for making her life harder. Finally, they left. Thank goodness.

More fun at the airport

Then the cash register system for the restaurant went down. They began turning people away at the door. Between John, a menu, and the server with paper and pencil, they figured out how much we owed them and we paid them in cash. Good thing we had cash. All that was left was waiting for our plane to Austin to arrive.

Again, that flight was uneventful. But I was getting sleepy and not able to get comfortable. We got back to Austin around midnight and home by 1 a.m. I was exhausted and so glad to be home. We’d get Sadi the next day.

Fitbit Data July 16: 5,807 steps, 2.26 miles, 1387 calories, 4 floors, 22 active minutes

Thank you for reading about our Alaska adventures. Not sure what I’ll write about next, but I’ll let you know when I post something.