Our
last day in Alaska! We had plenty of time this morning so woke up
leisurely and had a nice buffet breakfast in the Nord Haven motel. We checked out
and drove to Denali Visitor Center, in time for the 10:00AM Sled Dog demo (you
need to arrive 40 minutes earlier and take a shuttle from the visitor center).
When arriving to the kennel, you get a chance to roam around, watch the dogs and pet few of them. Then there is a demo and a presentation by the rangers, followed by the audience Q&A. We were a bit disappointed that the sled demo itself was very short, and most of the time was spent in hearing the explanations. But overall it was
interesting and fun.
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| The Kennels |
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| Sled Dog Demo |
Around
11AM we left Denali for the long road back to Anchorage. It was cloudy and
rainy again so no more Mountain views. The 1st half of the trip was
event-less; we kept looking for moose on the road side but without luck.
Since
we had time, we decided to stop in Talkeetna for lunch. The streets were
drenched from the recent rain and the town was relatively quiet. We strolled in
the main street and checked out the local businesses and souvenir shops. We didn't feel like sitting
down for a long lunch so ended up ordering sandwiches at the Big Mountain BBQ food truck and eating them on the picnic tables outside the restaurant. It was good and comforting food.
Overall we spent about an hour in Talkeetna before continuing on our road south.
Our next stop was the big Fred Meyer in Wasilla were we stopped
for coffee and some last minute shopping (we found some good bargains at the
clothing department).
From Wasilla, without further ado, we continued to our destination for the night – the
Lakefront Anchorage hotel, not far from the airport. We had a 6AM flight the next morning so we gave up on a 'night in town' and instead chose this hotel since it was close to the airport and had a restaurant on premises.
We checked in, left our
luggage in the room and then drove to the airport to return our rental car.
From the airport we called the hotel shuttle to pick us up back to the hotel. The
hotel is huge (at least in Alaskan standards) and we got to walk quite a distance to our
room. Overall the hotel was OK for one night, though a bit expensive for what we got.
We found out that in addition to a restaurant, the hotel also had a lounge bar with a bit lighter (and less expensive) fair. We celebrated the end of our amazing vacation and stepped out to look at the Lake Hood
'airport', though it was already late and the lake had very little plane activity.
We went back to our room for few hours of sleep before taking the shuttle again to the airport for our 6 AM flight to Seattle, and from there back home.
We went back to our room for few hours of sleep before taking the shuttle again to the airport for our 6 AM flight to Seattle, and from there back home.
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