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I've landed

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We returned to anchorage last night and flew out this morning back to our respective lives. Thanks paresh for a great adventure.

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After returning to fairbanks, we caught a train to denali.

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We then flew 3 hours to barrow, northernmost point in north america.

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We then rode the rails for 12 hours to fairbanks.

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We then headed 3 hours north to anchorage where we caught a train the next morning.

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I'd been wanting to map our travels on the blog but it wasn't until our final night that we found a decent map for it - it was my placemat at dinner last night. We started out exploring the southern tip. This is katmai natl park, home to our new bear friends.

See Ya

Ipod. Check. Cell phone. Check. Laptop. Check. Gold nugget. Check. Ready 4 takeoff. See ya alaska.

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Cab dropped me off and then took paresh to the united section of the terminal. I'm sitting here waiting 4 my bfast, i looked up and saw paresh walk in 2 a bookstore. Pretty funny.

Tomorrow

We're getting up in 5 hours to get a shuttle to the airport. We both take off around 7am. I'm heading to bed. More thoughts and pics throughout our respective travel days.

Good night.

Barrow Art

Looking through some of the photos I've taken while here in Alaska, I'm struck by the imagery that inspired me to get a little artistic up in Barrow. That place must be a photographer's dream -- JB, you gotta go. Here are a few of my favorites.

whale bones













point barrow junk














drunken powerline poles












point barrow dumpster














stenciled milepost



















boat and shack













dashboard of the smallest plane ever

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2 words: king crab

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Hello anchorage. Goodbye alaska rail.

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And we're moving again. A view from the train.

Stalled

Greaaat. The train stalled - it's lost power somehow. Glad we don't have anywhere to be tonight.

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It's about 45 degrees and raining. We have a 1215 train back to anchorage. It will be an 8 hour ride and we fly in the am.

Fotolog - Saturday

This is a full shot of our bus. A guy named Larry drove and guided our way through Denali National Park, 6 million acres of protected land (4 million of which was added in 1980.) It's a converted school bus but the seats were actually really comfortable.















Along the way Larry encouraged us to yell out when we saw wildlife so he could stop and we could take pictures. The animals we were told to look out for were grizzly bears, moose, caribou, dall sheep and wolves. The only one we didn't see were wolves. Paresh will post some nice wildlife photos later but here is a cool one I took of some rams sitting up on a ridge.















We also stopped along the way for scenic views.















At around 12:30pm we arrived at Denali Lodge (mile 89 of the road into the park) where we enjoyed a buffet lunch and we got a choice of activities to take part in. Of course we opted for panning for gold.















Prospector Todd.















I think Paresh was the only one panning that day who was conscious of how gold was doing in the market.















As we began to futilely dig the sand from the shore of the stream where we were panning, the guy who was running the gold panning activity told us, sort of on the down low it seemed, that he brought a bucket of sand from another spot on the river and to try the dirt from there. So we did and sure enough we each found a flake of gold. You know it's gold because when you pinch it with your fingernail it bends as opposed to flaking off. Here's my huge gold nugget laminated onto a piece of cardboard (note this picture is not to scale.)















While it didn't take long for the weather to clear up as we entered the park, the drive back was even more beautiful. And we were lucky enough to spot the elusive peak of Mt. McKinley. I was stunned by how high above the rest of the mountais it actually was. See it here poking through the clouds on the right.














Overall we really lucked out with the animals and scenery we were able to see. A great cap to a great trip.

Denali

Got back to town just before 8. We saw a ton of wildlife, some views of mt mckinley and yes we struck gold. More, including pics, tomw.

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Ok we're on the bus. It's raining pretty hard. Hopefully it will clear up. We're going to drive 90 miles into the park so the weather could be better inside.

Waiting

Man it's early. Waiting for the bus. We don't have tix, just a print out confirmation. Should be fine.

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Tomw

We're getting picked up @ 630 for a 13 hour tour thru denali state park. Not sure if we'll have service in there.

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Our new friends emily, patrick and jordan.

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The show is mildly amusing but i'm really lovn the all you can eat salmon and ribs - and lots of veggie fixins.

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We're heading in to cabin night, a dinner theatre extravaganza celebrating the gold rush. Should be pretty funny. Much to paresh's dismay i told our waitress it's his bday.

Fotolog Thursday

On Thursday we went on an excursion to Point Barrow to see Polar Bears in this Hummer, owned by a sketchy dude named Frank















We were joined by Lana, an L.A. lawyer who is in the enviable position of traveling around for a year or so. She had just arrived in Barrow when we met her and she was looking forward to 2 nights in the same place. We wondered whether Barrow was the best place for that. We were itching to get out after 1 night, nothing against Barrow it's just...a strange otherworldly town that merits an overnight visit and that's it. I look forward to hearing from Lana about her time there though. We gave her the blog address, hopefully she'll comment.

Here are some shots of the ice.















Pretty stunning.

This used to be a seal (I actually did see a live seal thru binoculars, but sadly no polar bears.)
















Me chillin'.















Getting onto the smallest plane ever.















The view from the plane. Absolutely amazing.

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Just got done with rafting. It was a class 3 rapid, pretty mellow but beautiful scenery. I even got to guide the raft down the river a bit. Turns out rowing a boat's like riding a bike, old crew and row boat instincts kicked right in.

Here's a shot of Paresh in the get-up they gave us to wear. It actually kept us quite warm despite our getting super wet going over some of the waves.

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The grand denali lodge

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We've arrived in denali. It's chilly but not raining. We're heading up to our hotel then we're gonna go white water rafting.

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The birthday boy...or should i say supreme being - a woman who checked us in to the cruise out of seward was like 'doesn't paresh mean supreme being?' he was like 'yes, yes it does.'

Friday

We have an 8:15 train to Denali. It's a 4 hour train ride, so shouldn't be too bad, we're old pros. Once we get there we'll have the whole afternoon and evening free to celebrate Paresh's birthday (I have a couple things up my sleeve...)

Chance of rain in Denali: 90%.

Happy Birthday, Paresh!

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Many local inupiat artists were selling their crafts at the cultural center.

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Barrow is super expensive due to the difficulty of transporting things there. Here's an example from the grocery store.

Fotolog - Wednesday

Here are some pictures from our time in Barrow. We had an incredible tour on Wednesday, just the two of us in a van driven around by Ron, a teacher from Texas who's lived in Barrow for 11 years.

That's the Arctic Ocean in the background. It was in the 40s generally when we were there, with open water just off land with ice extending far into the distance.

A funny milepost.

Whale bones.

Local Inupiats singing and dancing at the cultural center.

This is where we stayed the night.

Here I am with ice floes behind me.

Midnight sun. This picture doesn't do justice to just how light it was out but you can see how high in the sky the sun was at midnight. I couldn't make it til 1am. Paresh woke me up from a 2 hour nap as it was to see this. I'm glad he did.