Day 3
2 September - Wednesday
Well the Holiday Inn Express proved to be a really good option in the end. The bed was soooo comfortable and the pillows were luscious. Our problem was we couldn’t work out what time it was. We needed to sleep in the day and get up at night and basically our body clocks were totally confused. Both of us kept waking up thinking it was time to go to the airport. After a restless sleep (no fault of the hotel) we had the complimentary breakfast and dragged our packed bags back down to the shuttle bus for the return trip to the airport.
Perhaps today we would see an improvement in the airport – we were waiting for something that would grab the travellers of the world and say “WOW! You lucky guys have landed in the glitzy capital of the world! Welcome”. We were once again disappointed by the dull, drab, untidy, poorly organized, loud and uninviting airport surrounds. Brisbane leaves them for dead, as do Melbourne and Sydney. Our international airports are the opposite – bright, spacious, inviting (Duty free everywhere you look) well signed and organized etc. We were glad to leave LA. Maybe one day we’ll go back and look at it with different eyes. It is a convenient stopover point for other exciting places in the world. Bye Bye LA!
Yes you guessed it – our next flight was to Portland Oregon and then on to Anchorage. Back to the real world of flying “cattle class” AKA “sardine land”. We flew with Alaska Air to Portland in the oldest plane we had seen in a very long time. The seats were dreadful, bloody terrible in fact. Thankfully it was only a 2 1/2 hour flight and somehow the pilots managed to have us 25 minutes ahead of schedule. Must have been a great tail wind and we were grateful. The pressure really got to me and my ears are still blocked. I forgot to put in my earplugs – never again!
Landing in Portland was a pleasant surprise and the airport was bright, colourful, clean and well signed etc. - Complete opposite to the LA experience. We had a 2 1/2 hour wait for the last leg of the trip to Anchorage. Dad, unfortunately, didn’t have the opportunity to phone Audrey (I couldn’t hear anything anyway because of my blocked ears). I was going to send you a postcard from Portland but couldn’t find one - it seems that everything is electronic now, including postcards.
When leaving Portland we spotted the cutest plane. It was straight out of Disneyland – painted a bright, cheery blue with a huge Mickey Mouse on the tail and back of the plane with stars and other smaller Disney characters sprinkled across the fuselage. It turned out to be our plane – even the inside was decorated, with the bulkheads painted a pretty blue and filled with stars. This too was an Alaska Air flight and turned out to be slightly more comfortable. With ear plugs securely implanted I didn’t suffer any pressure problems this time. This was a nearly 4 hour flight and about half way through we had our first glance of the snow covered mountains from the window - VERY impressive and just like the brochures. Once again Alaska Air came through and we landed 15 minutes early. Obviously the pictures haven’t been Photoshopped!.
Anchorage airport reminded us of landing at Norfolk Island but on a bigger scale. Coming in to land we had a view of all of Anchorage. It is quite spread out and was larger than I thought. The terminal again put LA to shame; it let you know immediately that you were in Alaska. There were displays of bear, Dahl sheep, raptors etc. There was a chill in the air but it wasn’t cold. There was an astounding array of very large vehicles. It appears that the locals’ vehicles of choice are big F150, F300 4 wheel drives. Our hotel has a shuttle service to and from the airport, so after just a short wait it arrived and off we went. It was 7pm when we finally got to the hotel so it had been another long day.
We are staying at the Clarion Suites and they are very nice, quite spacious and will do very nicely for a few days before we start our tour. I’ll get Richard to break out the camera and we’ll take some photos for you all to see. As it was tea time we asked the receptionist to recommend somewhere to go for tea. She thought “tea” was for us to drink and suggested we look in the room. Once we sorted out the language issue (they are after all Americans!) we had the name of a local café to try. So off we went to “Phyllis’s Café and Salmon Bake” where they served local seafood and other local cuisine.
Upon looking at the menu we realized we were truly in a wilderness area. The first item to jump out us was reindeer sausage, followed by elk burger. King crab featured high on the menu as well along with snow crabs. The king crabs are those giant crabs caught by the Alaskan fishermen on the “World’s Deadliest Catch” TV show. They are huge. The legs don’t even fit on a plate but hang over. They are sold by the pound, so on the menu you order ½ pound or 1 pound of legs depending on how hungry you are. With the snow crabs you eat and eat them (All you can eat..) . They aren’t big on veggies or salads here so Bec you would have a hard time. But crabs and halibut are standout items. We had reindeer sausage (sorry Santa !) in BBQ sauce, and they were beautiful. We shared a plate so as not to offend the reindeer lovers too much and thank heavens we did as it would have been a complete meal for 1 person – BIG serves of everything here. That was our entrée so for mains we tried halibut and a side of clam chowder (Rick) while I had blackened shrimp (prawns in Cajun sauce). Both meals were yummy. We also tried the local beer – Alaskan Summer Ale – which was really nice and much like a XXXX ale but sweeter. Rick describes it as simply “VERY drinkable”. You don’t get a choice of glass size either - they just come as a schooner. Thankfully we had a 3 block walk back to the hotel to walk off dinner.
Back to the hotel for a minute. When we arrived the room was quite warm, even by our standards so we turned on the air con to cool it down. When we arrived back from dinner the room was now unbearably hot. Rick trotted down to tell the office who kindly sent the Maintenance man up to fix it. An hour later it was unchanged, so back to maintenance. It was now about 11.00 pm and we were tired. The maintenance guy agreed that the air con was broken and they moved us a couple of rooms down to a room that was blessedly cooler. Thus we had a good night’s sleep (and in Rick’s case a long sleep in as well).
Our body clocks are just starting to get into sync again. So far since leaving home we have crossed the Tropics of Capricorn and Cancer, the Equator and the International Dateline. We have gained almost a day – we did Tuesday twice – and crossed from Eastern Standard Time, Pacific Time (LA) and Pacific Time (daylight saving Alaska) so we have had to adjust to 3 different time zones and can barely work out what day it is. Confusing!

Day 4
3rd September – Thursday
SO nice to be in one place for a few days and not have to drag the heavy suitcases around again. We started off slowly this morning – but this was anticipated and planned for after 2 days of travel to the other end of the world. Even though the distance is great, the world is really a small place and people are the same everywhere (they just have some quirky ways….).
Anyway after breakfast – complimentary with the room - we came back to plan the day. Unfortunately the washing needed to be done, so after Rick had a short morning nap (9.15am) we headed to the laundry. We used the intervening time well and decided to do one or two activities depending on how the day went. It had showered overnight but had cleared away early to a fine and sunny day. We have brought along our cold weather gear and are still waiting for the cold weather to arrive - not that we are unhappy about fine, sunny days.
We decided to do a Trolley Car Anchorage Orientation Tour. The red trolley bus is an original – the first in Alaska and owned and operated by 3 generations of the same Alaskan family. It took us past historic sights such as the Alaskan Railway, some of the housing typical to Anchorage – very average and old by our standards. We saw Earthquake Park more a siding at the edge of the road, but historic following the 1964 earthquake that almost destroyed Anchorage and sent a tidal wave as far south as San Francisco. Whole areas of Anchorage – suburbs and 4 city blocks dropped 30 feet. We also went past Lake Hood which is the largest and busiest float-plane base in the world. There were hundreds of little planes moored to the shore – just like boats. Owners can wait up to 9 years for the privilege of a ‘parking spot’. They simply take off and land on the water of the lake. In Alaska you can get both your pilot’s and car license at 16 years. Planes are more prevalent than cars, as the country is so rugged that there are no roads in many areas. Because it was such a clear day we were able to see Mt McKinley in the distance (125 klms away). Quite a majestic sight really – and in a few days we get to go right to it.
Tonight we went to Phyllis’s Café so we could have a crab encounter. The pictures are self explanatory….
Love
Janet & Richard