Text 11212, 91 rader
Skriven 2008-07-28 02:36:12 av Dale Shipp (1:261/1466.0)
Ärende: Alaska Trip Report 7
============================
June 24 Tuesday: we left Denali and headed south through Anchorage to
the Kenai Peninsula

Morning Call 5:30 - breakfast at lodge, typical buffet.

Coach ride to Kenai Peninsular, south of Anchorage.  Cloud cover
prevented actual viewing of "Denali" along the way, but lots of other
snow topped mountains and river views.

Stopped at a shopping center area to get lunch on our own and eat on the
bus so we could see additional sights with the saved time.  People
scattered to various fast food places to get their order.

South of Anchorage, we visited a wildlife preserve of orphaned animals or
injured animals.  Saw moose, black bears, eagles, caribou, and black
tailed deer.  All well taken care of by staff.

Lodge tonight beautiful wilderness setting on edge of lake.  Log cabin
buildings.  Had pizza and beer at one of the complex's bars.

June 25 Wed

Kenai Fjords/Seward/Anchorage

Early call for breakfast - another buffet in one of the restaurants on
this complex.  Standard breakfast.

Short coach ride to board a catamaran ship for a cruise on Resurrection
Bay.  As we boarded the ship we were told the weather might be a
problem, but the Captain would do what he could do - weather permitting.

Two levels to the boat, the top level was open air and the first level
was enclosed.  Comfortable bench seats around tables.  Once we cleared
the harbor we could see the storm front coming in.  The captain changed
his original plans but did cover 60 miles of shoreline so we did see sea
lions, birds, otters and a few whales.  Lunch was provided by the cruise
-- chicken wrap, chips, soda.  The wrap was very fresh, a nice filling
lunch. Upon returning to port each person was given back $40 because the
trip was cut short.

Because the trip was cut short we had some extra time on our way to
Anchorage.  We stopped at a jade factory.  Interesting little shop.
Water wheel outside the entrance with beautiful spring flowers.

Back on the bus and onward to Anchorage.

Once in Anchorage, we didn't take the time to walk around where the
hotel was, just grabbed a burger and a Cuban sandwich in one of the
hotels eating areas.  Then we retired with a wake up call for 3 am so
that we could get to the airport for a 6:30 am fight.

The flight back home was mostly uneventful.  We left Anchorage on Alaska
Airlines and transferred in Seattle to a USAirways flight.  Breakfast on
the AA flight was a $5 yucky plate of scrambled eggs and something that
was supposed to be sausage.  When we landed at SEA, we gave Hap a call.
Although we had a two hour lay-over, we were pretty tired and decided
not to try going out through security to have a coffee with him -- but
just chatted on the phone for a while.  During the trip from Anchorage
to Seattle, when I got up to go to the bathroom, I discovered that the
back of my seat had a large piece of gum attached to it -- and to my
shirt.  We got the attendant to get some ice and a knife and got most of
it chilled and scraped off.  She then filed an incident report.  AA
sent us a letter apologizing and offering a $50 discount coupon or
frequent flyer miles -- neither of which were any good to us.  As had
been suggested by Michael, we were persistent and they caved in to an
offer of reimbursing me for a new shirt.

We left Seattle on USAirways and since we had upgraded ourselves to
first class -- the food was fairly good on the flight to Philadelphia.
We were both so zonked out though that neither of us remember what we
had:-}}

Once we got to Philly, we transferred to a smaller commuter type plane,
which was supposed to arrive in Baltimore at midnight.  However, the
plane (and several other commuter planes) was late in arriving at the
gate because of weather elsewhere.  It did not leave until about 1:30
am.  The flight to BWI was only about 20 minutes flying time.
Fortunately, the airport shuttle bus we had booked was still at the
airport to pick us up, and we finally arrived at home about 3 am, quite
tired.

                               Dale Shipp
                  fido_261_1466 (at) comcast (dot) net
                              (1:261/1466)


... Shipwrecked on Hesperus in Columbia, Maryland. 00:47:24, 28 Jul 2007
___ Blue Wave/DOS v2.30

--- Maximus/NT 3.01
 * Origin: Owl's Anchor (1:261/1466)