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The previous entry is Denali part two.

June 11, June 12

In Anchorage, we said good-bye to Tour 21. We’d later bump into people from the tour at the airport — there are only so many flights leaving Anchorage on a given day — but we were on our own now, with Holland America’s guidance now in the past. After we got our luggage out of the bellhop station and found that our bag from Fairbanks had arrived safely, we went out for a little walk and dinner, picking up last minute souveniers and getting the next Stephen King book (I had copies at home, but wanted to read it on the plane; I’d later sell this copy to a used book store in Cleveland). There’s another big brewery/restaurant in downtown Anchorage, the Snow Goose, but we didn’t find the food (or root beer) as good as the Glacier Brewhouse the week before. The Snow Goose has a better view overlooking Anchorage harbor, but that’s about it, and it was raining.

Breakfast was at a diner near the camera store where we got the step-down ring from the week earlier. There was a little note in the menu saying they had Wi-Fi, but we didn’t have the laptop and there were no visible outlets. The food was good, far better than the slim selections at this coffee store across the street from the convention center that we sort of ate at before departing for Prudhoe Bay. I suppose we figuring out downtown Anchorage stores in glimpses, before departing.

We caught an earlier shuttle to the airport, which was a good thing: Anchorage’s Race for the Cure (at least we thought so from the pink ribbons) blocked traffic near the hotel for a good hour. For some reason, hotel security wound up directing traffic — getting cars to turn back before the backup got worse — instead of Anchorage police. There were police cruisers on the intersection for the Race route, but they just sat there and waved at the runners. Where were the roadblocks a block or two away so that cars and buses wouldn’t get into an impenetrable cul-de-sac? Useless.

The flight itself was fine, and we passed through Vancouver’s customs without incident. There wasn’t a line at all, so I suppose the idea would be to arrive after 4 or 5PM, as all the people going on cruises would have already passed through at that point. The customs officials are probably on a shift schedule, and they seem to be at peak staffing for a few hours after their busy period.

We stayed at the Hyatt again, using up the second voucher from the frequent flyer miles. There was another gaggle of prom goers in tuxes and pink ball gowns in the lobby. The elevators were now locked down to room key holders, so perhaps a previous prom group caused havoc in the hotel over the previous weekend or so. We didn’t have a balcony on the new room, but the view looked directly north to the harbor. For the first time in over a week, we saw real nightfall, at a reasonable (though late) hour.

For our second Vancouver dinner, we ate at C Restaurant, on the recommendation of one of our cruise dining table partners, something about amazing halibut. Unlike Lumiere, this was within walking distance, and on the water at the southern side of the pennisula. Mainly a seafood restaurant, we did the standard usual appetizer-entree-dessert; they had a tasting menu, but we were too tired and had to get up too early to try it. The food was very good, and maybe we’ll go there again when we’re back in Vancouver: it’d be a nicer experience with warmer weather, as the restaurant overlooks the marina. The walk to and from the restaurant was also very nice, as we got to see a little of residential Vancouver, walking between the apartment towers, and one of the lively commercial streets, filled with sushi restaurants, bookstores and coffee shops. It’s a nice town, built for walking, something we hadn’t done in a while.

On the way to the restaurant, we saw a skunk wandering around in the bushes next to an Olive Garden-y Italian restaurant. One of the restaurant employees was watching it, making sure it didn’t wander too close to the entrance, though I’m not sure what he’d do if the skunk tried. I’m not sure how the skunk got there — it must have crossed a number of busy streets to get where it was — but we weren’t that interested to find out. We should have gone back that way, just to see if we could smell what happened.

There was a bit of a hassle to check into the flight — we had a lot of luggage, there didn’t seem to be a way to print boarding passes, and Continental had stuck us on different flights out of Minneapolis — but it was fairly smooth after the airline service desk. Immigration was in Vancouver, before boarding US flights, and was a breeze, again possibly because of coincident timing. Minneapolis took a while to transfer through, with a long walk to get to the tram, and another long walk afterwards, but our flight was delayed. At least the immigration portion had already been taken care of.

Soon after landing at Cleveland-Hopkins, we caught a cab and got home, tired, but with a lot of pictures to show people and stories to tell.

Posted on Wednesday, June 29th, 2005 at 4:55 pm and is filed under Photography, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.