Retirement Travel and a Weird Mix of Other Stuff
Get your own Visited US States Map from Travel BlogI have visited 38 of the 50 US states. The ones I have left to visit are: Alabama, Arkansas, Hawaii, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Rhode Island and Texas.
I doubt I’ll knock any of those remaining states off of the list this year, but one never knows.
We boarded our plane bound for Baltimore at about 6:20 PM. The A/C was not working, so we had to sit in a hot airplane waiting for it to be fixed. That was about a 30-40 minute delay. Then after it was fixed and we pulled away from the gate, we had to sit on the runway waiting for more thunderstorms to pass before we could take off. The temperature in the plane reached a stifling 82 degrees (at foot level, which is where my thermometer key chain was). Now, that is not horribly hot, but inside an airplane with 100 other people and very little air moving was rather unpleasant. After about a 25-minute wait, we took off. Although there were storms in Baltimore, too, it was clear enough for us to land. We finally made it home around 10:30. It was in the upper 70s and quite humid. And it is supposed to hit 97 degrees today!
The dogs were quite excited to see us. I think they thought we abandoned them for good. Eric said that CeCe, our neurotic dog, had diarrhea for at least a week because she was upset about our being gone.
It is nice to be home, but I sure wish we could have brought the weather with us.
Alaska has been fabulous. As anxious as we both are to get home to our families, I am absolutely dreading the thought of returning to Maryland in the midst of a record-breaking heat spell. “Extreme Heat”?!? Temperatures well into the nineties?!?
It was about 45 degrees this morning when we left for breakfast at 7:00 AM. After breakfast, we shopped for awhile. On the way back to the room, we were both happy to be wearing jackets. The high today was about 65 degrees. And there were people out and about EVERYWHERE taking advantage of the heat wave.
I could very easily get used to year-round cool weather. Mike says no way could he live here. I told him, “I’ll miss you.”
As an aside, June’s daughter Leah said they went swimming recently. She thought it was really cool that they could jump off of an iceberg into the lake. Not an iceberg, literally, just the lake ice that hadn’t yet melted. This was probably within the last week or so. Can you imagine how COLD that water is?
Believe it or not, I didn’t take any pictures today. There’s no link if you click on the moose. Mike was the shutterbug. He took three pictures, and they were all of me with various things. The picture at left pretty much sums up our activity for the day.
Aside from shopping, we each did some reading. One of us napped. The other continued reading/relaxing. Then we went on a “moose hunt” to Kincaid Park in Anchorage for urban moose (we saw two; we’d see more if we went later in the day instead of midday). Finally, we decided we should eat. And we stumbled upon La Cabana, a Mexican restaurant in downtown Anchorage with yummy food and tasty margaritas. A perfect end to our perfect vacation.
We left the Denali National Park area today headed for Anchorage. The vacation is winding down. It has been a wonderful two weeks, but we’re both looking forward to getting back home.
We had an extra-special treat today, though. We got to meet-up with Mike’s long lost cousin, June, and her two kids, Leah and Mikey. June and her family (her husband wasn’t able to join us) live in Willow, a town about an hour or so north of Anchorage. We met in Talkeetna for lunch then went back to June’s place and met her incredibly nice landlords, Jerry and Sue. Mike and I really enjoyed the visit.
Before we left, we posed for a quick group photo. The picture was a little blurry, so I Photoshopped it a bit. June said to make sure I tell everyone this is her “rain hair” (it rained today). Leah didn’t say anything about her hair, but she probably didn’t realize how crazy it looked after Mike playfully mussed it up.
All in all, we’ve been pretty lucky with the weather during our visit. Even today, although rainy, it was still gorgeous. The blue sky, storm clouds, snow-capped mountains, and white clouds make for some very dramatic photos. Despite the fact that, when we left our cabin today, I told Mike I wasn’t going to take any more mountain pictures, I just could not resist. I posted my favorite cloud image of the day below for your viewing pleasure.
Tuesday, June 3 – So, we finally made it to Denali National Park, America’s crown jewel of national parks. And the weather sucked. It was overcast and gray for most of the day. Then it started raining. All of the planning and anticipation leading up to our Denali visit and we get crappy weather. Of course, up until now, the weather has been pretty darn fantastic for us, so I guess we really can’t complain.
Wednesday, June 4 – This was supposed to be our BIG day. The day we’d been waiting for. The day we were scheduled to ride the shuttle bus into the park (private cars are not allowed to drive past mile 15).
Despite the crappy weather yesterday, today it was gorgeous. We could not have asked for better weather. How good was it? It was so good, we actually got to see Mt. McKinley! North America’s highest mountain, at 20,320 feet, is so tall, it creates its own weather. Only about 25% of people who visit the park will ever see the mountain. One of the reasons I scheduled our shuttle trip for the ungodly hour of 7:00 AM is that you are more likely to see the mountain in the morning. You are more likely to see critters, too.
Did we ever see lots of critters! Grizzly bears (10 of them), caribou, moose, Dall sheep, a red fox, a hoary marmot, more snowshoe hares than we could ever possibly count, ditto for ground squirrels (the fast food of the tundra). We also saw some cool birds. You’ll just have to look at the pictures to see for yourself, because I am tired of writing for the day.
Tomorrow, we leave Denali and head back to Anchorage. But we’ll be stopping in Talkeetna to meet up with Mike’s cousin, June, along the way.
The next picture was taken at 11:00 PM last night. Again, without a flash.
We were going to do a 12:00 AM photo, but Mike has a cold and went to sleep. I, on the other hand, was up until about 2:00 AM. It didn’t look much different outside at midnight. At 2:00, it was slightly darker, but not by much.
Our Travel Cooler – Mike and I have traveled to a variety of places in the Western US over the past 15 years. We almost always have a rental car, so we stop and buy a foam cooler and drinks to stock it with. It is much more convenient than stopping to buy drinks all the time.
Why am I telling you this mundane bit of info and even posting images on my Blog? Well, because we thought you’d find it equally amusing that every time we buy a cooler, no matter what state we are in, we get the same exact cooler. Even weirder, the cooler is manufactured in…
… Baltimore, Maryland. Our hometown. So, whether we’re in Arizona, Montana, Washington, South Dakota, Utah, or even Alaska, among other places, our cooler is from Baltimore. Just one odd little bit of travel trivia to entertain you.
Tuesday – It is 10:45 AM here. I have been up for hours. As soon as Mike is finished drinking his coffee and waking up fully, we’ll set off to explore. Hopefully I’ll have some more-exciting images to post later today.