Eagle River, Day 1

After checking out of the hotel in Anchorage, I stopped at Sixth Avenue Outfitters to pick up my bear spray. We then picked up our rental car at Avis and drove to the Eagle River Nature Center. Staff was very helpful, recommending appropriate trails, consistent with my paranoia about becoming brown bear food.  She told us to run away if we see aggressive moose but to never run from brown bears.

All of the bear mauling stories made me very nervous as I walked the trails. My bear bell was jingling away as if my life depended upon it. As it turned out, the mosquitoes were a bigger problem than the bears or moose. Still, it was a great hike with amazing mountain views.

We did have one small adventure involving my wife Julia above. After taking an amazing panoramic photo, she reached for her hiking poles and flipped her iPhone over the side of that railing and into the stream. Somehow the phone landed on a little grassy rise that was not under water. I jumped (awkwardly climbed) over the rail and managed to retrieve the phone.

We hiked the Rodak Nature Trail, a small portion of the Iditarod Trail and the Albert Loop Trail.

Afterwards, we celebrated our survival at Eagle River Alehouse with a Mediterranean Pizza and Glacial Cask IPA.

Anchorage, Day 3

Saturday was the last day of meetings and a non-hiking day. Having the morning to myself, I ate breakfast at the White Spot Cafe (eggs, reindeer sausage, fried potatoes, and toast with local jam). Definitely not an ambiance spot, but the food was delicious.


After breakfast, I wandered through the streets and alleys of downtown, which had some murals that made me stop and linger.

I made my way to a new coffee shop: Dark Horse Coffee. They only had one drip coffee available, but it was an excellent freshly brewed Ethiopian Sidamo. I appreciated the indoor space with comfortable small tables, last week’s Sunday New York Times, and good music, but this sign caught my eye on their deck.

Julia and I met up at noon and walked over to the Anchorage Farmers’ Market and then to the 49th Street Brewery for a bite to eat and a beer. I ordered a dunkelweisen while Julia ordered a Hop Juice IPA. Both beers were good but the dunkelweizen had a nice toffee caramel flavor, so Julia stole mine without asking.

We had a group dinner that night on top of the Hotel Captain Cook. The wine and food were delicious. Sunday, we will check out of our hotel and drive to Eagle River.

Anchorage, Day 2

Friday and Saturday are both meeting days for Julia. During the afternoons and evenings,there are organized activities. There are also morning activities for the wives, ahem, spouses.  This is not my first rodeo, so I generally become hard of hearing, forgetful, and lose my spousal agenda for the morning activities, which often include shopping.

I generally sleep in a bit, go find a local place for coffee and a newspaper, and explore the surrounding area. Friday morning, I wandered around downtown, had some coffee and a pastry at Kaladi’s, and spent some time learning how to blog using WordPress and my iPad, having left my laptop at home.

Shortly after noon, we all boarded a charter bus and traveled to the sculpture studio and home of V Rae Art. This was a delightful space that was the product of 14 years of hard work by the artist and her husband. The inside was filled with works for sale, but my favorite parts were the outside spaces.

The artist’s husband explained to me that the pond liner needed to be replaced that spring after being torn up by a bear sow and two cubs.

After lunch on the studio premises and time to browse the pieces inside and outside, we climbed back on the bus and drove to the Alaska Wildlife Conser-vation Center.  This was a great opportunity to safely view Alaska bears up close– separated by both fence and electric wire.The animals are well fed and have large habitat living spaces. Feeding time was at 3:30 pm, and we arrived during a light rain at 3 p.m. There were multiple brown and black bears, along with a single grizzly.

There were quite a few people viewing the bears, but there were enough places along the fence to watch that I didn’t feel crowded.

Then it was back to the bus with the group and on to the Alyeska Ski Resort. We took the tram up to the top, dined on salmon at the restaurant, and took the tram back down to the bus. We were back to the room by 10 pm.  Still plenty of daylight, but we were worn out and had no trouble falling asleep after pulling shut the blackout curtains.

Anchorage, Day One

On Wednesday, we drove to Milwaukee and treated ourselves to an urban lunch in Walker’s Point at Bavette. We then flew on Alaskan Airlines to Seattle and then to Anchorage, arriving at our hotel at 2 a.m. There was still a bit of light in the sky.

The sun seemed to be coming up around 4ish a.m., which didn’t give us much sleep heading into the day. We started with coffee at Kaladi Brothers and then hiked over to the Coastal Trail which we accessed at Elderberry Park.

After a late breakfast/lunch, we arranged for a hikers’ shuttle to take us about 40 minutes away to the base of Flattop Mountain. This was a good call. The shuttle for both of us was cheaper than renting a car, and the van driver had good hiking tips for the trail and pointed out local points of interest on the route. He must have told us five times that everyone needed to be back at the van by 4 p.m. (more on that later).

Flattop Mountain  is a relatively short hike but with 1300 feet in vertical gain. Julia was a trooper, but for someone with bad knees, the hike down is especially tough.  The first third passes quickly up through low pines and alpine moss. The second third climbs more steeply up many railroad ties/steps. The final third is an even steeper rock and gravel scramble requiring the use of hands and feet. We made it up and down in about 150 minutes, including 30 minutes of walking around at the summit.

Two of our group had not returned to the van at 4:10 p.m.,and the van driver left without them. Several of us had observed the two still climbing when the rest of us were well on the way down. They knew they were running late but chose not to turn around. The driver suggested calling a cab and did not offer a refund.

I highly recommend this hike to other hikers in reasonably good shape and would also recommend using the shuttle services from the Downtown Bicycle Rental on Fourth Street ($22). It’s a great hike with just enough challenges to make it interesting. Just don’t be late.

 

View from the top of Flattop Mountain

Two other hikers on the summit

Still some snow in pockets

That little black dot is a moose

A great day

That night we went to a reception at a private home overlooking Cook Inlet. Not really my kind of gig.  After a couple of glasses of red wine, I stood on the deck and could see Mt Denali and the Alaskan Range. I’m warming up to Alaska.

Roll with the Changes

Elvis the service dog remains at home, but Justin has left the building and taken up residence at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater dorms for his summer school session.  He is taking six college credits, returning home for August, and then going back to school for the fall semester.

When asked what he is looking forward to the most at college, Justin answered, “freedom.”  I guess that I was probably the same way.

In the meantime, the local Grandma and Grandpa will be taking care of Elvis while Julia and I take off in a couple of days for Alaska.  It will be our 50th state. Julia has a business meeting in Anchorage through the end of the week.  Then we’ll have a couple of weeks for adventure and exploration.

Eyes on the Prize

The last couple of weeks have been spent transforming Justin from high school kid to college adult. Yeah, right. 

Anyway, everyone is doing the best they can under the circumstances, and we are on the morning of move-in day.  He has some caregivers lined up.  The truck and wheelchair van are packed.  Classes start tomorrow.  We are scheduled to leave on our 30th Anniversary celebration trip mid-week.  There may be a bit of tension/stress in the air.

So we’ve tried to have a little fun along the way on these warm summer days and nights.  The best part of Wisconsin summer can usually be sampled with brats, beer, and music on the University of Wisconsin-Madison Terrace.

After meeting with Justin’s “caregiver team” at UW-Whitewater, Justin and I checked out the local brewpub.  He’s posing in front of my Hefeweisen.  The food hadn’t arrived yet, but it was pretty good.  I give Second Salem Brewing Company a thumb’s up.

One way or another, July promises to be a busy month.  Time to pick up the blogging frequency a bit.