Excursions

Days: 79-93

Mile: 8182

My how time flies. It’s been two weeks since my last post. At that time, we were still in Homer enjoying the beach. I will briefly try and catch you up on what we have been up to these past two weeks.

When we were doing our research for the trip, everyone we talked to or read or watched on YouTube said, “You must do some excursions while in Alaska.” We discovered there are plenty of excursion options to see Alaska from the air, the water or overland. I shared some photos earlier of our boat excursion into the Kenai Fjord National Park. Well, these past two weeks we have taken a couple more excursions.

We said goodbye to the beach at Homer and headed to Talkeetna, north of Anchorage but south of Denali National Park. Talkeetna is the starting point for climbing expeditions to Denali. It is also an excellent place to see “the big mountain”.

The locals and the guides all said, you have a 30% chance of seeing Denali. This is because it’s so big it makes its own weather, however, when we arrived in Talkeetna, Denali was beautifully displayed in the distance. (You have to really pay attention because Denali looks a lot like a bunch of clouds.)

Of course Bill and Susie wanted to see Denali, so we went down to the viewing point on the river…. no Denali. We went back two or three times the next day…. no Denali. 

For two days we went down to the river as often as possible to see if Denali was visible, along with lots of other tourists, but no Denali. Two of the tourists we met on one visit, were Mary and David from Texas. They were disappointed that their flightseeing trip to Denali had been cancelled, due to weather, and they were waiting to hear if it was going to be rescheduled later in the afternoon. We suggested that they stick around a day or two to see if the weather changed but they told us they had left their two boys with her mother and father who were also on the trip and Mary, a traveling nurse, had to get back to work in Texas. We took their picture, with no Denali in the background, wished them luck and said our goodbyes.

While in Talkeetna I discovered my favorite form of therapy: bunny therapy. This 80 year old woman sets up a table under a blue pop up tent with a tub full of 3 week old bunnies. She wraps them in a small towel and hands them out for you to hold and pet. She calls it “bunny therapy” and it works. I went twice and felt like a new woman after each session. And it was free.

Get this; when you get to Denali National Park, you can’t see Denali. Not because of the weather, but because to get to the park entrance you actually drive along the south side of the Alaska Mountain Range, of which Denali is the showstopper, to the far east end of the range. From there you enter the park and drive along the north side of the Alaska Mountain Range. Unfortunately, the road is closed due to a landslide, so you can only drive 15 miles into the park in a private car. You can take bus and jeep tours back into the interior of the park.

One afternoon, Susie was reading the news on her phone and she told us about a 27′ boat that had capsized and sank 16 miles from Homer. She said a family of four, including two children, from Texas were lost at sea.

Gary and I could imagine what it was like to be on a boat that size and what the waters 16 miles from Homer were like, having just been on a boat out of Homer the week before. Then Susie saw the photo of the Maynard family and she showed it to us. It was Mary and David the couple we had met at the river in Talkeetna who were waiting to hear if their flightseeing was rescheduled. 

We were all speechless and have thought about this family many times over the past several days. There is very little information about what happened and why the other four people on board were rescued. The Coast Guard called off the search after 24 hours due to weather and harsh survival conditions. We will continue to follow the story, but it was a stark reminder that this beautiful, wild place called Alaska is also unpredictable and dangerous. I am extremely thankful that our excursions were safe as well as beautiful and memorable.

Dear Maynard Family, may you rest in peace.