We started the day with yet *another* 4am wake-up call, and as we hurried to get ready and hike down to the dock, we were greeted with the eeriest horror movie-like fog I’ve ever seen. The gray cloak shrouded all visibility, creating ghost-like ships rocking silently in the soupy waters. This didn’t bode well for a 10-hr tour on the water, where we hoped to see, well, anything.
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Our morning ritual was becoming familiar: we woke at the crack of dawn, and while still dark, fumbled to take down camp, pack our things, and set off to a new location. We skipped breakfast as we planned on eating once we arrived in Gustavus from Juneau. The flight was only 30 minutes, after all.
Unfortunately, our flight was delayed nearly four hours due to weather, leaving us three and a half hours too long to spend exploring the Juneau airport. We scavenged for breakfast, but as there was only one restaurant in the entire airport (not recommended by the flight crew), we ate a gas station type meal of string cheese and coffee.
The only flights to Gustavus left from Juneau on puddle jumper 1960s era Cessna-like airplanes that wibble-wobbled with each and every light gust of wind. The interiors were so tiny, that for safety reasons everything had to be checked in, even things like water bottles and camera bags. I’m mentioning this because had I known we would spend 4 hours in that airport, I would have at least not packed my cell phone or Kindle or food…
I usually love airports, but after memorizing every square inch of that airport (something that could be easily accomplished in 30 minutes), I became extremely restless. There were only so many cups of coffee one could drink, tabloids one can read, and stuffed bears one can photograph.
Our final day in Juneau can be summed up like this: rain, glaciers, ice, mushrooms, and bears.
We woke up to the unrelenting rain and debated if we should stay another night in the cozy comfort of our cabin. We had heard that the campground we were planning on camping at that night had been flooded (and closed) just a few days earlier. The idea of being cold and wet didn’t really appeal to me, but at the same time, I was curious about the campsite we had carefully chosen because of its view of the glacier.
I think we made the right choice.
Juneau is a major stop for cruise lines, and for the most part, downtown Juneau catered to this crowd. Three cruise ships lined the dock at all times with another few ships docked a little further. I wasn’t expecting so many people cramped into narrow streets lined with crappy souvenir shops. Do people really travel to Alaska to buy pearl necklaces? Confusing.
There is a phrase known as “out the road” in Juneau. It basically means driving on the Glacier Hwy away from the city and the chaotic throngs of cruisers. In other words, “out the road” means that the further away one gets from the cruise ships, the more beautiful and peaceful (and uncrowded) the surroundings.
We booked a very rustic cabin at the Shrine of St. Therese – a cabin in the middle of nowhere with no plumbing and no electricity, just a potbellied stove and a spectacular view. Unfortunately, they renovated our cabin a day before we were scheduled to arrive. so they offered us their largest retreat cabin that slept like 18 people, and had running water, heat, and electricity. Given the weather, I was almost thankful for this change of plans – walking to the outhouse in the cold rain would have kind of sucked.
A couple things didn’t go as planned in Juneau. For one, we were supposed to take the ferry from Sitka to Juneau on the Alaskan Marine Highway. We received a call a couple days prior letting us know that not only had the ferry broken down, but that it was in dry dock for an indeterminate time frame. In this way, Alaska reminded me a bit of Hawaii, where when things break, or arrive late, people shrug their shoulders and say ‘oh well, it happens.’
It was a little disappointing that we didn’t get to ride the ferry to Juneau. Instead, we got up at 4am and were shuttled half-awake back to the airport to catch the only flight of the day out of Sitka. On the positive, the flight to Juneau, even in the unrelenting rain, was spectacular. From the airport, you can see Mendenhall Glacier, which seemed almost fake.
Breakfast that morning at Sandpiper Cafe came complete with an amazing view (and great food).
Sitka was really really small. As in we literally walked end-to-end and saw every single site, museum, and park in-between in the span of less than a day. If we had wanted, we could have walked from the airport, across the bridge, and into town.
But Sitka was a charming little town with cute little shops, an old ice cream fountain, Russian Orthodox churches, and saloon-style Victorian hotels. We spent half the day hiking in the forest, and the other half wandering around town half-heartedly checking out the souvenir shops and searching for a Russian Princess’ grave. We made reservations for a late dinner at a tiny fine dining organic/local restaurant, but we never made it back out. Once back in our motel room, we made the fatal decision to ‘take a nap.’ We didn’t wake up until the next morning.
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Past totems and somber battlefield meadows, we meandered through the woods trying to determine the best route to the Alaska Raptor Center. For some reason, the map of Sitka seemed more complicated than actually finding our own way.
We became somewhat disoriented stumbling through the woods, but knew we had to cross a river, so we just followed the sound of running water until we came to a mossy bridge. Just before crossing, we looked in the water and noticed what looked like millions of log-sized moving rocks. As we got closer we realized they were salmon — hundreds upon hundreds of salmon literally jumping out of the water. I squealed with delight. I don’t know why but watching these salmon flapping their way upstream was extremely mesmerizing. I wanted to jump in the (freezing) water and pick them up with my hands like some savage tourist. I didn’t, but I really wanted to.
Eight million cups of coffee and a brief stop in Juneau later, we finally arrived in Sitka where we were greeted with more stuffed bears in glass cases, and a tiny airport that reminded us of the one in Cusco, Peru sans pan flute players. We were also greeted with rain.
We checked into the world’s largest motel room (3 queen sized beds seemed a bit excessive for our needs) at the historic Sitka Hotel, changed into our rain gear, and walked a couple blocks to Little Tokyo for sushi. For small town sushi, it was pretty good. For Alaska sushi, given that Alaska has direct access to the best seafood, we were expecting more.
I didn’t want to leave the warmth of that tiny sushi place. The weather turned on and off in bursts of wind and rain. Lack of sleep started to catch up with me, and when a gust of wind blew my crappy umbrella inside out, I wanted nothing more than to retreat back to the hotel and sleep the rest of the day.
But we were in Sitka, Alaska, a town with a historic Russian and Tlingit past. The site of the ceremony in which the Russian flag was lowered and the US flag raised. Mention Sitka to an Alaskan, and he’ll tell you how much he loves the town.
When it came time to plan our yearly “big trip,” it was a decision between some place exotic (Croatia), some place warm (Mediterranean) or some place we have been wanting to visit/live since forever (Alaska). Alaska won due to the fact that it only cost 25k frequent flier miles for a RT ticket from DCA.
The thing about life is that nothing comes for free. And when using FF miles to literally travel across country to arguably the most remote place in the US, well, you can pretty much factor in that something will not go as planned.
Our original tickets had a combination of 3-4 flight changes at rinky dink airports in cities I didn’t even know had airports. We arrived early to DCA, checked our bags in, headed to the terminal, and then realized that our flight was delayed by a couple hours, causing us to miss our connecting flights. We used our United miles (good riddance), but our flight was on a partner airline for this leg. Since we booked through United, there was drama in getting another flight since we had to now book through the partner airline, not United.
Long story short, we were able to get a direct flight to Phoenix, where we had an 8 hour layover before flying into Anchorage. We arrived in Anchorage around 1am, and decided that since we had to be back at the airport to fly out to Juneau in 4 hours, it didn’t make sense to get a hotel room.
