Farewell To Rachel And Alaska

Our last day in Alaska. It's a beautiful place, and if you get the chance you should come. We would both recommend that a road trip is better than a cruise, as you really do see more, and get out of the tourist crushes that occur around the docks. The view from the boat is great, but you really do need to get out there amongst it all to do it justice.

Seward, apart from some beefs about their price gouging, is a lovely picturesque seaside resort where thousands of people in hundreds of tents, RVs and motorhomes of every definition congregate. Yes, they are determined to extract every last cent from your pocket, and prices are steep, but getting up at 7am and sitting on your camp seat on the edge of the bay watching the pink sunrise on the snow peaked mountains is just ridiculously amazing.

And that's just what we did. Got up early and wandered around the shore of the bay in the crisp morning air, before heading to a bakery for a fresh muffin and coffee for breakfast. Found ms Oosterdam just pulling into the port. Being Sunday morning and exactly a week since we arrived, the sister cruise ship to ours had arrived and was in the process of disgorging the next group of a thousand new tourists, who were already gaping at the views.

But what is a perfect morning if it can't be spoiled by a rant. What is it about America that doesn't realise that there are other people on the planet? Went to put some petrol in the car this morning before leaving Seward, and had to prepay at the pump. You swipe your Visa card, then it asks you for your zip code. Of course, people from overseas don't have one, and 200,000 foreign visitors visit Seward each year, so I'm not alone here. You can't ignore the zip code request. If you put in your foreign postal code, it tells you that it's incorrect as it's not 5 digits. If you put a leading or trailing zero, it tells you that it's an invalid code. If you put Rachel's zip code in, it tells you that it doesn't match your billing address. So you have to go inside and pay cash. "How much gas do you want?" is the next question. Don't really know. What's the tank size on my rental car? She doesn't know either. How do you convert litres to gallons? (yep - America still uses imperial - about the only country on the planet to do so). So you make an estimate in litres, convert it to gallons, adjust for what's left in the tank, multiply by $4.17, all while the lady looks at you as though you're deficient. Then you hand her cash, she yells at the other cashier to put that amount on the pump. You have to over estimate, as you have to return the car with a full tank, and when you've finished you have to go back inside, queue up again, and watch two grown women stand there and puzzle over how to get the machine to issue a refund. All because they can't get their minds around the fact that some 99% of the world doesn't have a zip code.

Anyway, we finally got on the road, and headed up the highway back to Anchorage stopping every so often to take in the views along the Turnagain Arm. It's all a bit incestuous. Captain James Cook arrived in 1778 looking for the Northwest Passage. In Cook's expedition was George Vancouver who came back on his own expedition in 1794 and named the inlet 'Cooks Inlet'. Also on Cook's voyage was his Sailing Master, one William Bligh of the Bounty fame, who named the arm of the inlet Turnagain Arm because he had to keep turning his boat to get up the inlet when Cook dispatched him to explore up river.

Stopped for a brief walk up the Bird Creek trail, then finally hit the outskirts of Anchorage. Drove straight to the Saturday Market on 3rd Avenue now knowing that it was open on a Sunday, and wandered down to the food vendor section for lunch. Then it was out to the airport to return the car with minutes to spare, and check in for our flights so we could lose our baggage. As we are waiting around for a midnight flight, Brendan and Rachel went to cloke their hand luggage so they wouldn't have to cart it around. You know that you are in Alaska! Along with the displayed list of rates for large luggage and small luggage was the rate for storing Moose Antlers ($16) and, if you were less successful, $7 for your gun.

Back on the bus into the city to explore for a couple of hours, including a little bit of souvenir shopping. Mandy thought that it would be cute to tie a bear warning bell to her school clothes to call the children to attention, so I bought her one and now she tinkles as she walks along.

Back to the airport about teatime to sample Brendan's favourite Frozen Yoghurt shop, and then spent a few hours on the airport wi-fi catching up on things before boarding our flight.