DAY 14 – July 1
Seward to Anchorage, and home
We had an 8:30pm flight out of Anchorage, and it is about a 2-hour drive from Seward to Anchorage without stops. We decided to leave Seward first thing in the morning, take our time, and stop whenever we wanted along the way. We started with another stop at Safeway for breakfast and lunch.
We stopped at a scenic pullout for photos and breakfast, at Moose Pass to visit the general store, and at Tern Lake for more photos. Tina was still hoping to see salmon, so we made a short detour to Cooper Landing to hike the Russian River Falls.
The hike to Russian River Falls is on a wide, easy trail for 2.3 miles. The trail leads to a set of platforms over the river where we watched salmon leaping up the falls. This was a sunny day, one of the nicest days of our trip. Noah was lucky enough to be able to remove layers down to shorts and a t-shirt.
The Milepost says the hike should take 1-1/2 hours, but it took us 2-1/2 (including time for lunch and viewing the salmon at the platforms). The detour from the Seward Highway probably cost us another hour. It was clear we would need to skip some of the other stops we wanted to make, but this experience was worth it.
I was hoping to stop near Girdwood to visit the Crow Creek Mine and hike to the hand tram and a portion of the Winner Creek trail. I almost skipped both, but the kids said they'd like to try gold panning again. The road to the mine was rough and unpaved, and there was construction in progress. By the time we got to the mine, I felt we needed to limit our stay to 30 minutes.
The lady at the mine gave us a quick demonstration, then gave the kids each a bag of dirt that was "seeded" with gold flakes. The kids were charged the child's rate for panning, I was charged the photographer's rate, and Tina was charged the visitor's rate. We walked to the creek where I helped both kids find a little bit of gold from their bags, and Julianna wanted to search for more in the creek bed. Noah was content just to dig with a shovel.
The admission included small plastic cups with lids to hold their gold flakes, but these were not suitable for packing. We purchased glass vials in the gift shop instead.
We stopped for ice cream on our way back through Girdwood. Our only other stop was at Beluga Point. We did not see any wildlife along the way today.
In Anchorage we needed to top off the gas in the rental car before returning it. We should have stopped at the first opportunity; instead we ended up having to go past the airport. We filled up, changed into fresh clothes, and packed up all our loose items before going to the airport.
I dropped Tina and the kids off at the curb with our luggage before returning the rental car. This turned out to be a good move, as the rental return was at a different terminal. We were able to check in and make it through security without delays. Our flight was a red-eye, and I figured we'd all sleep well during the flight. I think Noah was the only one who got some decent rest, though. The kids even got excited when they looked out the windows and saw darkness for the first time in a couple of weeks.
We had a layover in Cincinnati, then a short flight the rest of the way home – arriving at 9:30am.
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This was a wonderful family trip. The kids did really well with all our adventures. Flightseeing at Denali, kayaking among icebergs, seeing wildlife, sled dogs, and Independence Mine were all highlights.
We're all ready to go back. In fact, both kids say they want to live in Alaska when they grow up!
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