My Alaska Trip Part 2

So yesterday I blogged about the first part of our Alaska trip in Fairbanks and Denali National Park. We drove about a third of the entire road of the park. We made it a little past Sanctuary River on day 1.   Day 2 of our trip into Denali, we drove to mile 66 at Eielson Visitor Center.

At mile marker 47 is the Polychrome Overlook which was so gorgeous. There is a little walk way and the view is epic.

I love this picture I took of Dave, because it really puts the size of the mountain in perspective.

Here is the road that leads up to the Polychrome Overlook. Most of the roads don’t have guard rails and I definitely have a fear of heights.

We had so much fun with more jumping poses.

Dave calls this the Walmart photo because it looks like a fake background it was so pretty.

This is Dave in action. He wasn’t messing around 🙂

The remoteness and openness of Denali is so cool for lack of a better term. It was so nice to be in the car with just the two of us away from everything, and to unplug from our emails, texts, and work even just for a few hours.

It’s pretty hard to see in this picture because it’s so tiny but there is a sheep at the top of the mountain. There were white sheep all over way up in distance and they mostly stuck together.

It rained on and off again on Saturday and for a few moments the sun came out and it was breathtaking. The sun acted like a spotlight and it was a really pretty.

The next moment it is cloudy but the snow capped mountain make for such a great background.

The entire trip we were hoping to see a bear and we talked to another guy on the road who mentioned he just saw one past Sabel Mountain. So we were adamant that we would find it. We had our eyes peeled and we did see it! It was absolutely surreal and I could not believe. I was in shock.

It did not seem affected by our presence or the buses that stopped by. We were about 100 yards away from it or a football field. We felt safe in the car and it was amazing to enjoy the bear’s company and not fear for my life. 🙂 I cannot imagine seeing one while hiking.

And if it seeing the bear wasn’t amazing enough, Denali also treated us to a rainbow to end our beautiful day.

This was the view of Sanctuary River and it was so pretty to see the leaves changing colors.

I love that it is so light out even at night time in the summer, it is just so cool. And gives you so much time to be outside and get things done!

We tried to get dinner at 229 Parks Restaurant & Tavern but they were closed so they suggested Prey which was right down the street. It was really good and a super cute restaurant. 

 

Sunday

One of Dave’s outfitters he worked with said that 229 Parks had the best food in Denali. So after getting there too close to closing the night before, we made sure to make reservations for brunch the next morning. It was really good and we always love to support local establishments that have sustainable practices.

The food really was delicious and the omelette Dave got had lemon zest in it and it was so good! 

After brunch we headed back to Fairbanks with a quick stop back to the coffee shop for drinks for the road.

We stopped by Fred Meyers again to grab some snacks for me for the plane ride home. We had dinner with Dave’s work friend Ross at the hotel’s restaurant Lavelle’s which was also really good. I had the scallops and calamari and Dave had the lamb. Then we caught up with our friend Johnny CC, it was so good to see him I can’t believe it’s been over a year. Soon we will all be reunited in Seattle. 🙂

That night Dave dropped me off at the airport at close to midnight and I made it home to LA at 9:30am with another layover in Seattle.

(I know some of those details aren’t super important or interesting to you all but I want to remember these things when I look back on this trip, so thanks for bearing with me!)

Alaska is a huge state and I still can’t believe I got to experience it with Dave. I totally get why people love it up there. There’s so much to see and do. Granted we only had a few days together but it was so awesome and just what we needed. And now I get to check Alaska off my bucket list! (But of course I’d love to go back and see so many other parts of the state.)

 

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