Day 5.2...Of Airports, Rental Cars, Smoky Hotel Rooms and Melt Downs

Anchorage to Seattle

Our early evening flight from Anchorage to Seattle was perfect.  Everything was on time...no last minute delays....nice touchdown in Seattle 3 1/2 hours after takeoff.  It still amazes me by the way how far it really is between Anchorage and Seattle.  Seems to me that it should be much closer but it's not!  So by the time we landed in Seattle it was 9:20 PM and it was a fabulous view of Mount Rainier that met us on the runway:

Mount Rainier was "out" in it's full glory when we landed at Sea-Tac

Here is another huge mountain that is sometimes just totally hidden by clouds.  It seems so hard to believe that these monsters could actually go missing but they do!!!  This was the best view we had of the mountain the whole time that we were in the Seattle/Portland area!    

So here we were...had a great last day in Alaska exploring the scenic Seward Highway area area, a great flight, and a mountain to greet us upon landing....what could go wrong?  Well.....

Let me just preface this by saying that no matter how much planning ahead that you do, no matter how much research you do, no matter how well you know an area....things do go wrong!!  Travel is not perfect and you have to be flexible....however there comes a time in every family vacation (well at least ours) that the meltdown happens!!  This was the night of our meltdown......

Sea-Tac Airport

I am not a fan of Sea-Tac.....it's an ok airport but is undergoing quite a few renovations so it's a bit confusing to get around (and that's being nice!)  My husband and I did a "couples trip" to the Seattle/Portland in October of 2011 so it hadn't been that long since we had been there!  When we landed there during the October trip, we had a heck of a time trying to find the rental car area.  We could see it was in a garage just across the street from the baggage claim area but darned if we could find our way there!  After about 30 minutes of walking around with our luggage, we figured out that you had to go upstairs through construction areas and cross over a pedestrian bridge to the 4th level in order to get to the executive level of National Rental Car.  Ok....so after that experience this time I was prepared!  I knew where the rental car was located and there was nothing going to get in my way!  

The baggage claim/ground transportation portion of the airport is still all under construction with temporary walls all over the place.....but I had this.....or NOT....  The area that we ended up walking upstairs and getting to the garage in October was no longer there.  Ok....so we head outside and see shuttle buses coming up to pick people up to take them to their various rental car companies.  I was insistent that National....at the least the executive elite part of National was still on the 4th floor of the garage across the street.  I was trying to pull out my confirmation information and in the meantime my husband and son decided to ask someone where we were to go.  The airport employee tells us to get on the shuttle bus.  I am totally convinced that we should not be on the shuttle bus and am getting pretty agitated at this point.  I have found my confirmation which I printed when we booked the vehicle back on April 14th.  It tells me that we have to go across the pedestrian bridge and go to the 4th floor of the garage....same thing I thought.  So by this time we have loaded onto the shuttle and I am convinced that we are not supposed to be on there.  I'm tired and I just want to go to the hotel.....last thing I want to do is be driven to where ever this shuttle is headed just to have to take it back to go across the street.

Meltdown #1 Alert:  I start panicking on the shuttle, stand up and tell my family as well as everyone else on the bus that I am not supposed to be on the bus because we are executive elite and our car isn't where ever this bus is going!  The other passengers try to tell me that I am in the right place.  This just agitates me even more.  I show them the confirmation and continue to spin around in the aisle way yelling that I need off the shuttle (ok...I admit it was a bit dramatic but I was sure I was right!)  Wrong.....someone finally tells me that they just changed the location of the vehicles.  Huh???  But I was here in October!  Nope....they had changed it!  My family is rolling on the seats by this point and had tears running down their faces (which did not help my mood I must say!).  They couldn't even speak they were laughing so hard.  Finally my husband manages to tell me that he had received an email from National notifying him that they had changed the location and it was in a central rental car facility and you had to take a shuttle...yes this same shuttle that we were on...to get there!!!  Nice time to pull that out of his phone!!!!  He and my son are still cackling and crying from laughing so hard and now I'm just ticked!!  I mean really....they built a whole freaking facility since October???  Needless to say it was bad enough that I had just embarrassed myself completely on a shuttle bus let alone having the "fam" rolling in their seats!  I believe that I may have had smoke coming out of my ears at this point!

Lesson learned:  Don't trust what the information that you get when you book your travel or your past experiences.  Check the latest information BEFORE you go in order to get to what you are trying to find!

Homewood Suites Tukwila

So we finally find our rental vehicle and find our way out of the rental facility.  I'm still not speaking to anyone and they are still laughing.  By this time it is around 10:00 PM.  We have booked a room at the Homewood Suites in Tukwila, WA which was very close to the Airport.  Again, my husband and I had stayed at this hotel in October of 2011 and LOVED it!  Personally, I thought it was one of the best Homewood Suites that I had ever stayed at....gave it 5 stars on TripAdvisor after our last stay!  So what could go wrong here????  Well.....

We get to the hotel in about 10 minutes from the rental facility and notice that the entire parking lot of the hotel is packed.  Not just full.....packed!   So here's where things really start to go downhill....my husband, who is a bit high-strung when driving in parking lots as it is, is driving around and around trying to find a spot to park.  As he is driving around, he makes a left on a small roadway.....well we thought it was a roadway!!  Turns out is was a bike path!!!!  Luckily there were no bikes on it.  Now why he didn't back up as soon as we realized that we were on a bike path I don't know but he didn't and just kept driving around curves in the path.  Finally we come to a dead end with two wooden posts at the end of the path!  

Meltdown Alert #2: Now I should tell you at this point that the vehicle that we rented was a Chevy Traverse....not a small vehicle by any means!!  Now we are stuck on this bike path....train tracks to our right, large ditch to our left.  My husband stops the vehicle and throws up his hands and waves them around yelling...."now what are we going to do??  We are stuck!!"  I'm still ticked and finding this rather humorous since he was laughing at my meltdown on the shuttle bus so I am not offering any help.  Luckily our son had his wits about him and realized that we could back up, do a three point turn and head back out on the bike path the way we came.  He is trying to tell my husband this but he is in full meltdown mode at this point!  He is still waving his arms and yelling.  Finally our son is able to talk some sense into him and we were able to maneuver our way off of the bike path!!

 We drive around the whole hotel again (avoiding the bike path this time!)  and finally my husband pulls over and parks in the middle of the lot just to hop out and check in.  Again, for those who haven't read prior posts, my husband travels a lot for business and is a Diamond Member of Hilton's HHonors Reward program because he stays exclusively at Hilton hotels whenever he travels for business and we are equally loyal on our personal vacations.  One of the perks of being a Diamond Member is that they won't bump you from a room and should hold the room that you requested.  Should being the operative word here.  

So hubby, gets out, goes in to check in....son and I are now rolling and crying because we are laughing so hard about hubby's meltdown on the bike path and how he got on the bike path in the first place!  Hubby comes out with an odd look on his face.  He says he has good news and bad news.....good news is that we have a room.....bad news is that it is a SMOKING room!  We are all non-smokers and have a real problem with stale smoke.  He tells me that he has complained about it but they have no other rooms available (where the room that we reserved that was NON-SMOKING went...I have no clue). They also have told him that they put an ozone machine in the room to air it out for 2 hours.  So hubby says he is going to park the vehicle, son and I were taking the bags and heading to the room.  

Meltdown Alert #3:  We open the door to the room and out pours the smokey stench!  I mean this is not a room that has been aired out and if it was I would have hate to have smelled it before it was aired out!  Now it's son's turn to meltdown.  He flat out refuses to stay in this stinky room!  Hubby is still parking the car.  By the time he gets to the room son has put all the bags outside and has said he is not putting anything in this room it smells so badly!  Hubby and son head over to the front desk to see if there isn't something that they can do about giving us a better room.  I proceed to open all the windows that will open and try to air it out a little bit more.  Son marches back in the room about 5 minutes later and asks me for the confirmation for our Saturday night stay (Day 8) since we booked a split stay here. Turns out the front desk employee can't even locate our reservation for the next night.  Thing was both reservations were advanced paid!!!!!  We had made these reservations in April and paid for them!!  They finally found our reservation and guaranteed that we would not be in a smoking room and "we would be in a room that wasn't near the train."  (Train?.....what Train?....Oh yeah the railroad tracks by the bike path!) This was the best they could do.....for tonight we were stuck in the smokey room!  We tried calling other Hilton's in the area but there were no rooms available.  This was a WEDNESDAY!  Turns out that there was a big soccer tournament in the area and hotel rooms were at a premium.  Since our flight arrived late....we were moved to the most undesirable room in the hotel!  The room was terrible, our clothes stunk, the room was smaller than the room we had stayed in in October even though both were 1 bedroom suites and every time the train went by, I sat up in the bed!  I ended up tweeting at Homewood Suites and Hilton who promised to help me with the situation if they had our confirmation number.  Gave them that but didn't hear anything back till the following morning.  At that time they had assigned the problem to someone who was supposed to contact us.  (Remember this part!) Hubby went to check out the following morning because the bill that we had shoved under our door indicated that they were billing us a second time for the room!!!!  This room wasn't worth paying for once....let alone twice.  He asked  to speak with the manager but were told that she was supposed to be there but hadn't shown up. They did finally adjust the bill so we were not charged twice for the room. We went to the breakfast buffet (or I should say we tried to go to the breakfast buffet) in the morning.  It was packed and you couldn't even walk in the eating area.  Needless to say we were happy to leave this hotel and it really was a shame because our previous experience was so good.  We were very worried about our second stay in a few nights.  

Lessons Learned:  It doesn't matter if you are a Diamond Member with Hilton, or if you have pre-paid for your room or not, if you are arriving late, call ahead and  make sure they don't give away the room that you requested!  You can't always know what events are in the area when you book something but things happen that can alter your experience.  

The End of a Long Day

A day that started out so smoothly ended pretty much in disarray.  When we woke up in the morning, we were all ready to put the previous night behind us and spent much of the day laughing about the events of the night before!  

Lesson Learned:  There are things that are just out of your control when you travel.  Don't let things that don't go perfectly upset the rest of your time.  Vacation is too short to let it be ruined by little things.  

Coming Next:  Olympic National Park to Springfield, Oregon

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Day 5.1 - Glaciers and Mountains and Sheep....Oh my!

Our Last Day in Alaska

We woke up on our 5th day and realized that it was our last day in Alaska.  We were wishing we had a couple more days to see a few more things but we also knew that we were headed back to the lower 48 for more adventure filled days.  So after a brief moment of sadness we decided to make the most of our last day and headed south from Anchorage.  The plan was to head out on the scenic Seward Highway and take it as far as Portage Glacier with a stop at Alyeska Resort.  We figured this was about as far as we could get before we had to return for our 5:00 PM flight from Anchorage to Seattle. So after a great hot breakfast at the Embassy Suites we were on our way.

The Scenic Seward Highway

We only had part of a day to make the drive but we tried to maximize our time as usual.  We started in Anchorage and headed South along the Seward Highway.  The entire drive to Seward is about 127 miles and we didn't have time to get there and back and see things along the way so we chose to go part of the way, stopping to view the scenery in Turnagain Arm and the Portage Glacier area.  Now we have traveled on some "Scenic Byways" before and sometimes we haven't found them all that scenic.....this was NOT the case with the Seward Highway!  As soon as we started out on the roadway we were in awe of the beauty of our surroundings.  Every bend in the road brought a brand new sight and started a flurry of picture taking!  It was like you just couldn't take in enough.

Heading out the Seward Highway

Beautiful views along the Seward Highway

Now this was Alaska!  Here were the views that we had expected to see.  I have to admit that I was far more fond of this area of Alaska in the half day that we visited it than the 2 1/2 days we spent in the Denali area.  Don't get me wrong, Denali National Park is a wonderful place and a must see if it's your first trip to Alaska but the Seward Highway was just so astounding that it quickly became our favorite of the trip!

Driving along the Turnagain Arm

One of the big differences between our Denali experience and our Seward Highway Experience is that the wildlife was so much closer to the roadway and so much easier to spot and photograph.  This is what we thought we would be seeing in Alaska.

Dahl Sheep along the Seward Highway

The sheep were right on the side of the roadway!

We stopped at all of the scenic view areas and took time to walk around a bit and take some fantastic photos...the photos actually speak for themselves....so just enjoy!

After passing Bird Point Scenic overlook and the Kenai Penninsula Turnouts we headed on through Girdwood.  There was a nice gas station here where you could refuel, buy some snacks and use the restroom.  Definitey, a stop worth making as gas stations are few and far between.  Girdwood is also the home of the Alyeska Resort.  We wanted to make a stop here but it was a bit too early to ride the Aerial Tram so we passed through on our way to the Portage area and made a point to stop back on our way back to Anchorage.

Portage Glacier

Blue Ice Trail

As you round the bend from Girdwood and continue South on the Seward Highway, the next stop is Portage.  We made a short stop just a few miles before reaching the Portage Glacier area and took a short walk on the Blue Ice Trail.  It was amazing.....glaciers in the mountains, crystal clear streams and a flowing stream that was "raspberry blue".  Definitely worth a stop to look around and it was bit of a preview of what was to come next.

Glacier in the Mountain along the Blue Ice Trail

Raspberry Blue Water near the Glacier

Crystal Clear Streams where the Salmon Spawn 

The other thing that we started to notice were beautiful cascading waterfalls down the mountains from the snow melt.

Cascading Waterfalls flowing down the mountains

After a short stop here....we continued on our way to our ultimate destination for the day....Portage Glacier.  I mean after all you can't go to Alaska and not see a glacier can you???

The Visitor's Center

The first stop in the Portage area is at the Begich-Boggs Visitor's Center.  Portage Glacier is a valley glacier and is no longer visible from the Visitor's Center.   However, the Visitor's Center offers some educational displays, a nice restroom and some great views of iceburgs in the lake outside.  You can actually walk down to the lake and put your hand in and see just how cold the water is!! This doesn't have to be a very long stop but definitely a stop you should make!

Once you've stopped at the Visitor's Center...it's time to head down the road a bit and take the boat crusie to see the glacier itself.  

Portage Glacier Cruises

 

The MV Ptarmigan getting ready to load up Passengers!

The Portage Glacier Cruise operates from mid-May through Mid-September with departures at 10:30 AM, 12:00 PM, 1:30 PM, 3:00 PM and 4:30 PM.  The cruise is 60 minutes long, fully narrated, takes you within 300 yards of the glacier and costs $34.00/adult and $17.00/child.  It is WELL worth the investment of time and money!  We had a great time here and voted this the best thing we did while in Alaska!  

The ship has an upstairs open deck and and lower enclosed area.  If you really want to see the glacier, make sure you get up to the top deck.  It's a bit cold and often times drizzling so make sure you dress in layers and wear something waterproof. 

You start out on the cruise and go through some extremely blue (raspberry blue) areas of the lake.  There are waterfalls on every side and small icebergs floating around in the lake.  Don't worry, the boat is more than capable of handling the icebergs.  Here are some of the views from the early portion of our cruise:

Then all of a sudden you spot the Glacier!  We were told that this is a small glacier but since it's the only glacier we saw on our trip, we were fascinated by it!  The boat makes several passes by the glacier from different angles, finally getting you within 300 yards of it.  Our captain, Sean Connery (yes that was really his name!), stopped and explained what we were seeing and made sure that everyone got a chance to take pictures of the glacier and with the glacier.

Our Captain....Sean Connery....Really!

The cruise was very informative and on the way back they actually fished a piece of the iceberg out of the water so you could see it and touch it.  They chipped small pieces off and even let you hold a piece.

The cruise was very informative and well worth the cost.  It was good for all ages and really enjoyable. The boat launch had a small snack bar and gift shop as well as restrooms.  I would definitely recommend this cruise as part of your experience if you are in the Portage area!!

Alyeska

After our cruise, we packed everything back up (of course we had to buy a few souvenirs!) and headed back up the Seward Highway toward Anchorage.  It was later now and the Aerial Tram was open at Alyeska so we made a stop here.  Alyeska is a ski resort with a resort hotel and spa on the premises.  We didn't have time to check out the inside of the hotel but it certainly looked very nice from the outside.  During the off season, the resort offers rides to the top of the mountain to see the spectacular views.  The tram runs from the beginning of May through the beginning of October.  I wouldn't say that it was a "cheap" thing to do, especially for a family but it was a great view from the top of the mountain.  We purchased a tram and lunch combo at $30.00/adult since it was lunch time and it was cheaper to buy the combo than to pay separately for lunch.  The menu is pretty standard cafeteria fare, sandwiches, chicken tenders, fries....but it was nice to sit down and look at the view while we ate.

View from the Aerial Tram at Alyeska

Once you are at the top you can walk around and take pictures and have your lunch for as long as you would like.  Trams depart every 15 minutes so when you are ready to go back down the mountain, you just line up at the departure area and catch the next available tram.

The top of Alyeska

My son was having a great time in the snow at the end of June!

View from the top of Alyeska

There is also a small gift shop at the top and heated restrooms.  One thing to note here is that the parking area is a little bit of a walk to the tram ticketing area and it is all uphill.  If you have any sort of mobility issues, you may want to be dropped off closer to the tram loading area.  

Back to Anchorage

Unfortunately it was time for us to head back to Anchorage, return our rental vehicle and check in for our flight to Seattle.  We all really wished that we had an extra day or two to go further on the Seward Highway and agreed that if/when we make a return trip to Alaska....it was this area on which we would like to focus our energy.  This was a beautiful drive and I'm sure the remainder of the drive would have been equally beautiful.  It is definitely a stunner and a must do!  We made it to the airport in plenty of time.  Anchorage airport is not huge and is very easy to get around.  We were headed back to Seattle to begin the second part of our vacation!

Coming Next:  Of Airports, Rental Cars, Smoky Hotel Rooms and Melt Downs

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Day 4 - Sled Dog Demo and Back to Anchorage

The morning of the 4th Day of our trip brought a very rainy day.  I'm not talking sprinkles here...I mean RAIN....buckets of RAIN.  Cold, hard, RAIN.  We had missed the Sled Dog Demonstration at Denali on our first evening there and had missed it the second day because we were on the Tundra Wilderness tour so we were bound and determined that we were going to get there on this day before we headed back to Anchorage.

Sled Dog Demonstration at Denali National Park

We found that finding out information about the Sled Dog Demonstration was a bit difficult.  Now having said that we certainly found out about it and made our way there as did lots of other visitors but it just wasn't that "user friendly".   We started with the official website: http://www.nps.gov/dena/planyourvisit/sled-dog-demonstrations.htm  which is buried in the Denali National Park Website.  If you haven't been to Denali before and don't happen to run across a review or information, you may not know to look for the demonstration page.   Once you get to the page, they tell you that there is a demonstration, that the buses leave the visitor's center 40 minutes before the show and what time the shows are for the date that you are going.  This is all very good information, but had we had just a little bit more information, we would have planned this stop very differently.  Here is what we found:

1.  Check the website for the times that the show is offered.  At the beginning and end of the tourist season, there are fewer shows.  During the peak of the season they offer 3 shows, 10 AM, 2 PM and 4 PM.  

2.  Make your way to the Visitor's Center.  You can drive into the park far enough to get to the Visitor's Center.  There is parking at the Visitor's Center where you can leave your car.  You CANNOT drive to the kennel area.  You must take a bus or hike the 1.5 miles from the Visitor's Center to the Kennels.  There is a gift shop, cafe and restrooms in addition to the Visitor's Center in this area so there are things to do if you happen to arrive early.  

3.  The shows run rain or shine.  It was raining pretty hard and we checked at the Visitor's Center before waiting for the bus.  They looked at us like we were nuts....of course they have the shows.  These dogs work in horrible weather conditions, a little bit of rain isn't going to deter them!

4.  Once you are ready to board the bus, make your way down to the bus boarding area.  You follow the doggy footprints painted on the roadway and it will take you directly to the bus area.  

5.  Yes...it is probably a really good idea to arrive at the bus loading area 40 minutes ahead of the scheduled show time.  However....they run buses at least up until the time that the show starts.  As long as there are people standing there waiting to board, they send buses to pick them up and deliver them to the kennel area.  If you do arrive ahead of time, you will be on oe of the first buses and have more time to interact with the dogs before the show begins.  The buses drop off their passengers and then park and wait until the show is over so there is no waiting to return to the Visitor's Center other than the time it takes to walk to and load the buses.  Had we known that there were multiple buses or that arriving later than the 40 minutes ahead of the show didn't disqualify you from going to that show, we most likely would have done this activity on one of the other days.

Arriving at the Kennels

After parking and checking out the gift shop, we made our way to the bus loading area.  The buses are the green school bus type buses of the park service.   We loaded up and headed to the kennels.  We were on the first bus, so we had plenty of time to see and interact with the dogs before the show began. The bus ride was maybe 5 minutes and there was a bit of a walk to the actual show area from bus parking lot.  The new litter was only about 8 weeks old at the time and we were able to check them out.  The bad thing about it being such a rainy day was that the puppies stayed in their house!  Most of the other dogs didn't seem to mind the rain but it did put a bit of a damper on viewing.   You were allowed to pet the dogs and take photos of them.  

The puppies cuddling with their mom during the rain.

My son loved interacting with the dogs!

The dogs are beautiful and fun to see.

The Denali Sled dogs are bred to be larger dogs than the Iditarod Dogs 

There is a building which has a small educational display inside.  It is in a small space and fills up quickly.  When it is time for the show to begin, the rangers will announce that it's time to go to the viewing area.  There are several benches for visitor's to sit on and watch the show, however they fill up very quickly.  There were about 6 bus loads of people who attended our show and the majority of those ended up in the standing room only areas.  Actually, we all ended up standing because the seats were all wet but had it been dry, we would have had a seat!

The show runs about 45 minutes long.  The majority of the show is an informative talk that is given by one of the rangers.  They talk about the work that the dogs do and how life is at Denali.  Some reviews I had read before going indicated that this part is a bit too long.  Maybe it is, but it's interesting and gives you a feel for what the dogs do.  About midway through the talk, the rangers hook the dogs up to the demo sled.  I have never seen dogs so excited about what they do!!!  Every dog in the place wanted to be picked to do the demo.  They were jumping all over the place and didn't quiet down until the dogs that were picked were hooked up to the sled!  The ones who weren't picked actually looked a bit depressed if that's possible!

The ranger then brings the sled around a path and stops in front of the viewing area.  The whole demo only lasts about a minute.  Once they are parked, the dogs are given treats and the ranger continues the talk, explaining what each dog's position is, what that position is responsible for and the traits they look for in the dogs to fill those positions.

The sled dog demo at lightening speed and through the raindrops!

The sled dog demo

Once the demo is over, they give you the opportunity to look around and see the dogs again and head back on the buses when you are ready.  Given the rain situation when we were there, everyone pretty much headed right back to the buses!  The buses then take you back to the Visitor's Center where you can look around, have a meal or snack and collect your vehicle.  The whole process lasts about 2 hours and is really a whole lot of fun and really interesting.  I wish the weather had cooperated a little bit more because I think it would have been even a better visit but even through the raindrops we were all glad we had gone.

Heading back to Anchorage

There is only one road to Denali from Anchorage and only one way back!  So back we headed on the same roadway.  We did not make as many stops on the way back as we did on the way there.  The rainy weather guaranteed that there would be no Denali sightings that day and quite honestly there really isn't a whole lot to see on the roadway when it's raining.  Once we got closer to Anchorage, the rain lightened up a bit and we did get to see some very pretty scenery.

Views on the way back to Anchorage

The mountains are beautiful!

Embassy Suites Anchorage

Our hotel of choice for the evening was the Embassy Suites Anchorage.  Since we had stayed at the Homewood Suites on our first night, we decided to try a different hotel for our second stay in Anchorage.  They were both rated very highly by travelers so we wanted to check them both out.  I will say that the Embassy Suites was a much nicer hotel by our standards.  The Homewood Suites was nice and clean but with very small rooms.  The Embassy Suites was larger and had a wonderful Manager's Reception and Breakfast.  The rooms were much more spacious than the Homewood Suites rooms.  My husband always requests a room on an upper level and far away from the elevator so we were not shocked by the very long walk to our room.  However, if you have mobility issues you may want to request a room closer to the elevator as some rooms are really quite far away in this hotel.  This particular Embassy Suites was laid out differently than most.  Most have the center lobby area with rooms going in a square around the center.  This hotel had regular corridors and the rooms were not off the lobby area.  It was much quieter than most Embassy Suites because of this.  

King Bedroom

TV in the Bedroom 

Wet Bar with Refrigerator

Desk and Living Area

Living Area with Pullout Sofa

Bathroom

Bathroom

This was a great place to stay and we enjoyed a great night's sleep.  The one recurring theme the entire time we were in Alaska was how light it was no matter what the time.  You hear about the endless daylight hours but until you experience it, it just doesn't make sense!  Here was the view from our hotel room at about 10:00 PM:

View from our room at 10:00 PM...still light out!

I would highly recommend this Embassy Suites if you are staying in the Anchorage area.  It was time to rest up for the next leg of our trip....a ride down the scenic Seward Highway and then back to Seattle.

Next up:  The Scenic Seward Highway, Portage Glacier and back to Seattle

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