The motel in Moose Pass is in a little street that seems to contain all the village essentials, a church nearly opposite the motel, a restaurant bar part of the lodge, a school and a railway all in the tiny street.
Its great sitting on the porch in the morning watching the swifts as they dance and swirl around in the warming day .
I made sure to sleep in as late as I could because the flight home leaves at 1.40 am and I need to stay awake until then but eventually I had to hit the road north
I stopped off to get some photos of places I had missed on the way down, normally when you take photos of mountains and scenery, you get home and find they didnt look that interesting after all but Alaska is different, stunning scenery at every turn, sometimes all I could do was grab the camera and take a shot out of the windscreen as I was travelling.
For some reason rocks featured heavily on the list of "things to bring back from Alaska" Lisa started it then others joined in with requests, I had some but stopped again at Bird creek to find some more blue looking rocks, I limbed down a staircase to no where and scrambled over the rocks and was rewarded by a great view, you would never have seen this from the road either!
Funny that the one image I am going to get enlarged for the wall is the last scenic photo I took!
I wouldnt have seen it if it wasnt for the "rock search"
On to Anchorage and some shopping in the only J C Penney in Alaska, not much really, a couple of T shirts, shirts for Al and a pair of shoes to replace the ones now smelly from the river paddling, finally in a town there was more than one petrol station, for a state with so many RVs driving about, I wonder what they do for petrol there arent that many petrol stations out on the roads and those that there are are packed with cars and people, I got some looks when I parallel parked the little red car to go in and buy junk food, I dont think anyone parks backwards here, all the roads and car parks are set up to swing a giant car in forwards.
Getting bored around 9pm I dropped the little red car off and wandered into the airport to wait to check in.
People watching in Alaska is a good passtime, a state where people think nothing of walking round a store with their big waterproof boots on and their fishing waders just rolled down to the waist, only the tourists are dressed casually for the rest, working clothes are the order of the day
People come off planes in saggy hoodies, rucksacks, towing grubby suitcases, home from working away no doubt, collected in 4wd pick ups.
Goodness only knows how they get children to go to sleep in the summer, even at midnight there is still loads of daylight, my chickens wouldnt know what to do, I know that they get up at dawn and with the longer summer days they sleep quite a bit in the sun before regrouping for a run about in the afternoon and evening, here they would be totally confused, not that I am planning to take my chickens on holiday, they dont have passports, but just contemplating what they would do if it was daylight for 20 hours a day.!
finally after the intermidable wait its time to board the plane, armed with my $2,99 pillow to try and get more comfortable, I had to be woken up by the oldest flight attendant I have ever seen, (either that or the dry air is more damaging than I thought!) to be given a drink and a bag of pretzels.
Bearing in mind how successful the connections hadnt been on the way out, I was a bit wary of the short connections on the way back, 45 mins in Phoenix, an hour in Philly and an hour in Brussels, with the storms on the East coast and the usual lack of punctuality of US airways it could be an interesting trip. The result of the time moving forward as I fly East there are 2 overnight flights separated by a 5hr daytime flight- if that doesnt mess you up nothing will..
The flight from ANC-PHX was uncomfortable but I was out like a light and managed to sleep through most of it, the 45 min connection was more than enough time to get a coffee and a toasted bagel and mooch back to the gate, success so far, its all going suspiciously well................
Which continues as the hour is Philly is long enough to get some duty free tobacco, drink a pepsi and still get back through security for the flight, my ticket has TSA pre printed on it, I dont have TSA pre but wandered down the line anyway, turns out they just bleep your boarding pass and send you through the relaxed security channel, no liquids out of your case, no computers laid on the belt for anyone to steal, no shoes off, and just a metal detector instead of the body scanner, quite a cheery experience, a cheery experience I dont normall have at US airport security.
The 767 flight back to Brussels looks good, the plane is new ish and the seats are better but HARD, so hard that my back aches before take off and sleeping at a funny angle with a footplate to stop you sliding off the seat, not fun, not comfortable at all. The American owned airlines idea of food is quite different, something strange with gravy followed by a choice of 2 desserts both with cherries and chocolate- not a combination I like at all, why ruin a good chocolate dessert by adding fruit??? or why ruin a good fruit dessert by adding chocolate???
After a wholly uncomfortable night and an equally strange breakfast the plane lands a few minutes late, now all I have to do is wait for my case, go through Brussels passport control, go through customs, go up 3 floors, find the BA check in desk, check my bag in , go through passport control, go through security and walk nearly a km to the boarding gate for my flight (-the gate is 37 and they only go up to 40) all that in 55 mins
Am I going to make it?.............
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