Alaska Review! Day 8--Delta Junction to Valdez

I don't know if it's because we didn't HAVE to be anywhere at a particular time today, or we just enjoyed the space in our lodging, but we didn't get a super fast start today.  It was nice, though, to be able to be up and about and not worry about disturbing those who chose to sleep in a little bit.  Around 10 AM, we were finally packed up and out of Delta Junction, so not really too bad.

If you ask the kids, they'll tell you this was the "most boring" day.  I agree that this was the longest chunk of driving (it took us until about 7 PM to reach Valdez), but I wouldn't call looking at the gorgeous scenery along the Richardson Highway "boring".  I'd heard it was breathtaking, and it really didn't disappoint.

 My eagle-eyed traveling companions (Chretien and Earnest) again spotted some wildlife among the landscape shots.

It just looks like the road vanishes to me.

Guess what...pipeline time, again.

So we've gone 112 pipeline miles since Fairbanks.  I love how it just seems to stretch on and on into oblivion.  We'd see the pipeline quite a bit along our travels today.

 Never boring to me.  I get that it might be to the kids, though.

These previous two photos are of Gulkana Glacier.  And again, I know this because of the Milepost.  We did drive down that road to the right in the second photo, but it didn't really seem to get us much closer.  It was gravel, and we weren't really supposed to be driving on it, so we turned around.

Ah, but more pipeline keeping us company on our trip.

A little bit longer, and time for lunch with an excellent view.

There was a viewing spot where you could see into the river.  Can you see the fish?

 We continued south.

More pipeline.

Not long after lunch, we came upon the turnout for the Denali Highway.  This is a 135 mile road which connects Paxson (where we were) to Cantwell.  Cantwell is about 45-60 minutes south of Denali, and when I was driving back on Thursday, we did see the other end of this highway's junction with the Parks Highway.  At this end, the first 21 miles are paved, and then the rest of it is gravel, except the last 3 miles to Cantwell.  The Milepost repeatedly advised us to do a detour if the day was clear, which it was.

So off we went.

The views are similar to what we've been seeing, but it's always good to see more, right?

This picture was edited.  It's my favorite one from the day.

We turned around at the end of the paved road and I drove for awhile, so there aren't any photos of us coming back east along the Denali Highway.

I drove until we reached Glenallen.  You can't really miss Glenallen, because there is a huge gas station/convenience store on the right side of the road, and everybody seems to stop there.  We did as well and then continued a bit further until we hit

 Way back, in the spring of 2016, when I started planning this trip for "someday", I thought that we'd go into the park and visit Kennecott and McCarthy.  However, the logistics to get there (time and money and giving up other things on the possible trip) led me to nix it.  We did stop at the visitor center for about an hour.

You can see the kids working on the junior ranger books for this national park above, and see them better below.

 While the kids worked on their books, Chretien and I walked around the exhibits, which were in a separate building from the visitor center as well as outside.  I didn't take too many photos, as they were similar to things we had seen already--taxidermied animals, some artifacts, maps, etc.

I do include this photo as our family's inside joke about not seeing the Dall sheep while in Denali.

 

Meanwhile, the kids finished their junior ranger books and got sworn in for the second time on the trip.

We also watched the introductory movie (again, in a building separate from the visitors center and separate from the exhibits).  We were a bit limited as to what we could see as there had been a bear spotted right in the area of the visitors center that morning and all the nearby hiking trails were closed.  We pretty much had the visitors center to ourselves.

Back to the Richardson Highway.

 The frost heaves gave our ride a little more excitement.

 Again, how could I be bored with this scenery?

 We're getting closer...we started to see the many waterfalls that line the highway as you approach Valdez.

 Even the dirty car window can't obscure the view.

 Clouds make me feel like I'm looking up to heaven.

Close, but not quite.  Still have 22 miles.

For some reason, it just seemed to take a long time to finally see this:

 We made it!

We had reservations at the Keystone Inn.  I wasn't sure what we'd find.  Turns out the rooms were OK.  We had a king sized bed and two twins, in two separate rooms with only one functional door.  We'd enter through the room with the twins and you had to go down to the end of the room to enter the other room.  There were two bathrooms and 2 TVs, which were nice.  I'm thinking that this used to be two separate rooms but they made them one larger lodging for a family.  Chretien and I took the twins and the kids piled into the king.  It worked.  This lodging was $286 for the two nights.  They had a continental breakfast with cereal, muffins, pastries, yogurt, some fruit, toast, etc.  There were also laundry facilities, which we needed.  We were good. 

After we unloaded, we set out for dinner.  After a few false starts, we settled on Roma Italian Kitchen, which is located with the Best Western.  Getting seated was slow, and the service here was super slow as well.  It took about an 50-60 minutes to get our food after we ordered, which brought us to about 9 PM--late for the kids.  At one point, we let them go outside and walk around (we could see them walking by the windows from where we were sitting), so that helped them pass the time.   I cannot remember what we had, although I think the boys had pizza.  The bill was $76--no alcoholic drinks, no dessert.

Although we had driven over, the kids and I walked back to the hotel while Chretien waited to pay the bill.  Everything is compact in Valdez and seems to be within walking distance.

And so concluded Day 8.