Today’s the last day (kind of—I’ll get to that) of the trip, and we felt both accomplished (from doing mostly everything we wanted to do) and burned out (from doing mostly everything we wanted to do), so we were keeping it easy today and gonna head to the airport in the afternoon.

We stopped by our coffee shop and made sure to tell them to stop making extra sandwiches on our account because it was our last day here! We (by “we”, I mean “me”) broke one of their plastic Adirondack chairs yesterday, but not wanting to put any kind of burden on a deserving small business, we (by “we”, I mean “Megan”) bought two new chairs and set them to be delivered a few hours later!

We wanted to get an early lunch (so we didn’t have to have airport food ALL DAY), and there was only one place we hadn’t been that had been on our radar: Bear Tooth Theatrepub. This half-restaurant/half-theater is a not-so-distant cousin of Moose’s Tooth and Broken Tooth Brewing—and it was close by—so we got there just as they opened (luggage in tow) and got a booth. While we didn’t see a movie (showtimes were in the evening) we did check out the connected theater and had a good lunch, then made our way to the airport.

And that’s when the fiasco started. We arrived at the airport around 1:00 PM and Megan was off to catch her 4:00 PM flight while I went to check my bag at the American Airlines counter for my night flight which left at 9:40 PM. It took some time to find the counter and even more time to find out that it’s only open from 6:30-8:30 AM and 7:00-9:00 PM because they only operate two flights out of Anchorage!!! I thought about using the “bag check” service at the airport (where they hold your bags while you explore the town) but I was already tired that I just waited…

…and waited…

…and waited…

…and the counter crew came out around 7:15 PM, but the self-check machines were also down, so those then had to be fixed. I ended up pretty far down in the luggage check line, but knew that everyone there was on the same flight and they’d make sure everyone made it. Plus, I basically skipped to the front of the line when it came to TSA security checkpoint because of my status. It was at least a 30-45 minute line but I was next because of PreCheck, so I waltzed right in and headed toward the gate.

I had my first dirty martini 🍸 on this trip, so I decided to make my last alcoholic drink also a dirty martini at a bar near the gate. Plus, since I have a night flight, I wanted to be extra relaxed for the flight.

But alcohol also inhibits my ability to do time zone math, which is particularly interesting. I’m starting in Anchorage which is AKDT (-07:00), connecting in Dallas which is CDT (-05:00) and my final destination is Tallahassee which is EDT (-04:00). There’s a 4 hour difference between Alaska and Florida. This means that my 9:40 PM AKDT flight is already 12:40 AM CDT and 1:40 AM EDT, but really there’s no telling where my day 15 ended and my day 16 began.

The first flight was 6 hours long. I had my portable CPAP and used it but felt like I got 6 one-hour naps instead of 6 hours of sleep. I arrived to Dallas at 7:00 AM CDT/8:00 AM EDT/4:00 AM AKDT and had 5 hours before boarding my second flight. I basically wandered DFW like a zombie 🧟‍♂️ but didn’t want to sleep because if I fell asleep then I’d likely miss my connecting flight (I was THAT tired). I boarded at 12:00 PM CDT/1:00 PM EDT/9:00 AM AKDT and basically slept soundly (without the CPAP—sorry flight mates) until we arrived in Tallahassee at 3:30 PM EDT/2:30 PM CDT/11:30 AM AKDT.

Even though I had made it home, I wasn’t quite done. I took the taxi 🚕 to the house, only to get in my car and pickup the dogs 🐶🐾 from boarding. Now, when they come home from boarding, they’re excited for 2.3 seconds then they basically sleep for the next 3 days. I’m gonna try, but it feels like the middle of the afternoon to my body. The only advantage is I finally have seen the night! 🌃🌚 Good night!

Before the trip began, one of the things I wanted to do as a “bucket list” item was to go fishing in Alaska. I had scoped out a place near downtown called The Bait Shack that would rent the rod, reel, waders, net, lures, etc. and were right on the creek. They even provided the fishing license and would send you on your way.

I woke up, got our usual breakfast from our coffee spot, took the bus 🚌 downtown, and walked toward the area. One big thing I’ve noticed is the vibrancy of color in all of the flowers here. The fireweed may still be my favorite, but the park had all sorts of colors, and across downtown there were the combination purple/yellow flower bushes hanging from the street lights. I also passed the Eisenhower monument, and some black roses.

Past the monument was the same railroad depot we had taken yesterday, but behind it was another building, the Alaska Railroad Corporation—the headquarters was right behind the depot! That’s twice we saw the same name and company in two separate buildings. I’m just glad we made our train yesterday.

Right before you get to the shack, there’s a bridge where you can see the fish right from the water, and right next to it is a restaurant called “The Bridge” which actually is a bridge!

You may have noticed A) the tide is really low and B) there are NO FISH! 🐟 We learned yesterday that the tides can change 30-40 feet, and this was the low tide part. I still went on to the shack and spoke to the team. To their credit, they were honest with me that tide wouldn’t be later (too late for me) and that I was about a month too early for the good fishing! DRAT! But I guess that means I’ll have to come back… 😉

With “plan A” gone, I needed a new “plan B”. Megan had planned on going to the botanical gardens, but it was an overcast day which meant her pictures wouldn’t have the right lighting (at least as much as I understood what she said), so her “plan A” was gone so we met up in downtown and set our destination to a restaurant we had heard from all the Uber drivers that was a must-eat: Simon & Seafort’s. It was a decent walk away, and the food was okay—but it reminded me of more of a “business lunch” venue (for those in Tallahassee—think The Governor’s Club) and it just wasn’t our scene. Once we finished, we then went to see the Captain Cook monument, then did some more shopping downtown, including a yarn boutique and a few places with real Alaskan craft.

Heading back toward the bus stop, we decided to add one more cultural stop on our tour at the Anchorage Museum. It had an eclectic collection of art, culture, education, and history that I crave in museums. My favorite exhibition was the Living Our Cultures, Sharing Our Heritage exhibit that had artifacts from all the major/minor Inuit tribes in Alaska and Siberia. You could see clothing, tools, etc. from each tribe and note the differences based upon environment, geography, etc. (No pictures)

After the museum, we took the bus back to the Airbnb and came up with two solid ideas for that evening. Idea #1 is to go to Arctic Sushi (which we had passed in downtown Anchorage) and walk around downtown some more. Idea #2 was to order Arctic Sushi delivery and eat it while watching TV. After two weeks of moving around—we opted for staying in. And for those keeping score, I actually LIKED the sushi 🍱 today—I might not wait another 10 years to have it again!

Tomorrow’s our last day, so we also spent the evening (because there is no night anymore) packing up, and I even shipped some of my stuff back home so I wouldn’t have to deal with it through airports.

When we left the cruise ship, we were definitely underwhelmed by the glacier…but then in Seward we found a flyer to see 26 glaciers in a day (on a 5-hour cruise). Long story short…today’s that day!

So far on this trip, I’ve taken a car 🚗, a plane ✈️, a bus 🚌, and a ship 🛳, but no train 🚂! We also got that as part of the glacier cruise deal, so we were super excited this morning as we headed for the Alaska Railroad Depot in Anchorage…after stopping at our coffee shop!

Megan and I are both infatuated with trains. My love comes from not having access to trains growing up—I was an adult before riding on my first train and I enjoy the ability to walk around and “stretch out” without bumping 12 people in a 4-person row on an airplane. This particular train runs from Anchorage to Whittier (another cruise terminal) for 2.5 hours. We checked in, boarded, and left!

We enjoyed a few sights along the way, including the “mud flats”. In Anchorage the tide changes 40 feet 😳 so during low tide you can see land much further out. They did advise us not to walk on it ever because it’s like quicksand. And then, when the tide is in, it’s back to “River” status. We should see this on the ride home.

We pulled up to the Whittier “train station” (literally half of a tent) and crossed the street to the cruise terminal to pickup our tickets and board our vessel 🚢 for the day!

Because we were a last minute booking, we didn’t get a prime location for seating. It wouldn’t have mattered—the people with the good seats booked months in advance, and everyone was free to walk around. The seating advantage was really only about meal delivery. The cruise included a meal of either seafood chowder or vegetable chili (I couldn’t have the chowder because of the dairy 😭). They also had a bar and were serving “glacier ice margaritas” (basically a margarita with blue curaçao added) so we got some…but they were made using regular ice. It was a little of a let down, but was also tasty so we went with it.

As we made the cruise they told us about the wildlife and different glaciers as we passed them. We also passed sea otters and a few other critters and finally ended up at “the big one”—Surprise Glacier. (I was not in charge of naming the glaciers.) This one glacier alone made the trip worth it!

We were stopped at Surprise Glacier for awhile, and to our enjoyment, they fished some ice out of the water (not chipping off the glacier but had already detached) and took that onboard to make glacier ice margaritas WITH GLACIER ICE!!!🧊 I’m not sure it tasted different, but it felt colder! 🥶

There was one other oddity on our way back. It’s either referred to the “wall of birds” or “wall of 💩” because it’s where all the gulls nest near a waterfall. It was intriguing, but I wasn’t getting up any more—I had my margarita(s)! (So I got a few pictures from my seat)

Once we made it back, we took the 45-second hike to the train station, where our train pulled up about 5 minutes later and we were off.

Our train arrived back in Anchorage a few minutes early, and we had seen the 49th State Brewing Company on the train out, so we decided to sample the local food & brew, and it was close enough to walk…once we got the address right!

We did pass the brewery on the way, but it was their canning/bottling facility. The actual brewery was (of course) uphill from where we went. Then, because we came from the wrong direction—we couldn’t find the entrance. We ended up at the talent entrance (they have live music often) but there was an elevator with a hefty queue, so we walked around the building some more until we finally reached the entrance.

In addition to some rich stouts & porters, we also ordered dinner. I ordered a pizza (again, vegan cheese was available) and “cauliflower wings” with blue cheese dressing on them. And yes—it was VEGAN blue cheese dressing! I had Megan try it since I don’t like blue cheese to start with, and she confirmed that she wouldn’t know it was vegan! The wings themselves were super crunchy and spicy.I ate it all, and my sinuses definitely thanked me for it!

The worst part of the day was when we left the restaurant, it had closed already—so it was about 10:30 PM AKDT…but still looked like daytime! I think it’s starting to get to me—I haven’t seen nighttime in a few days…

Despite our best efforts to relax yesterday—we didn’t. Fortunately, today is “Hubbard Glacier day” as we pulled through the waters to get a monumental view of the glacier.

I also got the bright idea to use a Zoom lens…which is just me holding the phone up to the binoculars to take the pictures.

Last night at dinner, our Head Waiter gave us the opportunity for a discount on a specialty seating on a specialty restaurant experience called the Taste of Royal, where we enjoy a four course meal where each course is from a specialty restaurant across the Royal Caribbean fleet of ships! Most importantly, they accommodated my dairy allergy with every course!

Everyone was trying to pace themselves during the risotto meal, so Megan asked for a “to go” container to consolidate the risotto and not waste food. They told her that she must have fresh risotto to go, and brought her out an ENTIRE container of risotto before we left! 🥹

There were some post-meal naps that I also got photos of, but it is bad for “my health” to post them! 🤪

We were moving pretty fast by the afternoon and my cellular data worked for about a second, but I did snap a quick screenshot of our progress. Yakutat is the mouth up to the glacier and we’re heading to Seward.

There was ONE place on this ship that I wasn’t allowed to go…

Overall, it’s been a great cruise. We had to pack up our luggage and souvenirs (to which I’m stoked that I brought a packable duffle bag) and put them out for disembarking tomorrow. But tomorrow also starts the post-vacation. It was cheaper to fly back in 4 days than to fly back tomorrow, so we rented an Airbnb for tomorrow onward, and play to spend the day in Seward.

Today’s the day I’ve been waiting for…

When I saw the itinerary for the trip, I started searching for excursions, and the ZipRider caught my eye! It’s a single zipline over a mile long and taller than the Empire State Building.

In other words…I WILL ABSOLUTELY DO IT!

Ask anyone in our party: one of the first things we did is visit the excursion desk and purchase this excursion. It was one of the few that could not be purchased beforehand, and I wanted to make sure we could take the plunge. Since we had timed tickets, we had a quick breakfast and headed ashore…but didn’t get very far before seeing more astonishing views!

As you cross the bridge, you enter the first camp with a few walking paths a smokehouse/brewery, the zipline landing area, and a gondola to the second station. We boarded the gondola and caught some of the zipline riders coming in!

Once we got to the second station, we checked in for our ride, put our stuff in a locker, and headed up using the second gondola. Bear in mind that the first gondola was never more than 15-20 feet off of the ground—but the second gondola at one point was nearly going STRAIGHT UP! We snapped some spectacular views while not trying to shake the cab very much…

One we made it to the summit, regrouped and waited for our turn. We had a small safety course on wildlife and a short hike to the launch area. They split us off into groups (they can launch 6 at a time), and the first group saddled up to ride down…it was finally “go time”

It. Was. A. Rush!

It took me a minute to recover after coming down. I remember not feeling like I was falling, but more like I’m on a roller coaster. The ride down took about 90 seconds. Our group got split into two, so we went down to the viewing area to see the other two come in for their landing, and then went to get the official photos! (Will be posted later)

We explored Icy Strait Point for awhile longer, including getting a tour at the cannery. We had also thought about making our way to Hoonah, AK (1.5 miles away) but decided to make today a “rest day” because we still had a lot of vacation left. But there was one other thing we had to do today…

Mini golf! ⛳️ (or Putt Putt Golf depending on where you’re from) Our ship as an onboard 9-hole course, and it turned out to be a great way to unwind. We got a little competitive, but had more fun commentating the others’ shots. Owen walked away with the win in 1st place 🥇 with 22 strokes.

I had also been wondering about the dessert for tonight. Last night was a good effort but just wasn’t for me. So for tonight they had asked me which desserts I liked if I could eat them and they were going to go from there. So when dessert came out I was pleasantly surprised to find crème brûlée that WAS dairy free! The consistency itself was a little off but I honestly thought it tasted better than dairy-included crème brûlée.

We had so much fun yesterday doing nothing that we had to spend the morning also doing nothing. The weather was cooperating today, so we made our base around the pool and walked around the top deck to get some photos of breathtaking scenery. (Hint: the pictures don’t do them justice—you’ll have too see for yourself.)

Once we were allowed off we headed for the town. We could either take a 1 mile walk or take a shuttle for $6. We opted for the hike, but got a quarter of the way there and saw the Juneau – 1.3 mi sign and we’re like WAIT!!!”

We were committed at that point, and tredged on to a few shops before signing up for an excursion to Mendenhall Glacier! It was a short bus 🚌 ride to the park. Once we arrived we were left to explore and take a 3/4 mile hike 🥾 to Nugget Falls. We found a detour and got an additional view of the glacier, including a small patch of blue ice! 🟦🧊

We had been discussing food options as well, and talked to a few locals. While the “touristy” spots included a king crab spot and a saloon, locals warned us that the food is okay but it’s a lousy experience. Instead, we found a place called The Harbor at the Wharf that was part of a small shopping mall with an interior walkway, and it did not disappoint. I’m pretty sure we stick out as tourists in a locals place but it was still welcoming and we were able to get a snack/second lunch and a few rounds of local beer.

We needed to head back to the ship 🛳 so we walked to the shuttle station exploring the jewelry 💎 stores on the way—I counted 15 different stores on the very short path. We found a few items and then boarded the shuttle, boarded the ship, and sat down to relax for a bit.

At dinner, I have been placing my order the day before so the kitchen has time to prepare in an allergy-friendly kitchen. However, there aren’t any dessert options on the menu. I know that the staff is accommodating, so I told them I’ll have the chef’s choice of dessert. Last night it was cookies 🍪 and tonight was a strawberry shortcake adaptation. It was good but they had used coconut 🥥 (which I’m not allergic to but don’t care for) which turned me off to it. I still appreciate that they went out of the way to make me a special dessert, and that I don’t have to worry about eating dairy.