Homeward Bound Day 1 — Anchorage to Tok 9/23

Hours on the road:  7

Miles traveled: tbd

Weather:  40s and mixture of sunny, overcast and a few light sprinkles

Sal and I woke up to our 7:00am alarms and promptly reset them for 7:30.  We had our final Anchorage coffee sitting on our blow up mattress, the only furniture left in the apartment.  An unexpected treat were chocolate donuts which a neighbor had brought by last night.  

We saw our 10:00 ETD come and go, but by 11:30 master packer Sal had all our stuff in the car with a sight line that was acceptable.  Goodbyes were said to neighbors, a freaked out Grey was loaded into his carrier, the apartment was cleaned and swept, keys were turned in and we pulled out onto Lake Otis Parkway for the last time.

We had to head north before we could go south.  We took the familiar  drive to Palmer and on to Glenallen.  Alaska in September is a whole other level of beauty, and the fall color and snowy peaks were gorgeous.  

At Glenallen, we turned left and headed north to Tok.  We stopped for gas before checking out our evening’s accommodations, and a group of very noisy motor bikes and ATVs ROARED into the station. Saturday night in Tok, I thought.  Shortly after an Alaska trooper pulled in and we heard him ask the boys, and they did seem young, for “a word.”  Wish I could have listened in on the tropper’s “word.”

Fox and Fireweed is our home for the evening.  We are very comfortable and have eaten dinner out of our bag of goodies provided us by friends.  Grey is enjoying his freedom.  He has inspected the room thoroughly and picked his side of the bed.  He is totally zonked out now.  Sal and I will probably read a little then turn out the lights.  It has been a fun, stressful, surprising, tiring and wonderful last week in Alaska.  A real bed will be fabulous after a month on a blow up mattress.  I hope we sleep well.  Up early tomorrow, and we’ll cross the border into Canada.