Our last day in Alaska was filled with driving.  We had a lot of ground to cover to get Laura to her conference in Anchorage, and we made it harder on ourselves by taking a 175 mile detour to the Worthington Glacier as recommended by the East German woman who ran the roadhouse we had stayed at the night before.  We also paused and took a brief hike to view the Matsunaka Glacier.

By the end of the trip, I was amused by the marked change in Laura’s outlook.  When she picked me up in Anchorage, she kept commenting on how small it seemed.  I kept telling her that we were in the big city, and she seemed skeptical.  Driving back to Anchorage, we stopped in Palmer, which is almost an Anchorage suburb.  “This town is so big!  There are so many cars!”  Ah, how quickly we adapt.  When we checked in to her conference hotel — a Hilton — we were both shell shocked by the luxury.  Fresh towels! A shower that is taller than me with real temperature control! An elevator!

Alas, I did not stay at the Hilton.  I took a 1 AM flight back to SF.  I thought I might see darkness from the plane for the first time since leaving the lower 48.  But even though I didn’t really fall asleep, just as it looked like dusk might descend into night, the sun started to rise again.  A starry night sky would have to wait until I returned to California.

Here’s Laura and I in our final Alaska minute…

… and lest you not believe us about the eagle, here is the amazing picture Laura’s DSLR got of him flying around above us shortly after we stopped filming the above video.  That’s National Geographic stuff right there.

An eagle soaring above us

(Coming eventually: I will sort through the 1000s of photos we took and pick the best ones to put on Picasa.  But nothing beats that eagle.)