June 22, 2018

Errand Day

We’re at the halfway point of our trip which in this case is laundry day.  After laundry we are going to transition between our “water week” into our “mountain week” which will require a one nighter in Anchorage tonight.

We mention our lack of housekeeping to the desk guy at checkout this morning which gets us a $50 credit. Seems about right. We (Mary) have separated our laundry into a couple big plastic bags which we drag into the “Suds and Swirl” a couple blocks from the hotel. The hotel had a guest laundry but we like a place with multiple machines so we can get it all going at once. We’re all folded and repacked by 11:00 and on the road.  There weren’t a lot of machines and people poured in after us so we were lucky to get it done so fast.

It is spitting rain this morning—what else is new. The Seward Highway is really a pretty drive with gray skies, and we can only imagine it with blue skies and sunshine.  We’ll have to buy the Chamber of Commerce book. At one point we were passing a low marshy looking area where an adult moose was munching her way to the other side. We nosed around the property of the Summit Lake Lodge where we will be completing our circle back to Anchorage and our trip home next week.

We’re all the way back to Girdwood before we get hungry enough to eat and we remember the local Subway.  Perfect. Costco is our next stop on out way back into Anchorage where we check out their inventory of dip nets, kayaks and gin.  We only buy one of those.

We had booked the Voyager Inn again for our hotel tonight but we got the “plumbing problem” call from front desk guy Michael.  They have upgraded us to a junior suite at the Captain Cook across the street.  It is a corner room on the 15^th floor with great views to the east and south and separate living and sleeping rooms.  Nothing junior about it.  We get the $12 Voyager parking instead of the $30 Captain Cook valet and a $20 credit for breakfast in the restaurant. It is the best of both worlds. We complained about the high cost of lodging in Alaska, but part of that is our own doing. Our room in Seward was referred to as the Presidential Suite and they weren’t kidding.  This place tonight is very special indeed.

Dinner tonight is at the Glacier Brewhouse once again.  We made reservations before we left last week.  There is again a line out the door and this very big place is packed.  Our server is from Serbia, has been here for three years and she is very professionally friendly. We need to take a break from salmon and halibut.  John gets a flat iron steak cooked over a blazing alder wood fire and Mary has a very rich Cajun pasta.  If we were to ever return to Anchorage we would eat here every night.

We finish the night watching the midnight sun from our 15^th floor living room window—gosh that’s almost like home.

Today’s news:  A 72-year-old kayaker from California drowned in the Kenai River.  He wasn’t wearing a life jacket. He died from stupidity.