Returning to Tranquility Base

Having returned the RV in good order, no real evidence of its true travels, we squeezed into a Motel Room.  This made us appreciate just how big the RV was.

Josh and I checked out a local car dealer that had the type of car that featured in the Movie Transformers - Bumble Bee.  A five mile walk back to the Motel via the Police Museum and a lock-smith shop, afforded us some time together.

Luckily the Motel had a set of scales so we turned our focus to packing less than 50lb bags, not an easy task, sacraficed a few things.

4.30am saw us up and getting ready to catch the bus out to the airport for our 7.30am flight.  You need to sacrafice so much of your life to getting through the security checkpoints when you are travelling these days.  It's a reflection of the State of Fear that is being instilled by governments.  This fear is driving expenditure, many people would not have jobs if it wasn't for all this fear.  As a tourist, it seems a joke, as it lacks true integrity of process and considering not one person has ever been caught at one of these checkpoints, but the deterent factor is difficult to measure.  Undressing in public becomes 'the norm' at international airports.  removing jackets, shoes and belts, separating your  carryon baggage, is just so time consuming, you feel like your in a processed meat factory.  Being organised is the key, having no metal on you, having wallet and mobiles in your backpack, laptop set to be removed from its bag, and shoes that slip on help.  Having the quarantined items at the ready got us through Customs OK.

The kids travelled extremely well for the 41 hours it took us to get from the motel to our home.  With 3 hours in Seattle, 6 hours at LAX, and 3 hours at Auckland aiports, certainly added to the flight times.  Travelling cattle classs didn't help, but we had an incident free trip home.

We had dinner at "Encounters" restaurant at LAX, it is the old Flight Control Tower, photo below.  We also got to photo our aircraft - The Rotorua - Air NZ.

It was great to get back to our home - "Tranquility Base".  The house had been set to "holiday mode".  We took some time to put it back on-line to habitate.  Unpacking and putting out those special collectables we gathered through our travels made the evening a joy before finding the comfort of our own beds.  Sleep came fast.

Views from Inlet Tower Motel - Anchorage

Downtown Anchorage

Anchorage with Turnagain Arm in the background

Turnagain Arm - Anchorage

Knik Inlet - Anchorage

Encounters Restaurant - LAX

Relaxing and using up transit time - LAX

The Rotorua

How not to see Alaskan Wildlife

After a wonderfully quiet night beside Rolly Lake South in the Nancy Lake Rec area, it was back on the road south.

At Wassilla, Fred Myer and Target stores were a big delay this morning, as well as the kids hitting a PC games shop.  A quick call to the Musk Ox farm established they had closed early for the season (they were to be open until the end of Sept.  So that dampened our spirits a little, but, we also had planed to go to the Alaska Zoo.

We had hoped our visit to the Alaska Zoo would avail us to view in a fairly pristine environment that wildlife we had not got to see in the wild ourselves.  However, we found the animals in rather small enclosures, most had poor feet/hoof care and we were very much saddened, especially with a small grizzly cub that had apparently been rescued, seemed more like imprisoned.

After about 90min at the Zoo, we'd seen everything and it was late, so we headed to our overnight destination, being the RV rental firm grounds, were we could park for free and allow us time in the morning to sleep in a little, pack and ahnd back the RV, without any rush, and that planned work.  We had agreed to one of their plans where all you have to do is return the RV, the fuel and gas refill was incorporated in the price of the rental agreement, so of course, we ran these two to the limit, the fuel light was on, on our way out to the Alaska Zoo, so we krept in on the fumes, to then recall the generator does not run if the fuel gets to low, needless to say, we had enough fuel for my coffee in the morning, but not for the toaster :)

The following morning we packed and handed back the RV with no issues, this firm was just great and I'd recommend 'Great Alaskan Holiday's' to anyone wanting to hire an RV to explore Alaska.

We then made our way to the Inlet Towers for the next two nights before our flight home, some shopping in downtown Anchorage and some quiet time.

These are photo's of wildlife at the Alaska Zoo, I think you'll agree, see this wildlife in their natural habitat is far more rewarding.

Bull Moose

Musk Ox

Bald Eagle

Wolves eating a carcas

River Otter - his usual home was being re-built, so no water here.

Rescued Grizzly Cub

Black Bear

Dall Sheep

Grizzly Claws

Grizzly Owner of Claws

The only "free" animal - a Squirrell

Josh having jumped the barrier to have some 'one on one' with the Musk Ox

Talkeetna - a "Northern Exposure" experience

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We found cloud had moved in overnight at Susitna River when we awoke.  Joshua drove the RV back along the river gravel bar to the edge of the highway and then we were off south again.  We had a plan to get to the Musk Ox centre at Palmer today, but our stop at Talkeetna put an end to that plan, for today anyway.

Talkeetna is the town where those wanting to summit Mt Denali access their air charter to the Kahitna Glacier and commence their climb to the 20,320 feet summit.  This year about 1,600 people successfully achieved the summit. It is also the small town that the TV show 'Northern Exposure' was based on.  We did some shopping and enjoyed the quiet atmosphere with no tourists in town, ate lunch watching a DVD episode of Northern Exposure and then got back on the road south.

That put us behind and some road work added to our delay, so we decided to camp in the Nancy Lake Rec area, at Rolly Lake South.  This rec area is a mosaic of lakes that are snow fed, not river fed and provide a tranquil spot, noted for Black Bear.

Armed with the Bear Spray and the kids packing their BB Gun, we explored the area into dusk.

View of Mt Denali looking north at the magestic mountain range.

Camp beside Rolly Lake

Ptarmigan - the State Bird - size of a chicken.

Looked like a Black Bear Den.

Tayla packing a BB Gun