Day 1 -- To Anchorage

Day 1 — To Anchorage

Hello, and welcome back to the Long Family Travelblog! We’re glad you found us. 

This seventh volume in the Long Time Gone blog will document our journey around (a fraction of) the great state of Alaska. Alas, this trip does not include the Teardrop — not just because we haven’t replaced it, yet**, but also because summer school and other activities have put constraints on our time, and we didn’t have the luxury of squeezing a 3,700-mile one-way drive into our itinerary. 

Instead, we squeezed the 3,700-mile trip into 14 hours with Delta Airlines. Does it go without saying that we’re not camping on this trip? I like to think that I have the moxie to organize that kind of an adventure— a three-week Alaska campout with my family of five and whatever gear we can pack with us on an airplane. But it takes enough effort just to orchestrate a weekend car-camping trip to Turkey Run State Park. So it turns out that I’m not as audacious as I thought I was, and it goes without saying that we are not camping on this trip. But I’m excited about our itinerary, and I hope that this travelblog is as compelling as ever. (Heh.)

So, since we had an early flight out of Indy this morning, we stayed overnight near the airport. I had allowed Clare to pack her own carry-on, grateful to be able to delegate this chore to her and to cross at least one thing off my to-do list. But at 5:30 this morning, I learned that, at age 10, Clare is not yet able to pack her own backpack without supervision. As I lifted her pack to put it on the hotel shuttle, for the first time I noticed that markers, crayons, pencils and assorted crafty detritus were seeping from its overstuffed compartments onto the pavement. So I chose that moment, in the pre-dawn parking lot, while the shuttle driver idled several minutes longer than he should have, to sort through her bag and deep-six unnecessary flotsam from its depths— a handful of assorted dice, a plastic baggie filled with tiny dominoes, a roll of Scotch tape, scraps of construction paper, a couple of super balls, a stash of homemade “food” she had fashioned for her stuffed animals — as Clare looked on and wept for her discarded belongings. 

In retrospect, as I was packing for the trip a few days ago, I should have dropped everything to help Clare prioritize and pack when she popped her head into the room to ask if I thought a tape dispenser would make it through TSA screening. I assumed I had handled the situation by telling her that I thought the tiny metal teeth would probably be declared a security risk.

The rest of the trip, which included a four-hour layover in Seattle, went very smoothly, and we arrived in Anchorage around 5:30 p.m. local time. On our way to the Comfort Inn Ship Creek, we shared a shuttle with a trio from Perth, Australia, who had been en route to Alaska since, like, Tuesday, and who put our own long day of travel into perspective. They took immense delight in the sign at a local windshield-replacement dealership, which implores passers-by to “Show us your crack,”  and, oh my gosh, their laughter was so sweet and jolly, we couldn’t help but giggle along with them. 

After we checked in at the hotel, we trekked up the hill toward downtown Anchorage, and, despite low clouds and generally damp atmosphere, ate dinner on the deck of the Snow Goose brew pub, which overlooks Ship Creek and Cook Inlet. It would have been pleasant enough, had it not been for the loudspeaker blaring Nirvana and Soundgarden. If, after staying awake for 20 hours, we were facing that proverbial wall, then listening to Chris Cornell shriek and wail at 100 decibels propelled us into that wall head-first and at full force. By the end of the meal, we were crashing and burning.

We’re all exhausted, but who knows how well we’ll sleep tonight; even with the vinyl curtains shut, it’s light enough to read in our room.

**(Side note: Just a few days ago, we finally placed the order for our new Teardrop, and will take delivery on it in the spring!)