After a long day of trekking around, Keith and I were exhausted last night. Charlie and Natalie begged to stay up late with Andrew and Michael, so we gave them a curfew just shy of midnight, and then tucked ourselves into bed. We were almost asleep when they came bouncing back into our room. Needless to say, almost everyone slept in this morning.
Almost everyone. I crept out early, not wanting to waste a minute in this special place. We didn’t have any plans this morning, so I sat on the porch with my coffee and tried to etch this view into my brain.
After the rest of the family rolled downstairs, we enjoyed the breakfast buffet — for about three minutes, before the kids dashed off to continue their Monopoly tournament with Andrew and Michael. Keith and I spent the morning repacking our things and poking around a few of the Kennecott buildings, and I was able to work a bit on the blog. Here’s a shot of my office:
After lunch, we said good-bye to Andrew and Michael and their parents — they were headed out of town, as well — and headed to the McCarthy air strip, where we met up with our pilot, Austin, from Wrangell Mountain Air, who would fly us back to our car in Chitina.
For this flight, Charlie was copilot. As we gained altitude, Austin pointed out to Charlie the different knobs and gauges on the instrument panel and explained what they do. Then he handed the controls over to the kid and instructed him to bank left and right, and then to keep the plane level and head for that spot between those two peaks in the distance. My head knew that Austin was in control of the plane the whole time, despite the fact that he was physically turned toward me and Keith, in the middle seats, gesturing and pointing and chatting away about mountains and rivers and his pilot training in Colorado. But my stomach was about to lose its lunch, and my heart was praying that Austin would please, please, please just take back the controls of the airplane before Charlie attempted a barrel roll into the side of a mountain. Charlie, if you ever read this, I love you, Little Buddy, and I trust you and I know you’ll do great things. Just remember that I’m a mom, so my imagination is always set to Worst Case Scenario.
Once we landed (safely) in Chitina, we loaded up the ‘Burb and drove for about an hour back to Copper Center.
About two weeks before our trip, I had to slightly rearrange our itinerary when one of the lodges where we had reservations unexpectedly closed for the season. Suddenly I had two nights that I had to plan for. The upside to this was spending last night at the Kennicott Glacier Lodge, which I was somehow able to book at the eleventh hour. We had a wonderful time, and we’re so glad we had the opportunity to extend our stay in the McCarthy-Kennecott area for one more day. For tonight, I was able to find a couple of rooms at the Copper River Princess Wilderness Lodge near Copper Center.
Clare and Charlie were expecting a pink princess-themed hotel, based on the name. In reality, it’s run by Princess Cruise Lines and functions as a place to lodge their passengers on the “land” part of their land and sea journeys. We are not very interested in staying in a corporate-owned hotel on this vacation, but since this was a last-minute Plan B, we didn’t have many other options.
We pulled up to the front doors of the Copper River Princess Wilderness Lodge, and I was impressed. There’s a large lounge that has dozens of overstuffed chairs and two-story windows overlooking Mount Drum, as well as a comfortable bar. The rooms are well appointed. The whole setting was very quiet and serene. It seemed like the perfect place to relax and regroup after our adventures in Kennecott and McCarthy.
But as we checked in, we were rushed through the process and ordered by the staff to quickly move our car from the front driveway and park it in the lot. And a minute later, two large coach buses pulled and dumped 150 cruise ship passengers into the lobby. And now the place looks and sounds like the inside of a Bob Evans restaurant.
Oh, well. The influx of people means that Charlie has found some friends to run around with. He spent the evening playing shuffleboard and tag on the lawn outside. I’ve spent the time doing laundry and catching up on the blog.
So here I am. It’s 11 p.m. and I’m still enjoying the view of the mountain in front of me. There’s a fire blazing in the hearth, and the smell of woodsmoke is intoxicating. I’ve got a cup of Starbuck’s decaf by my side. Life is good.
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