We had to be up at 06:30 this morning to get ready, eat and meat our travel group at 07:35. We thought we would finish up meeting at 07;35 then “hurry up and wait” for the next hour or so. We were wrong, a couple of minutes after 07;35 we were escorted off the ship and onto our coach for Anchorage. All very efficient and painless.
To get from Whittier, where we docked, to Anchorage you have to go through a 2.5 mile tunnel hewn out of solid rock. This tunnel is not only one lane wide, it is also shred with the railway. There is a 15 minute window every hour for travel, 15 minute northbound for cars, then 15 minutes for northbound trains, then the same in the southbound direction. We finished waiting for less than 10 minutes. We managed o spot a moose on the trip (not in the tunnel) plus a umber of eagles, and even rarer a human windsurfer out on the water.
We got dropped off down town and a shuttle bus took us to the car rental site. We got a couple of pleasant surprises when e checked in at the Ramada; our room was ready for us at 11;30 and it appears we have the largest room in the hotel, complete with a Jacuzzi tub. Not bad for a free room on points.
We had lunch and then took a walk along a salmon river where e even managed to spot a salmon. The salmon were pretty good at avoiding the multitude of anglers wading in the river.
In the evening we drove a couple of miles to meet up with our friends Alan and Marie who had flown over from the UK to tour around the US and had arrived in Alaska in the afternoon. We had a pleasant evening catching up on all the news at a local seafood micro brewery.
I have added a few more pictures to earlier posts, and will update a couple more in the next few days.