After the amazing day in Denali National Park, we figured it would be a let-down trying to do anything else in the park. So I let Mom sleep in a bit while I worked. When she got up, I asked her what she wanted to do. After hemming and hawing a while, she said, “Let’s just go for a drive and see what is out there.” OK with me, dedicated readers know that I’m down for a road trip.
Looking at the map, Fairbanks is about a two and a half drive from the cabin. So we got in the car and headed north on AK-3. The weird thing about spending as much time with my mom is that I thought we had gotten through all of the topics of conversation we could have reasonably covered. And yet, we still ended up talking about the most random things. I discovered that my mom talks a lot about what other people are doing and realized that I really don’t do that. I wonder if I’m normal and she’s not or the other way around. (Although thinking about it now, I’m probably abnormal because social media is not really my thing. And isn’t the whole point of social media to keep up with what other people are doing? I must be the weird one because there are billions of people who check their Facebook feed more regularly than I do.) Suffice to say, I learned all about what my relatives are up to whether I wanted to or not (see, I don’t even need Facebook, I got my mom).
The scenery on the way to Fairbanks was pretty but not nearly as spectacular as the drive from Anchorage. (So, if you’re ever wondering if the longer drive to Denali from Anchorage is worth it…yes, yes it is.) There were a few turnouts along the road where I stopped the car for my mom to take photos but mostly we just drove. I was thinking about how maybe we would drive into Fairbanks and grab lunch but right before the city limits, we hit road construction that forced us completely off the freeway. Hmmm, now what? Mom wasn’t interested in trying to meander around on side streets and the signage for the detour looked like it was leading down a dead body way. So, my mom got introduced to one of the more common travel misadventures – road closures that derail your idiotic road trip goals.
We turned around and headed back towards the cabin. About 45 minutes from the cabin, a huge storm looked like it was going to smack into us, but fortunately, we managed to evade it. We did however get treated to a super solid rainbow that my mom decided was my dad saying hello…which then devolved into her getting weepy and me trying to soothe her at 75 mph.
After dinner at a local brewpub down the street from the cabin, we turned in early. The next day, we checked out of the cabin and headed back south on AK-3 towards Anchorage, pulling over a bunch of times so I could take photos. We returned to the Mount Denali overlook we had stopped at a few days earlier. The view of the mountain was still obscured by clouds. Mom and I hiked back up the path to the quiet viewpoint, which we had all to ourselves. That was great because Mom decided that’s where she wanted to spread some of my dad’s ashes. I poured a tiny bit out down the slope so he could always have a view of the mountain. My mom hadn’t spread any of his ashes before and she obviously was emotional about the whole thing. I was really grateful that no one came up there the entire time that we were there. It gave my mom a chance to compose herself before we returned to the car.
We lucked out and did not have to stop for any road construction so the trip back to the Anchorage area was quicker than the drive up. We actually drove straight through Anchorage because our stop for the next couple of nights was in Girdwood, a town about 45 minutes south of Anchorage off the scenic Seward Highway. The weather was looking pretty overcast the further south we went and by the time we hit the exit for Girdwood, it was threatening rain showers. I’m sure in nice weather, Girdwood is a cute little town but with the low clouds, you couldn’t even really see the mountains that encircle the place. Meaning that my idea to take the gondola to the top of one of the mountains to enjoy the view was a no-go. And the weather forecast was not looking promising for the entire time we were to be there. So Mom got to experience another travel misadventure – the weather jacking up the hugely weather-dependent activity you wanted to do.
I was hoping that the next lodging would be comfortable for us to lounge around in since there wasn’t a hell of a lot to do in Girdwood that wasn’t outside. Mom wasn’t feeling a hike in the rain. So lounging around indoors was the extent of our to-do list. But the place that I booked was… how do I put it nicely? It was a dump and that’s being charitable. I was horrified and doubly so because my mom was with me. First, the listing did not make it clear that you didn’t get the whole house, only the ground level. The weeds around the building were so high, you couldn’t really see out of the only two windows in the whole place. The people upstairs must train tap-dancing elephants for a living because there was so much noise coming from upstairs. The bathroom floor was rotted but covered with a rug so when you stepped on it, you unexpectedly sank a quarter of an inch in spots. The couch sagged so much that I actually had to physically pull my mom out of it. The windows were inoperable so we couldn’t get any fresh air into the place to try to air out the mildewy smell. My mom bravely said that it was “only for two nights” but I did not sleep well that first night. The next morning when we were both jolted awake by one of the upstairs tenants stomping down the exterior stairs so forcefully that I thought it was an earthquake. And to top things off, my mom was like, “I don’t see a smoke detector”. Knowing her paranoia tendencies, I had already spotted it just sitting on a high shelf next to the front door, so I grabbed it to show her. It actually did not have a battery in it. Making the place super unsafe, particularly since there were people living upstairs. That was the final straw. Obviously the woman that owned the place didn’t even care enough about her paying-way-too-much-money-for-this-dump guests to spend $10 to buy a freaking battery for the smoke detector. I emailed the website where I booked it to give them a considerable piece of my mind and then jumped online to book an additional night at the hotel we were supposed to go to next.
And so my mom got introduced to another travel misadventure where your current lodgings are so horrible that you would rather lose your money, leave, and then pay more money for another place than to stay one more second in a shithole. We packed the car and left without a backwards glance, driving back up to Anchorage. I already had our final night booked in a hotel in Anchorage so we could be near the airport; so I ended up booking an additional night there so we didn’t have to move again. Fortunately, the woman checking us in said we could even stay in the same room, we just needed to get the keycards reactivated in the morning. Mom and I got settled in our decidedly more-luxurious-than-where-we-just-came-from digs and then drove aimlessly around Anchorage trying to find a place to eat. Mom decided that she wanted to go to a chain restaurant. I didn’t argue with her, knowing that she had had an interesting and slightly stressful day already. I get it, sometimes when you’re traveling and shit goes sideways, familiar comfort food goes a long way towards making the world feel right again.
The next day was Father’s Day… the first one without my dad. I knew the day was going to be hard for me but I didn’t want to give my mom another reason to get teary-eyed, particularly since it was our last full day in Alaska. So I tried to keep myself busy so I wouldn’t have time to think about it too much. Mom wanted to go back downtown Anchorage to hit up more souvenir shops because she thought about another six people she wanted to buy gifts for. Of course, after wandering around down there, she didn’t actually see what she wanted – at least not at the prices she wanted to pay. We actually ended up going to WalMart to buy t-shirts and other random shit that had the word “Alaska” emblazoned on it. (Actually, if you have a car, the Anchorage WalMart has an impressive array of inexpensive souvenirs and isn’t a half bad place to pick up stuff like that.)
The weather had cleared a bit so I drove us up to the Flattop Mountain trailhead where there is an incredible view overlooking the metro Anchorage area that you don’t have to walk more than 5 minutes from the parking lot to see. It was definitely worth the drive. We even got to see a huge bull moose in a nearby ravine. Although we originally talked about going out to eat at a nice place for our last night, I could tell that Mom wasn’t really up for it. And I realized that we would probably just be surrounded by people taking their dads out to celebrate Father’s Day… and I lost my appetite. So we ended up having the last of our granola bars and salad mix for dinner instead.
The next day our flight out was at 11am, so we didn’t have to get up super early. That was definitely a good thing as most flights out of Anchorage are overnight or leave in the middle of the night flights. I would rather land at midnight than take off at that time. We returned the car, got our bags checked in (my mom had mailed home a bunch of stuff so fortunately she was under the 50-pound weight limit), and then loitered at the gate for a bit until we boarded our flight to Seattle. I gazed out the window at the scenery whenever the clouds parted and before too long, we were making our descent into SeaTac. We could see Mount Rainier in the distance since it was such a clear day. And even better, our gate was right by the American Express Centurion Lounge. Although it was packed, we managed to secure the two last seats. The lounge had a view of Mount Rainier, delighting my mom.
The flight from Seattle to Austin passed right by Mount Rainier so I ended up taking a ton of photos from my window seat.
We landed in Austin right around midnight. I had work calls the next morning so Mom wandered around downtown Austin for a bit before I had to drop her off at the airport for her return to the Cleveland area. It was a bit weird saying goodbye to her. I mean, I had spent pretty much every second with her over the last 20 days. And while I was looking forward to having some time by myself, I realized that I was actually going to miss being around her. I wasn’t expecting that. Honestly, I thought I would be sick of her (and her sick of me) at that point.
So the Mom and Me Adventure, Alaska style, came to an end. But there’s a potential now that we might have further adventures (and misadventures) together.