John heads home from Alaska

John is home! Here is the account of last segment of his trip.

He left his lake cabin early Thursday morning (in the pouring rain) in order to catch a midday flight from Anchorage to Juneau. His flight back to Tucson wasn’t until Friday.

He writes, “I’m on my plane now. I didn’t have much time to spare, but all is good now!” He rarely runs late for anything (except getting home from work, lol). I asked him what he meant about not having much time to spare. Turns out he was running around trying to figure out how to unload his camping equipment without resorting to tossing it in a dumpster.

Instead of bringing his own camping equipment on the trip, he bought cheap camping gear after he got up there. This baffled me. He said he didn’t want to check a bag, but it is not expensive to check a bag, and the airlines rarely lose bags anymore. Checked bags were a lot less reliable a few decades ago. But for whatever reason, this was what he decided to do.

At the end of his trip, he planned to donate the camping equipment at a donation center. But the donation center he had picked out online turned out to be a blood donation center, not somewhere you could drop off household goods! He was running all around town trying to find a way to donate his camping equipment, but he had a plane to catch.

Later he wrote: “I couldn’t find an open donation center (goodwill, etc), so I saw a homeless couple walking near a homeless camp (in the pouring rain), and I donated my camping gear (tent, sleeping bag, mat, stove, dishes, bowls, tarp, camping chair, and fishing rod to them, plus the duffel bag most of it fits in). They were happy to have it. I was worried I was going to have to find a dumpster and trash it all, so this is much better. There are a lot of homeless in anchorage. I don’t know where they go in winter. Anchorage must be a magnet because it’s the biggest city around.”

So I’m glad that it all worked out and his equipment went to a good cause. And he caught his plane!

He writes: “Here are pictures from the plane of where I was supposed to be kayaking before the trip got cancelled. This is the little-traveled East Arm of Glacier Bay National Park.”

He wrote, “Juneau was beautiful yesterday from the airplane. That is Mendenhall glacier running into town.”

After arriving in Juneau from Anchorage, he had the afternoon available. His flight home from Juneau wasn’t until the following morning. He wrote, “I arrived at my hotel. It’s sunny in Juneau, so I booked a 3 hour whale watching tour from 3-6 pm. It was the last slot available. Everything else is sold out.”

Him and his last slots! He had gotten the last slot available on the hiking tour earlier in the week as well.

Here are a couple of beautiful pictures from his walk down from his hotel to the catch the whale watching tour boat in Juneau.

It truly was a beautiful day in Juneau!

And a picture from the boat:

He said he saw whales, but I don’t have any whale pictures yet. They must all be on the big camera.

The sunshine makes Juneau look like paradise, but I gather it is often fogged in (or worse). Those rare cloudless days in the northwest can be stunning.

The next day one of his planes had mechanical issues. They had already boarded, so they sat for an hour on the plane going nowhere while they were trying to fix the plane. Then everyone had to get back off the plane and wait some more in the airport for a new plane. Of course he missed his connecting flight. He was late getting home but we were very happy he managed to make it home that night.

All in all, a great trip!

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