Anchorage and Heading Home
We hit the sack shortly after getting to our rooms at the Anchorage Marriott The next morning we ended up getting a free breakfast on the hotel concierge floor because Ruth found broken glass on their floor when they went to go to bed. Thankfully nobody was injured.
Our shuttle to the airport was not until 6PM so we spent the day in Anchorage. We visited the Anchorage Museum which has some wonderful exhibits especially the ones related to Alaskan Natives culture. Charlie had enough of the museum after about 2 hours so we went out and sat on the benches on the museum lawn. Charlie was thrilled to be invited by some kids to play frisbee and learn to throw a foxtail so we let him play for an hour while we just sat and enjoyed the beautiful day and the incredible flowers around the museum. Because Alaska has such long days in the summer the flowers grow very fast and many end up with incredible blooms. The colors were brilliant. We noticed the incredible flower displays at many of our stops during the trip.
Our trip home did not go as planned but despite that we had a most incredible time on our vacation. Thankfully the issues happened on the way home and not the way there.
Our scheduled 8PM departure from Anchorage on Tuesday was delayed by 2 hours due to an air traffic control shortage in Miami. This issue initiated a series of delays including missing our connection in Atlanta to Rochester by 10 minutes (I never dreamed a 2 hour layover would be insufficient), then not making the cut on standby for the 3:45PM flight, cancellation of the 11:45 PM flight we were rebooked on. We waited for takeoff for an hour before the flight was cancelled. The airline provided us with a hotel voucher at 1AM so we got about 4 hours sleep before heading back to the airport, getting through security in Atlanta which is crazy all by itself, and finally taking off for Rochester at 9AM, 24 hours after we had originally been scheduled. We won’t soon forget the exhaustion of that trip home, but it won’t spoil the wonderful memories of the rest of the trip.
Some Final Thoughts about our trip
Except for the major delay at the end of the trip we had a most wonderful vacation. It was a joy being able to travel with family especially watching Charlie marvel at everything he saw. He charmed everyone he met with his unbridled enthusiasm, sweet nature and amazing smile. He never once got cranky even on the few occasions where he got a bit bored.
During the cruise he would just walk up to strangers especially on our shore excursions, sit next to them and start carrying on a conversations. It was fun to watch the conversations and at the same time it was a bit terrifying watching a 6 year old with no fears making friends with strangers. At the end of the cruise we had many people come up to us to say they thoroughly enjoyed Charlie. One woman even told me that he made her entire vacation special.
We had about 40 people on our post-cruise land tour traveling the very long bus trip from Seward, up to Denali. Most of the travelers were middle aged or older and Charlie was the only person under 17.
I’m sure many of them were a bit anxious when they saw a 6 year old get on the bus that first time, but that was short lived. We hadn't gotten 2 hours into the trip on the first day when some of the adults were referring to the tour bus as Charlie’s bus instead of our tour director Melinda’s bus. When we would get back on the bus after a stop someone would always shout out, “Is Charlie on the bus?” More than once Charlie shared in detail the story of how he got terrified on the tram in Juneau and as a result ended up with a new “friend” Starfish, his new stuffed sea otter holding a starfish. When Charlie would see something special out the window of the bus or on the train as we headed back to Anchorage he would shout out what he saw so others could see it. One of our favorites was “Denali out the window!” when he saw the Denali mountain appear. He played cards, built little robots, played video games and just carried on conversations with pretty much everyone on the bus and on our train car. Two of the teenagers on the tour gave him video games for his Switch that they said they didn’t use any more. At the end of the trip many families wanted pictures with him.
I’ve loved every trip we’ve taken with our grandkids. This one was certainly no exception.
I can hardly wait till the next one.