A Hike Down Memory Lane

Brief breaks on land and away from the boat – especially after difficult passages – are always welcome, and this land break in the Alaska of my childhood took me on a hike down memory lane.

Our parents (bless their very brave hearts!) took the kids for a month while Tom and I made the journey north from Hawaii to Alaska. They primarily stayed with Tom’s parents, while my parents filled in for some respite care when the Yorks needed a break. And at the end of that month (everybody still alive, if somewhat fatigued by the nonstop energy of two young boys), my parents took the kids for their required COVID-19 tests to enter Alaska (all negative, obviously, or our logistics would have gotten a lot more complicated) and flew them up to Anchorage.

Not two hours into their time in Alaska, while walking through Earthquake Park, the kids got to see their first moose! A mama and a baby, just hanging out on the other side of a pond. An appropriate welcome to this wild and wonderful land.

Tom and I had hoped to take the famous Alaska Railroad up to Anchorage to meet them all, but due to changes in tourism this year, the train wasn’t up and running yet. Instead, grandparents and kids piled into the rental mini-van and headed down the Turnagain Arm on a 2.5 hour drive to pick us up in Seward.

We packed the car full of dirty laundry and drove immediately back to Anchorage with a short stop in Girdwood to walk around Alyeska ski resort, where I had learned to ski 36 years ago. It turns out that it looks really different without snow. And the place where you could get cinnamon buns the size of your head seems to be gone. Sad. Anchorage itself brought back almost no memories, except for those of the relief and joy of reaching the final leg and finish line of the 510-mile Alaska AIDS bicycle ride I did here twenty years ago. But Anchorage was never my stomping ground; Eagle River was, fifteen miles to the northeast.

Going for a hike through the Eagle River Valley with my best friend from grade school, Catherine, was the highlight of the visit. What a wonderful gift to reconnect and and reminisce about old times and old friends! Walking with a friend through the boggy alders and slapping at mosquitoes while gazing up at the magnificent peaks around us was, very simply, a gift.

I was able to navigate us without trouble back to my old house, where we met the current owners, who also happen to be the same people that bought the house from my parents thirty-some years ago. They let us poke around in the backyard, which brought back years of memories even though it looked very different than it did when I lived there (more fenced, more groomed, less wild, less big, and fewer nooks and crannies for childhood imaginations to explore).

I navigated us map-less to my old school and enjoyed watching my kids play on the playground, which didn’t look so much different than it was when I was there, except perhaps for some new fancy play equipment and the spongey soft rubber padding under everything, because, you know, law suits.

We ventured back into the neighborhood to see if I could find the trail I used to take to walk to school. I found the small bridge that crossed over a creek, almost unchanged except that the bridge looked a lot sturdier. This is the place I loved most. The dense foliage was filled with the scent of damp, decaying leaves and fragrant wet cottonwood, a smell that, wherever I am, still brings me back to this small creek in southern Alaska.

Before heading back to Seward, we made stops at the Alaska Aviation Museum, Moose Tooth restaurant, and West Marine to swap out our broken chart plotter. The Aviation Museum was a huge hit with Dylan, whose imagination went wild as he gazed up into the engines of retired aircraft.

Back in Seward, we played tourist more than anything else, partaking in a few nearby hikes, a visit to Exit Glacier, an afternoon at the Sea Life Center, and a small (just us) 4th of July BBQ on my parents’ hotel patio.

Informational addendum: Despite its recent spike, which has just recently brought the total count of cases to just over 2,000, Alaska has been pretty impressive about how it has handled Covid-19. It shut its borders for quite a while, requiring a 14-day quarantine for all incoming visitors. They then allowed incomers to show a negative Covid-19 test and get a voucher for a second test to be used within 14 days, which was wonderfully logical. Businesses were allowed to reopen as they saw fit, and we have observed pretty good mask compliance on the part of both businesses and customers. The state has not required masks, but most businesses do require them and have big signs stating so. The restaurants we have been to have been careful to seat people far apart from each other, and all staff have been wearing masks. And when there was a small spike of cases in Seward, the city immediately cancelled all 4th of July activities. Alaska seems to be finding a nice balance between public health and keeping the economy running, though the recent spike (pretty small in comparison to many other states) is surely going to have them analyzing how to best to maintain this equilibrium.

We are now in Cordova (eastern Prince William Sound), waiting for a weather window to cross the Gulf of Alaska down to SE Alaska and head home.