Our first hike in Alaska, took us to Mendenhall Glacier via the West Glacier Trail. It was a brutal hike—the toughest I’ve ever done. Maybe if we had mentally prepared for it, it wouldn’t have been so bad, but I spent the entire hike thinking, Are we there yet?!
So, imagine our surprise on the way to the airport, when we discovered that there was a visitor center that would have provided us with a great view of the glacier, had we bothered to notice it. Even funnier, we drove right by it on the hike, and several more times as we explored Juneau, and never noticed it.
To be fair, we had poor phone signal and GPS during our trip and spent most of our time paying keen attention to the roads the old-school way, so we wouldn’t get lost. In any case, here are a few of our last shots from our Alaska trip at the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center.
After our detour, we made a mad rush to the airport, only to discover that our flights were delayed. Tristan and I once again begged Alaska Airlines to move our flights and seats around, so we could fly back together. That meant skipping Sitka, but we wouldn’t have had enough time to do any more exploring, anyway.
Selfie-King Tristan naturally put our side-by-side seats to good use.
If you’re wondering what on earth I was doing, I was going through my first read-through and edit of The Moreau Witches, before I sent them off to Elizabeth Slaughter.
And now, here is where our tales of adventure come full circle. The very morning I arrived in Atlanta, I headed straight to work for a 16-hour shift. I worked another 16-hour shift the Sunday, and then worked the graveyard on Monday and Tuesday. Expensive trips have to be paid for, after all!
The Wednesday afternoon I had my dreaded driving test, and the rest you know. Well, most of it, because something else did happen the Tuesday before that test. That was the day I attended the last ever touring Vans Warped Tour. More on that next week!
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I had hoped to close out my last Alaska post with a super amazing video (if I do say so myself!) that I made of our entire trip. I’ve been meaning to use footage from our trips to make travel vlogs, but this is the first time I actually got around to it.
Unfortunately, Google is still “processing” the video and I have no idea when it will be available for download. Whenever it does make itself available, I’ll be sure to share it in a separate post. See you next time!
Cost breakdown for this trip:
- Round trip from Atlanta to Alaska: $711.61
- Round trip from Las Vegas to Alaska: $579.80 (Tristan paid for his flight)
- Airbnb Booking: $317.99
- Turo Car Rental: ~$347.35 (Tristan paid for the car rental)
Thus, the entire trip cost me $1,029.60 and cost Tristan $927.15. Together, we shared a total cost of $1,956.75. This was our most expensive trip to date and worth every penny!