Alaska, Day 8: the end.

We had time to kill - a LOT of time to kill - before the first of many plane rides. So a few of us went to "town" in the morning to get coffee.

I got the Reese's Mocha - needed more peanut butter

We decided to save the general store for after breakfast. You know, just to break up the exciting day a little bit. So we headed back, ate blueberry pancakes (Tim's hard work in ANWR finally paid off!), packed up and headed back to "town."

It's not - I assure you

That took about 20 minutes.

So, we dropped our bags at the airport and walked across the street to the coffee shop/hotel to kill time. Tim and I played seven games of pool, Mary read a book, and we learned that Amy Winehouse had died. Good times.

In Barrow I said goodbye to my travel mates and wandered around town while I waited for my flight back to Fairbanks. Barrow was just what I expected.

The northernmost point in the U.S.!

Not in PDX anymore

Alaska puts antlers on things

I watched people departing the plane I would soon board, and they were carrying all sorts of craziness - pizza boxes, buckets of KFC, one girl even had a goldfish in a plastic bag. Makes total sense (I know I always bring back cherry corn scones from Arizmendi when I go to Oakland), but I did find it amusing.

I was also entertained by the fact that I was freezing and wearing numerous layers, and little kids were walking around the airport in shorts and t-shirts waiting for their family or friends to arrive. Kind of the opposite of San Francisco in the summer, where the locals have scarves wrapped around their necks for warmth and the tourists are in shorts and t-shirts. Forty degrees above F must be absolutely balmy to the locals up there.

To Seattle

And that was Alaska. Now where?