If You Can Hear Me in the Elevator, Remain Calm: Our LAST DAY on the Alaska Road Trip!

Our last day!

We were eating breakfast in the cafeteria, expecting another leisurely day aboard the Malaspina, when we noticed a metropolitan area out the window. We were arriving in Bellingham already! (Pacific Time is one hour behind Alaska Time, and we had been chugging along with gusto all through the night.)

The last words we heard on the ferry, spoken by our friend the purser over the loudspeaker as crowds of passengers hauled luggage down to the car deck, were these: “If you can hear me in the elevator, we know you are stuck in there. Remain calm. The engineers are on their way.”

Don’t worry – they got the elevator working, and we all left the ferry intact. The hour-and-a-half drive from Bellingham back to Seattle flew by in the blink of an eye, and before we knew it, we were parking a muddy Prius in front of our house.

Three badass ladies made it home.

Unpacking and story telling commenced immediately. We ate tuna-fish sandwiches for lunch with ingredients from a real refrigerator and our own garden. We changed into city clothes, hosed off Prius, and checked the odometer. The total mileage of our grand adventure: 4,189 miles, with an average gas mileage of 45 mpg. Not bad, red Prius, not bad at all.

Hosed off, packed, and ready for college! (We're off to Whitman tomorrow.)

Looking back, we saw a total of 113 bird species (about 10 lifers for each of us), 21 mammals, and 1 amphibian (the wood frog, Alaska’s only amphibian).

The people we met, the lichens we trampled, the dirt we accumulated, the wildlife we watched… the back-country food and unexpected detours… all will make up the stories my mom and I tell for many years to come. Thank you for reading along, commenting with bird identifications, sharing our blog with friends, and joining us on our Great Alaskan Road Trip.

Yours in adventure,
Nina and Jane

THE END


End of day summary:
  • Day of road trip: 18 
  • Start: Malaspina ferry (Queen Charlotte Strait), British Columbia, Canada 
  • Miles traveled: 195 (ferry) 
  • Hours driven: 1.5
  • Favorite bird sighting: common murre
  • End: Seattle, Washington, United States