The route this day first took us from Bergen to Anchorage, via Keflavik, after a quick Meet’n greet event in Bergen. We drove from Karmøy to Bergen the day before.
We picked up the rental in Anchorage, and immediately hit the road… We didn’t have that much planned for the day, at least not compared to earlier years.
Approximate time on road/out caching: 20 hours, 25 minutes (including travel time from Norway)
Total miles driven: 30 mi / 48.28 km
Total cahes found: 11
Total DNF: 3
States visited: Alaska
Famous places visited: World’s largest chocolate waterfall
Most memorable cache: GCK0J6 Chocolate Waterfall
Biggest surprise: How difficult it was to find the rental car
Weather: Mostly sunny, some very light rain
Highest temperature: 22,8°C / 73°F
Lowest temperature: 19,4°C / 67°F
A quick event before we go
We didn’t expect a great turnout on GC7TN17 En stopp på vei til det store utland 4, after all it was 9:30am on a Sunday. But we were more than enough to have a great time!
The event was right outside our hotel, which was right next to the airport. So we only had to grab our luggage, and walk over to check-in.
The fast way to Anchorage
Getting to Anchorage was a lot easier than you would think. First a two hour flight from Bergen to Reykjavik, then about 7 hours to Anchorage. Not bad at all!
Immigration was a bit slower than last year, but still a lot faster than it has been in earlier years. We had to wait forever for our luggage, so long that we almost thought it had went missing. But then it finally arrived.
Finding the rental car facility turned out to be a challenge. No signage, no nothing. Apparently international arrivals are at the oldest terminal, farthest away from the rental facility. We noticed some signs for the other terminal, and decided to walk that way. After asking for directions, we eventually found the way – via the newest terminal.
Not that many stops planned
With the car picked up, we started on our planned route. We’ve spent the first day collecting states on the previous trips. But we only needed one state today. So we had a very short route planned.
After a couple quick stops right outside the airport, we headed towards GCK0J6 Chocolate Waterfall. The previous logs mentioned something about the chocolate bar being broken by a previous visitor, and that it couldn’t be held anymore. We decided to ask anyway, and got permission to hold the humongous chocolate bar – as required by the cache.
Shopping
After doing some shopping in the gift shop, we continued to the next shopping destination. Walmart. We always need to get some supplies before starting our road trip. We got almost everything we wanted, and some food. After DNFing the cache outside, we continued towards Eagle River.
Since Alaska is far enough North to have the same length of day as Norway, we decided to spend some extra time caching around in Eagle River. We always enjoy starting a trip with bonus finds 😀
We needed to stay awake to prevent jet lag anyway, so what better way to do that than finding more caches?