We began the story of our 2013 Alaskan adventures back on June 30, when we departed for the tundra. If you care to catch up, here are the details of our journey from Philadelphia to Anchorage, when we spent a restless night on the floor of the baggage claim.

From Anchorage, we flew to King Salmon.

A very small town at the top of the Alaskan Peninsula, King Salmon is known as a jumping off point for fisherman of may varieties, those on  sport fishing adventures and those, like ourselves, who were there in hopes of a big commercial haul.

King Salmon is also known for  its very pricey groceries. 

And its fairly predictable politics.

An exhaustive tour of King Salmon takes about 20 minutes. Unfortunately, we had ten hours. We all got a little sir crazy. Except for Iggy, who was still drugged from her travels, and decided to spend ten hours deleroius on the floor.

But eventually, the time came for our charter to depart.

Kris got a chance to sit up front.

The flight across the tundra was only 20 minutes, but I savored every minute of it. Countless lakes and winding streams and endless miles of scrubby mosses. It’s not majestic, but it sure is beautiful.

We landed on the beach a few miles northwest of our compound.

To give you an idea of the lay of the land.

It was raining when we landed. A pleasant sort of cold, hard rain for which the Alaskan tundra is known. I had the honor of sitting in the back of the truck with the luggage. Robbi opted to ride in the nice warm cab with the kids. Seniority, I guess. This was only my 10th trip to the tundra. For Robbi, it was visit number 35.

The ride took about 20 minutes, but in spite of the excitement, the kids were out cold by the time we reached our tundra home.

36 hours of travel catches up with you, eventually.