First Day - Milwaukee to Fairbanks

We were scheduled to fly out of Milwaukee at 9am on Saturday 7/11/20.  Because we still didn't have our COVID-19 lab results from Thursday morning's testing, late Friday afternoon, I called Delta and had our departure flight changed to later in the afternoon.  That actually worked out much better as it saved us roughly 6 hours of hanging out in airports during our two layovers (Minneapolis & Seattle).

Besides the testing requirements, social distancing (keeping 6 feet from others) and wearing masks have become the norm this summer.  Also, the airline industry has taken a huge hit with passenger load dwindling to next to nothing in April and May.  Flights were continually being cancelled and consolidated.  Our wonderful one-stop trip into Fairbanks, became and more drawn out ordeal.

David has never enjoyed the long flights and this year's trip to Alaska may have been his breaking point!  It didn't help that the day prior to our departure he tweaked his back while doing some home improvements at Casa Bennett.  He was pretty uncomfortable throughout our travel day.

But the good news is we did make it safely to Fairbanks, and on schedule arriving at 11:15pm local time. Our friends who own the motor home met us at the airport and got us over to the RV for a night of boondocking in their work's remote parking lot.

It is always weird the first couple of nights with the fading daylight after midnight.  It seemingly never really gets dark when you are in Alaska in July.

We got up after roughly six hours of sleep.  Admittedly we were both pretty tired, but with an easy day ahead of us we got up and around.  We discussed whether to go to the grocery store and then fix breakfast in the RV, or just do our "usual" favorite breakfast spot in Fairbanks . . . The Cookie Jar.

Not know exactly how things would be, we decided we'd head over to the restaurant for breakfast.  David really needed coffee before thinking about doing much more!  We agreed that if we didn't feel safe with whatever was happening there, we would move to Plan B.

Fortunately, the employees were mostly wearing face masks and the dining room was appropriately spaced out to make us feel more confident about dining in.  Breakfast was excellent as usual and we got one of their large cinnamon buns to go for later.

After breakfast, we did our grocery shopping and headed south for Denali National Park.

With intermittent rain and clouds, the drive wasn't as spectacular as in past years.  I'll admit, though, the skies were interesting as we passed through the mountains and valleys.