Day 12: to Nome, Alaska

Well it is back to the airport!  The rest of our flights are on big airplanes so hopefully they are all on time!  Next Destination:  Nome, Alaska
So we are flying on a 737-Combi.  The front of the plane holds cargo and the passengers board from the rear and sit in the back.  Pretty odd but neat too.

 

Only 15 rows for people while rest of plane is for the cargo pods.  There are no roads to Nome from Anchorage so this is one way they transport supplies to the area.  The flight was on time and less than two hours in the air.  We hit the ground running!  First stop was the Visitor's Center. 

I had read there was a guy that worked there that was very helpful but would talk your ear off.  We saw no such man, but as we were leaving we met him.  He was full of insight and very knowledgeable.  We are back to the land of not many options when it comes to lodging and eating.  The travel book said Subway had the best views of the Bering Sea . . . okay whatever.  Well, it did!  The only difference was the price.  What would cost $5 in the lower 48 states cost $9 but tasted exactly the same so that is what mattered the most.  Nome is a small town that doesn't see too many tourist except in March when the Iditarod comes to town.  Our first stop was the Bering Land Bridge National Preserve Visitor Center.  Colin was being a pill and on the iPad too much so I made him get a Junior Ranger book to work on tonight.  Most of the preserves are not accessible by car instead you must take a float plane, long boat ride, or super long hike.  We had none of the options so just sort of visited with the Ranger at the center and looked at the displays.  We walked across the street to the Carrie M. McLain Memorial Museum.  It was a fantastic museum in the basement of the library.  I was impressed with the displays showing the history of the area.  One display that we really enjoyed was about Fritz. 

Fritz was the lead dog on Leonhard Seppala's run to bring back serum to the sick kids of Nome back in 1925.  Fritz was also the half brother of Togo.  It was a great museum packed full of history.  We stopped by to snap a photo with largest gold pan . . .

. . . sometimes other people take your picture and don't do such a great job, LOL!  Would have been nice to have the entire pan in the photo but oh well.  A few steps away was the arch used at the end of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race . . .

Keep walking and you see these cool statues telling about the history of Nome . . .

And just like that we had seen all the highlights of the town.  We drove to the Dredge No. 7 Inn where we would spend the next two nights.  It was a small B&B . . . we never saw/met the owners which was sort of nice.  I am not a chatty kind of person so having freedom to just do my own thing was a bonus.  I might add that it was very nice too.  The other hotels in town looked run down and very shabby so this place was a bonus!  So once you check in there isn't much else to do so we drove to a grocery store.  Talk about sticker shock . . . a case of water was $24.99 for 24 bottles.  Ouch!  We thought they might have a deli but no such luck so back to Subway we went.  Before eating we walked along the beach of the Bering Sea.  It was nice and breezy.  Colin loved finding rocks and running wild . . .

We were sad to find a dead puffin had washed ashore.  On that note we headed to Subway and back to the Inn.