See the Restaurant Road Trip of America planning and uploaded GPS coordinates of the trip in progress, or follow me on Twitter.

Today my goal was to find something good to eat in Anchorage and to see Denali National Park on the way down from Fairbanks to Anchorage.

I was totally amazed by Glacier National Park in Montana, however, Denali in my opinion is the king so far. It is fantastically big with mountains reaching into the clouds, endless forests, rivers, and lakes. Truly an incredible place. I was lucky enough while driving through to have a moose with two baby moose walk in front of the road. Unlike deer that dart out from the bushes in an attempt to throw themselves at your car, the moose just slowly lumbered past.

I was initially surprised to see that most of Alaska highway 3 is only a 55 mph zone, with occasional patches of 65 mph, coming from the western states like Montana and South Dakota which have 70/75 mph zones this was a bit of a change. However, I quickly found that 55/65 was about the right speed I would want to go. The highway is mostly a 2 lane, winding, and rough in spots. While I typically have a lead foot, I continually found myself even going a little under the speed limit just for my own safety. Most of Alaskan highway 3 goes just to the east of Denali, however it does cut through at times. The entire area is absolutely beautiful and was very fun going down.

After arriving in Anchorage I made my way down to Alaska Salmon Chowder House downtown. I will make an admission here, I used to love that imitation crab stuff that you can get for $4 a bag at the grocery store, however sadly, after easting real Alaska King Crab legs I don’t think I’ll even be able to eat that imitation crab garbage ever again. The real crab was absolutely delicious and fresh and the sauce they provided was excellent as well. The name of the place was Alaskan Salmon Chowder House, so I felt compelled to try that as well and it was just the perfect blend of Salmon and vegetables. Being from Ohio I don’t eat a lot of seafood that is just off the boat fresh (we’re cautioned not to eat too much fish from Lake Erie), and so this was a real treat.

In retrospect, I should have flown into Anchorage and the rented a car one way to goto Fairbanks for my flight tomorrow to Barrow. Fairbanks to Anchorage is about a 7 hour journey, which in the grand scheme of this trip isn’t so bad, however, doubling that was pretty rough. Near Denali park (which is much closer to Fairbanks than Anchorage), I became suddenly starving and had a huge headache, I found the one place that was open a 24 hour Subway right in the touristy outpost within the park. It was not bad, but I think I was ready to eat just about anything at that point.

I made it back to Fairbanks at about 1:30 am, having just narrowing run out of gas for the second time this trip. I was able to make it past Wasilla on the way down, and so I topped off the tank in Wasilla going back thinking that should get me all the way back, but that was definitely not the case. Luckily there was a 24 hour gas station a few miles out of Fairbanks where I was able to stop. Tomorrow I get a break from driving, but I’ll be flying up to the most northern outpost of North America, Barrow Alaska.

Tags: Big Road Trip