Our Alaska Adventure

We are in the last few days of our Alaska adventure. Our plan has been to spend Labor Day weekend in Sitka with friends, Cheryl and Mary Ann. They have been entertaining us royally and have shown us Sitka from the eyes of people who live here. Our first day here, we went shopping in town and then they took us and Cheryl's mom out to dinner for our anniversary. Had a great evening. Yesterday they took us on an outing, driving around the town to the end of the road. There is a whale park with huge formations of whales and their flukes for kids and adults to climb on and stairs leading way down to the water. The views are magnificient and we can certainly understand why people fall in love with Alaska. We went down to the water walked around a bit and the almost did not make it up the stairs again. We also went to the Raptor Center to see the eagles that they have saved plus other raptors that they are training to be released. All of the raptors there have been injured by some means and their purpose is to medically heal them and release them. Today we go to a raptor release. One of the raptors who they have medically saved will be released into the wild today.

Also we go to the Russian Dancers, a group of woman who wanted to preserve the Russian dances and perform the dances for the tourists to see their culture. And then we go to Totem Park. So it is a big day today.

The salmon here is, of course, absolutely wonderful. We had some freshly smoked salmon that just melted in your mouth, actually my mouth, and the taste was exquisite! Thank you, Cheryl and MaryAnn, for a wonderful visit!

And now for a summary of our Alaska visit. Not sure how much I can express how wonderful this trip has been. All of our expectations were exceeded by many times over. We saw wildlife and scenery and snow capped mountains and just had a marvelous time.

We are more than convinced that touring the Inner Passage by small boat is the way to go. We were on the Cruise West lines and our ship had 96 passengers and everyone was great to visit with. We met many new friends from England and Australia as well as from the states. Everyone was warm, friendly and delightful. We had a wonderful time trying to see if we could sit at a different table each night so that we met someone new for the dinner meal.

Probably the biggest problem we had was finding the time to rest. There were so many viewing opportunities while cruising that I could not find time for my afternoon nap. Each afternoon, I would tell Barb that I just want to rest for about 15 minutes...so, I would go to the room, take off all of my layers of jackets, vests, sweatshirt and shoes, stretch out on the bed, pull up the blanket, close my eyes and boom, the intercom announcement would come on saying, "There is an Orca on starboard side" or "We will be approaching a glacier in ten minutes so you may want to come outside" or "Siting of brown bear and 2 cubs on land." What was so wonderful about this cruise is that the captain would get in as close as he could and just stop the ship. We would stand outside and just watch. One time we must have sat for about 1.5 hours watching the Orcas. What a great experience.

It got to be a joke that when we did see a big cruise ship, like the Holland America, we all booed. What was very nice is that we did not see them very often. Our tour took us into small narrow inlets and coves and areas that only the fishing boats can get into. Amazingly, when we did see our first big ship at the glaciers on the 5th day, it was real clear the advantage of a small ship. They were sitting a distance away looking at the glacier and we just slipped in front of them and went up close to the glacier.

We start our trip by flying into Anchorage. The only unpleasant part of the trip was the Ramada Inn we stayed in while there. It was filthy, smelly and all around unpleasant. Fortunately we were able to find another hotel for our return to Anchorage after going to Denali. We spent the day in Anchorage walking to the Native Alaskan Cultural museum. There are 5 different native tribes in Alaska and the cultural museum had outside settings depicting the life and times of each of these tribes. They also had speakers at each setting to give the history, stories and customs of each tribe.

We also had our first experience with Alaska rains. It does rain most every day, but were very, very, very well prepared. We had weatherproof, windproof, breathable jackets, hats and pants.......and actually stayed very warm and dry.

And then we were off to Denali...............and that provided an interesting experience. Because of the rains, the road to Denali and the train to Denali were closed from flooding. We were to take the train, so the train company chartered a flight and flew us to Fairbanks and then chartered a bus to drive us to Denali. An all day experience and by any standard quite confusing. But we can now say we were in Fairbanks, even thought we did not get out of the airport except to get onto the bus. We did however get to see the sights and magnificient views on the road between Fairbanks and Denali.

We spent 3 days in Denali and saw wildlife galore. We saw bear, moose, wolves, caribou, and we saw Mt. McKinley.

There are stories in all of these adventures but I am going to stop now to just publish some pictures from our entire trip. I will publish separate postings over the next few days.

Love to all of you.