The Kenai Peninsula

This morning we got up and had a fantastic breakfast here at the B & B - stuffed French toast, reindeer sausage, fritattas, etc. Then we headed out for Seward, about 3 hours south of here on the Kenai Peninsula, which is unbelievably gorgeous. It’s all snow-capped mountains rising up out of the water, rushing streams, waterfalls, etc.



Seward is one of the oldest cities in Alaska, settled by the Russian fur traders first, then the beginning of the Iditarod Trail - not the dogsled race, but the original trail to the gold fields. Now it is primarily a fishing town.

We did some shopping on the quaint old main street and then drove to the nearby Exit Glacier Park. We walked for about an hour to get to the glacier and it was incredible to be that close. You can actually feel the cold breeze, hear the ice creaking and cracking and see the blue ice deep in the fissures.

Then we went back into Seward to fulfill one of the last items on our list of things to do in Alaska - a king crab dinner! We ate in a restaurant overlooking the harbor with snow-covered mountains in the background, and the dinner was everything we hoped - even blackberry cobbler for dessert.

Now we have to pack and get ready to fly home tomorrow. Our flight isn’t until late, so we’ll have time to see more of Anchorage during the day - we think the salmon have started running, and there’s a little more shopping to do. My next blog entry will be from home, but you can check the North 2 Alaska blog for news of Tuesday.

Sunday

If we were a little disappointed in what we could see on Saturday, Sunday more than made up for it! It was sunny and almost cloudless for our drive from Denali back down to Anchorage and we had gorgeous views at every turn. We could see Mt. McKinley from many viewpoints and could hardly make any progress for stopping to take photos!



We arrived in Anchorage in mid-afternoon and checked into our Bed & Breakfast, which is a pretty awesome place. Unfortunately we had to say goodbye to Mark and Kathy, who had to catch a flight home and get back to work.

K & G and K & O had some great Mexican food for dinner, sat in the hot tub for awhile, and enjoyed the view of Turnagain Arm, a huge tidal arm of the Pacific that runs beside Anchorage.

More of Denali

Saturday turned out to be cloudy, chilly and misty - not the best weather for seeing the mountains and the critters of the Park. Our transportation was modified school busses - slightly more comfortable seats than the kids get! We saw 7 or 8 blonde grizzly bears, including mother and yearling cub pairs, a couple of red foxes, lots of snowshoe hares, and some caribou and Dall sheep very far way, but were a little disappointed not to see any moose or wolves.

Because of the clouds and mist, there was no chance of seeing Mt. McKinley, which can often been seen at the far end of the round trip tour, but the landscape was really pretty in a misty, mysterious sort of way. You can really see how the glaciers formed the area.

Adventures in Denali

We're back in Anchorage at our B & B where we finally have internet access again so I can catch up on our adventures in Alaska.

The Friday float trip down the Nenana River was fantastic. They had very attractive (!)dry suits for us all, and it was a good thing as Oliver got bounced out of the raft early on! We dragged him back in not much the worse for wear and continued on down the river. We were hoping to see bears, moose or something exciting down by the river as we floated by, but no such luck. The scenery was beautiful, tho, and the river just wild enough to be exciting.

It was chillier and windy that day, so a stop at a coffeehouse after the float trip warmed us all up. Then the girls and boys split up - the guys to go hiking in the park and the girls to visit a sled dog kennel in the park and see a demonstration of how the dogs are used. These are working sled dogs - much bigger and stronger than the racing ones. We enjoyed seeing them and then finished off the afternoon by hitting a few gift shops.

The guys had an even better afternoon. On their hike they saw 3 grizzly bears, 3 moose, a marmot, and some Dall sheep! And they had photos to prove it.

Marmot

Grizzly bears

Moose

Dall Sheep - usually not seen this close up.

After a really good dinner and another dip in the hot tub, it was to bed early as we have to be at the park at 7:00 tomorrow for our day-long bus ride into Denali National Park.

Amazing flight!

Thursday morning we all packed into a very small airplane and took off to fly into Denali National Park and around Mt. McKinley, also called Denali (the big one). It was absolutely amazing - and a little scary! It was cloudy in spots so we just had brief glimpses of the top of Mt. McKinley - over 20,000 feet high!













From that height, we could see many glaciers - some of them 30 and 40 miles long. The ice on the oldest glaciers is over 3000 feet deep! The stripes on this one were formed when several glaciers came together. The dark lines are the dirt and rocks along the edges of each of the merging glaciers.

Talkeetna is a funny little, laid-back town. It is the base from which climbers leave for Mt. McKinley. We had some lunch there and then took off for Denali itself. The park is really huge - although Talkeetna is at the edge of it, we had to drive north for several more hours to reach the park entrance.

After checking into our cabins there, we explored the area they call "Glitter Gulch" near the park entrance - lodges, restaurants and gift shops - had some pizza for dinner, tried out the hot tub and went to bed as we had to be up early for our float trip down the Nenana River.

Wednesday

One of the reasons we planned this trip the way we did was to visit Elmendorf Air Force Base, where our mom and dad met and were married during World War II. We weren’t sure if anything would be left from that era or if we could even get on base to see, as this is a strategic, high security base. But with the help of Gary’s military ID and some very nice people there, we got to visit what we are pretty sure is the chapel they were married in.

After leaving the base, we drove up to Talkeetna, where a cabin was waiting for us. The weather is still unusually warm, and we are continually amazed at how late it stays light. Mark took a sunset photo at about 11:30!

Catching Up

Just realized that I had never posted anything about Skagway. First thing in the morning we took an old-fashioned train up through the White Pass, following the route the gold seekers followed on foot, with a ton of supplies! Look closely at the photo - we are crossing a scarily high trestle bridge!



The trip was beautiful - and a highlight was seeing a black bear just as we came out of that tunnel above.

Skagway was a cute little town - quite a few of the old buildings are left so there's a lot of atmosphere.

Seeing the Glaciers

All morning we were still cruising across the Gulf of Alaska, coming back close to land in the afternoon. By 4:00 or so we were in Prince William Sound, coming into College Fjord. The scenery was spectacular - snow-capped mountains all around. There are more than a dozen glaciers in the area, all named for colleges by the party that mapped the area in the 1890s. The largest is Harvard Glacier




We didn’t see any of the glaciers calve, but we did see lots of sea otters. They are so cute! They didn’t seem too frightened by the ship - several floated right by the ship on their backs so we could see their expressive little faces. This one is hard to see, but they really were cute. Now we need to be on the lookout for a moose.

It’s hard to believe the cruise is already over, but at least we still have more vacation to look forward to. Tonight we are packing up - they take our luggage before we go to bed and whatever we need for the night has to go in the backpacks tomorrow morning. We disembark in Whittier and meet up with the tour company that has arranged the rest of our trip. Tomorrow night we stay in Talkeetna, near Mt. McKinley, and take an airplane trip over Denali and to the mountain on the next day before heading up to Denali. Not sure what internet access we will have for the next several days, so it may be awhile before there’s a new post.

Sitka

I thought Sitka was the most picturesque of the towns we visited - the setting is breathtaking and there doesn’t seem to be much industry to spoil the looks of the waterfront.

Cruise ships can’t anchor at the docks in Sitka so the Spirit was anchored out in the bay and we went back and forth on little boats called "tenders."

Sitka was the capital for the Russians when they owned Alaska and still has quite a bit of Russian influence. This church is the Russian Orthodox church in town and has one of the old onion domes on part of the building.

After we left Sitka, we headed out into the open ocean where there was much more motion, even on this large a ship. Fortunately, we had seasickness patches so haven’t been affected. In fact, it was the best night’s sleep - just like rocking in a cradle!

Saturday in Juneau

We had another wonderful day today. After docking in Juneau, we walked downtown and shopped a little bit. If you loved jewelry and had tons of money, these ports are the place to be - every other store is a jewelry store!

We ate lunch at the Red Dog saloon - left over from gold rush days - and took the Mt. Roberts tramway to the top of the mountain behind the city. Although our ship is huge, you can tell how high we were by how small it looks.

Then we took a bus out to the Mendenhall Glacier which was very cool - it looked blue from the minerals in the ice. There were blue icebergs floating in the lake below the glacier. They said bears were common in the area and we saw some bear poop, but no bears.

At 3:15, we were picked up by the Harv and Marv whale watching tour bus and taken to two boats to go chase whales. It was such fun, and we actually saw quite a few humpback whales during the 2 hours we were out. The last one was the best - our guide Steve thought it was a young one because it hung out close to the boat and seemed to be showing off all the things it could do. It slapped its tail on the water, rolled over so we could see its tummy, and waved its fins in the air. Steve said we had gotten more whales than most groups see. We also saw a Steller sea lion, porpoises, and several eagles and nests. It was a great afternoon.

Just to give you an idea of how big our ship is, the white "apartment
building" at the end of the street is actually our ship! It dwarfed eveything else in Ketchikan.

Every evening, our cabin steward turns down the bed and leaves chocolates and a little folded towel critter like this elephant.

More later - we're at an internet hotspot in Skagway and we're itching to go shopping!

Ketchikan

Spent all day Thursday cruising up the inner passage - couldn't believe all the wilderness! It was really beautiful - the only disappointing thing was that we didn't see any wildlife. Dinner that night was formal and fancy - lobster and crab, cherries jubilee, etc. After dinner we had a surprise for Jane - all along the joke had been that since she was a single, she needed an inflatible companion. K & O ordered one, dressed him up in tuxedo boxer shorts and bow tie, set him up on the couch in one of the lounges, and called Jane to come down. The joke was on us, tho - she came in carrying a "Blow Up Bob" (Bub) of her own. Her reaction at seeing ours was priceless - we all laughed until we cried. Now Jane is famous all over the ship!

Woke up this morning and opened the curtain to find that we were parked nose to nose (or really butt to butt!) with another big cruise ship. We had docked in Ketchikan without even waking up! It was foggy and drizzly so we were keeping our fingers crossed that our sea plane trip to Misty Fjord wouldn't be cancelled.




After breakfast we gathered up our stuff and left the ship to explore Ketchikan a little as our plane trip wasn't until 10:30. It is a very cute little town - the most picturesque part of town is called Creek Street.

This is our float plane - held 10 people. It was quite a trip - gorgeous scenery and in such a small plane it was almost like being a bird. It was pretty misty and cloudy but that just seemed to add to the scenery - did make it hard to get good photos, tho.

Again, didn't see any wildlife, tho. K & O and Gary & I went on the plane trip - the others went on a boat trip to the same area and we had a great time comparing our photos.
Now we're on the move again and will dock in Juneau in the morning.

More Vancouver

Our condo in Vancouver was awesome - on the 24th floor downtown. I took this photo out of our window at night. On Tuesday, it was drizzly in the a.m. so we went to Granville Island to a really fun indoor market - you have never seen so much good, unusual food! In the afternoon we went to another neighborhood called Gastown and wandered around there until dinnertime.

This morning we took the SkyTrain around the city and a SeaBus ferry across to North Vancouver, just to get a taste of the rest of the city. We got on the ship this afternoon and sailed out under the Lionsgate Bridge about 7:00. We paid some big bucks for 100 internet minutes, but the connection is so slow it has taken me about 20 minutes of it just to upload these photos and write this! I may not post tomorrow unless the connection is faster or something really exciting happens. We spend all day at sea and have our best chance at seeing orcas on the way to Ketchikan.

Our stateroom - really very comfortable. The bed in the foreground is next to the door out to our balcony.

Sunset over the islands outside of Vancouver. More in a day or two!

From Vancouver

We got up verrrrry early in the morning to catch the train to Vancouver. The train was a wonderful way to travel - very comfortable - and lots of the scenery was great, but not as picturesque as we expected. After getting thru customs, we took taxis to our condos and met K & O there. Had some lunch and then caught the trolley to Stanley Park, a huge beautiful place. This is the view of some of downtown Vancouver and Canada Place with the white pointy roof - that is where our ship will leave from on Wednesday.



There is a nice little collection of totems poles from various First Nations tribes in Stanley Park.

We had wanted to see Chinatown because of our fond memories of going to San Francisco's Chinatown as kids, but this Chinatown was a disappointment, to say the least. After a rather odd dinner at "Hon's House of Noodles" (none of our meals came with noodles!) we trooped back to the condo to go to bed early. More of Vancouver tomorrow.

Seattle

We started the day in Seattle at the Pike Place Market - a very fun place. They really do throw fish around at the fish market behind Gary and Rachel, the pig.

The seafood was fantastic - but what in the world are "Halibut Cheeks?"

After lunch of chowder in a sourdough bread bowl at Ivar's on the waterfront, we went to Pioneer Square. Gary & I did the underground tour there - early Seattle burned to the ground and when they rebuilt it, they built it higher to escape the tide. The first floors of the buildings are still there underground, including this early bathroom.

We took the ferry to Bainbridge Island on the recommendation of Cody and Kris & Oliver. The view of Seattle was fantastic.

Kathy, Mark & Jane on the ferry to Bainbridge Island

Cool waterfront houses on Bainbridge Island.

We ate dinner overlooking this harbor.

The end of a great day!