Aug 13, 2018 - Beauty Beyond Words

After our cruise ship left Skagway we traveled 183 miles, overnight, to Glacier Bay National Park. We passed by the Takhinsha and Chilkat Mountain Ranges on our way into the park constantly looking for wildlife such as moose and bear but all we saw where mountain goats. We spent an entire day in Glacier Bay National Park viewing the pristine environment and gazing upon the immense and spectacular glaciers, ice floes and icebergs. 250 years ago there was no Glacier Bay, it was all glacier and no bay. It was a massive river of ice, roughly...

Aug 12, 2018 - Denali

We arrived at Denali National Park on Monday afternoon (Denali RV Park and Motel in Healy, just north of the park entrance) and had dinner at the Denali Park Salmon Bake Restaurant. On Tuesday we just drove into the park as far as private vehicles can go which is about 15 miles. The weather was overcast so we could not see Denali, formerly Mt. McKinley. We purchased a tour on the Denali Bus for a trip to Wonder Lake neat the base of Denali hoping for better weather on Wednesday. This didn't happen. Wednesday was even worse. It rained and...

Aug 12, 2018 - Anchorage

We arrived in Anchorage on Thursday after a very nice drive from Denali and was blessed with a beautiful view of Denali all the way to Anchorage. On Friday we took an excursion by rail from Anchorage to Whittier for a cruise to view several glaciers in Blackstone Bay. Blackstone, Beloit, Northland, Rippon, Marquette and Laurence Glaciers to name a few, all along this bay. The train went through two tunnels on the way. One was a mile long and one was 2.7 miles long. The interesting thing about these tunnels is they are shared with vehicle...

Aug 11, 2018 - North to Alaska.....Skagway

After a short 102-mile trip from Juneau our next port was Skagway, Alaska. Skagway was the only town of our 3 stops that is accessible by car. It has a full-time population of1,000 people and during the tourist season it doubles in order to deal with more than 900,000 visitors from late May until early October. Our day there was almost totally filled with a beautiful ride on the White Pass and Yukon narrow gauge railroad and a hike. The railroad was originally built for the mining trade but is now in operation solely for the tourists. We...

Aug 9, 2018 - We Made It To Alaska!

Our first stop after a day of sailing 794 miles was Juneau, Alaska. Juneau is the capital of Alaska and is unusual for a capital city in that it can only be accessed by plane or boat due to the extremely rugged terrain surrounding the city. The population is also small for a capital, 32,000, but when there are 3-4 cruise ships in port it swells by 6-7,000!! Dennis has waited almost 25 years to see one sight in Juneau, the Red Dog Saloon. My parents had been on a similar cruise when Dennis and I first met and they brought him back a beer mug...

Aug 9, 2018 - Visiting Valdez

This morning we hooked up the truck & trailer (in the rain...again). Our trip took us up highways 1 & 4, a pretty drive with some road construction. It was fun driving on the muddy road (NOT), I asked Pete at one point if the truck was sliding a bit in the mud....he said a little....great ! Anyways, all was well & our drive was uneventful all the way to Valdez. Because of the rain there were so many waterfalls running down the mountain sides, gave us some beautiful sights.

Aug 7, 2018 - A Return Trip to Palmer

Let me see if I can explain this, our original destination was going to be Seward & we did make the drive there. HOWEVER.....when we arrived there, we had very little phone service, we could make a phone call but that was it. We had booked a site at Stoney Creek RV Park for 3 nights(it listed in our Camping book guide). Now the problem was, we drove into Seward...couldn't find the darn park...no signs...no directions in the guide....SO...we called the Park...NO ANSWER.... we stopped at two places for a map of the town...NO SUCH...

Aug 6, 2018 - Skagway

Interesting day. We left Whitehorse Yukon, down the Klondike Highway, came into British Columbia, and then into Skagway Alaska. All in 111 miles. I know this is getting old, but what a beautiful drive. We came upon Emerald Lake which the pictures don't show correctly. When the sun is out, it is a beautiful emerald green. We then passed through Caribou Crossing, which is now called Carcross. It is a cute little tourist town that was once a very important stop for the gold miners heading north from Skagway. Then on into scenery that we...

Aug 5, 2018 - Drive from Valdez, Tok, back to Whitehorse

After a fantastic stay in Valdez we headed back north through more beautiful country. On the road we continued to see more and more glaciers and then ran across a very interesting desert like area. It was actually a dry river bed that at one time was a drainage area for a number of large glaciers that have dried up. There was sand blowing around everywhere. Joey had a good time running in the sand. Passed by Destruction Bay, population 55, and growing. It got it's name during the construction of the Alaska Highway, when during a big...

Aug 5, 2018 - Riding the rails from Seward to Anchorage

We docked very early in the morning at Seward which is a deep water port south of Anchorage. Our train was a short walk away at the end of the pier. Many passengers took the cruise-train to Anchorage but others took a bus directly to the Anchorage airport, or began tours south on the Kenai Peninsula or stayed in Seward for hiking or canoe/raft experiences. The train was very comfortable and had high windows great for photos of the scenery we passed. This was a pleasant morning. In Anchorage, we had scheduled a city tour on a Trolley. It was...

Aug 5, 2018 - Enjoying Another Birthday

August 5th is my Birthday, so the four of us started our day off by going to Duncans for breakfast (a local Homer eatery). After a great breakfast we took off for a little drive up Skyline Drive, the views were awesome & we were able to see Homer Spit from a high above vantage point. We were able to get a better view of the glacier that we posted photos of in our last posting. Sadly....they still were hazy photos, but I could zoom in a little closer. We went back to the RV Park for a little while & got ready for round two of a food fest,...

Aug 4, 2018 - Rocking and Rolling Across the Gulf of Alaska

No photos today as we crossed the Gulf of Alaska. It was a day of very light food choices, naps, repacking and planning the clothing needed for our first travel day on land since our luggage had to be in the hall by midnight. The ship's motion began to calm by mid-afternoon and Maria and I agreed it had not been nearly as bad as the storm in the North Atlantic aboard the QM2 two years ago. The quiet day provided time for last minute shopping and music and a Test Kitchen presentation which we skipped this time. Along with many others we...