Sat - we made it home

Kim and I arrived in Corning around midnight Sun morning after our best vacation yet and without incident....well kind of. I am glad I had 2 cameras (thanks IT for teaching me redundancy) because I left one of my battery chargers in Anchorage at the hotel. I was going to call them, but we were always busy. Anyway...that is minor. Now I have to sort through my almost 2000 pictures. I will be putting some of the best ones out in a Picasa web album. I will let you know when they are there....I am thinking sometime in Feb by the time I get it done. Hope everyone enjoyed the little taste of Alaska, on the blog, as we traversed our way through the 49th state.

Friday - winding down.

New snow at 6000 ft last night.

Pilot Kim

Mt McKinley....there is the summit!!!

We don't have enough food at the house for this guy

Kim's and my new pet



Sorry we have been busy...We took the train from Anchorage to Denali Wed (8 hours of beautiful scenery). We could see all of McKinley from Anchorage, over 200 miles away. They say that puts us in the 5% club...only 5% of those who come to see it get that view. WooHoo for Kim and I. Thurs we had an 8 hour Tundra Wilderness tour through Denali National Park. We saw moose, grizzy bear, wolves, dall sheep arctic ground squirrels, eagles, caribou, magpies you get the picture....there is a ton of wildlife here. We got within 30 miles od Mt McKinley and were able to see the summit, there was one cloud in the middle of the mountain...SPECTACULAR!!! Got home and had an hour to get ready to go white water rafting....only cat 2-3s for Kim. It was a blast, but we were both freezing 2.5 hours later. This morning we got up to some clouds and a little rain, but we still went and did a flight seeing tour of McKinley....not a very good view since it was snowing there, but the trip there with the new snow at 6000 ft was beautiful. Now it is coming to an end as we wait to get the train up to Fairbanks tonight where we are meeting up with our new found friends for dinner. Enjoy the little taste of pictures....

Alyeska

We ate at Chair 5 (this is a skiing resort in the Chugach mountains) last night. A local place, but lots of fun. I had an Elk burger...yummy! Today is the best weather day that we have had....it is sunny and warm. This morning we rode the tram to the top of Alyeska mountain and I hiked up to the bowl at the summit, what a view. Learned about avalanches and how they mitigate them...who wants to ski across the summit and throw out hand charges? However, the hilight of the day and the trip was the helicopter ride to Punchbowl Glacier and dogsledding...yes, we got to dogsled today. It was the most scenic leg of the trip so far, and the dogs, ~60 of them including 14 day old pups The dogsledding was an OMG experience. I have pics and videos. Tonight Kim and I had a pizza here at the resort with reindeer meat...really good. It is staying light till about 10 PM here. Ok, now time for some pics...I think you will be able to tell this is my favorite day. Sorry the pics aren't in the correct order, but you get the picture....get it?

There is our dogsled camp as we fly in

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14 day old pups....can't even walk, but will run soon.

The clouds are rolling in

~60 dogs at camp

Bowl at the top of Alyeska Mt

Our hotel from the tram

Glacier vikew from Alyeska mt

Our limo

There we are getting ready to sled.

The dogs love attention

Day ??? We are in Alyeska

We made it to Alyeska this afternoon and the weather seems to be clearing. I have some amazing pics from College Fjord yesterday and today here, but am too tired tonight to post them. I hope to do it in the morning. Alyeska is an amazing place....wish I skiied and could afford to come here to ski. Kim and I went to Chair 5, a restaurant, in the town of Girdwood tonight. It was such a cool time....with the locals. I had an elk burger and it was really good. We still need to figure out tomorrow. We are hoping to Heli to a glacier and hike in Denali this week since we didn't get to dogsled. Stay tuned for more pics and updates.

Day 7 Glacier Bay National Park

What a day!!! The weather started out cold and windy and got warmer and warmer, all the way into the 50s. ;-) The sites here are beyond belief. I took ~255 pictures and about 10 videos. The glaciers are nothing like you see in photos, you just can not describe them. We saw more whales, sea lions, seals, 1 bear, puffin and lots of beautiful scenery. I will post more pics of everything when I get home...too many for here. This definitely has been the hihglight of the trip so far. Tomorrow into Prince William Sound and then College Fjord.

Margerie Glacier

Calving of Margerie Glacier

Day 6 Skagway

Last night on the whale watch we saw 3 hump back whales, porpoise, sea lions and harbor seals. It was kind of rainy and windy, but we were under cover except when we were at the whale sitings. The Whale were cool, but do you know how hard it is to get action shots of something that you don't when and where it will appear. I did get a couple of good ones.

Yukon Expedition and White Pass Railway today. 65 mile bus excursion into the Yukon and a 30 mile White Pass Rail trip back. The weather wasn't too bad...cloudy and 55 with a little mist here and there. However, this means that the clouds were below the tops of the mountains. We saw some absolutely goregous terrain today, from rain forest to tundra and back. We had lunch at Caribou Crossing and also saw sledding huksies and pups. The pups were cute. The railroad trip home was unbelieveable. It was on the edge of cliffs, over gorges, through tunnels and rocks. I have some really great pics, including a bear, and videos.

It was an all day adventure. Shopped around town when we returned for a little while and then back to happy hour. Pulling out tomorrow and heading to Glacier Bay National Park...for the whole day.

Hanging over the edge of the railcar...woohoo

Yukon Pass Railroad

Tundra in the Yukon

Day 5 - Juneau

Got up to watch us come into port and was disappointed to see it raining. Our Heli-dogsledding trip was cancelled because of the weather. Took a bus tour around Juneau and then to the Tongass National Park, Mendenhall Glacier. I have seen pictures, but you can not believe it when you see it....it is gorgeous! This was the glacier we were supposed to dogsled on, oh well saved a lot of money. We are going to do a float plane of heli-hike on a glacier someplace else with better weather.

Just got back from the Red Dog Saloon...really cool place. Oh BTW, I now have a new favorite beer, Alaskan Amber. I wonder if Wegmans carries it?

5:30 tonight we are off on a 3 hour whale watch.

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Breathe taking, Mendenhall Glacier

My 1st encounter with a bear...Red Dog Saloon

Day 4 - Ketchican

Beautiful day...went to Creek Street and watched the salmon and to the brothels. Unfortunately they were out of business.

Did the walking tour. I was a little disappointed with Ketchican, but tomorrow is supposed to be our big day, in Juneau.

A lot of shopping in Ketichan, but not my thing.
 

How many salmon do you see...Ketichan Creek

Mountain view from downtown Ketchican

Day 3 - Inside Passage

Again another nice day...although foggy this morning. We have seen some beautiful countryside as we cruise towards Ketichan.We spent most of our day with Don and Jill, a new golf friend and wife. We went to listen to the tour guide talk about excursions and sounds like we did good picking. The girls listened to a shopping tips talk and they think they are getting a whole pile of jewelry...yeah right. The afternoon we spent with Don and Jill on their balcony watching the sites go by.

We saw about a dozen whales this afternoon...all I can say is wow! The good whale pictures will come when we do our whale watch in Juneau on Wed. All dressed up for the Captain's dinner tonight. Before dinner we started to see snow on the mountaintops...getting closer now. Tomorrow on to Ketchican. Sorry, having trouble uploading pics today...no time to play with it now.

Scenery from the inside passage

   

Vancouver - Day2 - Time to get out of town

Had a great tour of downtown Vancover, 3 hours. The weather has been great both days, low 80s. Everyone here thinks it is too hot...a lot they know here -ay! Took us less than a half hour to checkin on the ship and find our stateroom. They have shuffled crowds before and are real good at it. Dumped stuff in the safe in our room and headed for the Bon Voyage party.

We had some drinks with a couple, retired teachers from Michigan. Whew....they do have beer on the ship.
At 4 the ship headed out and we have seen some great landscapes since. Eating is definitely not a problem or is a problem, depending on if you are watching your weight or not.

1200 miles from Vancover to Ketcikan...we'll be there on Tues morning.

Our ship has come in

1st sunset from the ship

                                                                  

Park in Chinatown