Alaska Fun

We finally had the chance to visit parts of Alaska that we hadn’t visited before!

On July 21, we boarded Alaska Air in Portland, OR and flew to Vancouver BC, Canada to begin our experience on water and land.  Our trip was for 7 days on water, sailing through the Inlet Passage of AK on Holland America’s "ms Zaandam" and 7 days on land (via bus and rail) ending in Fairbanks.

This is our boarding picture.  Note, this is after we were up from 4:30 am, had a two plus hours flight from Portland toVancouver B.C., then a 45 minute bus ride (via Holland America Lines Shuttle) to where the ship was docked.  We were pretty tired and quite disheveled when we boarded the ship at Noon. (sigh)

We set sail from Vancouver the evening of July 21 and spent that night plus the next day at sea before docking in Ketchikan at 6 am on July 23. The pictures below are our ship and our docking site.

  

It was overcast with misty showers that turned to a hard rain later in the day, but we had fun exploring Ketchikan and even going out on the “Misty Fjords Cruise & Floatplane Adventure” excursion.  The excursion was to take us to the Fjords then take a float plane back to Ketchikan, but it was way too overcast for the float plane to fly, so we just did the catamaran portion of the trip.  Scenery was shrouded in fog and very pretty!  This picture is just one view of the many waterfalls we saw in a secluded cove of Misty Fjords.

We left Ketchikan’s port at 2:30 pm and sailed through the night docking in Juneau on the 24th at 8 am. Again, we had a very foggy, overcast morning as we walked around town checking out all the souvenier shops and even finding a geocache on top of a parking garage...Yes, we brought our GPS along, but didn't get that many chances to look for caches.  This is a picture of our ship docked near where all the passengers catch buses for local tours.

We had time before our afternoon excursion, so we stopped at the famous Red Dog Saloon for lunch and a beer.  It was extremely crowded, but we had lots of fun there.

  

After lunch, we were back at the dock to catch one of the many buses that would take us out on a Whale Quest and Mendenhall Glacier tour.  What fun!!  The weather had cleared up by the time we were back out to sea on a jet powered catamaran where we were rewarded with Orcas, Humpbacks, Seals, Sea Lions, and hundreds of birds.  What a sight it was to watch the Orcas play, but watching the Humpbacks "Bubble Feeding" was an extra treat.  Taking pictures of these events was tough, but Ken did get the following picture of a Humpback "breaching."  We were watching these Whales for nearly an hour, and Ken got lots more pictures, but this is really the best one!

Once we were back ashore from the water portion of our excursion, we were taken by bus to the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center.  There, we could take a walk down to Nugget Falls and get some up close and personal pictures of the glacier.  All I can say about that experience was it was just awesome!  The picture I am posting is from the viewing platform at the visitor center, but Ken & I took many, many more.

Back at the ship, we pulled away from dock at 9:30 pm and again spent the night at sea and ended up docking in Skagway at 5:30 am on the 25th.  Skagway was a beautiful 64 degrees and sunny.

We walked around town and found a geocache at the information center in town then later in the morning, we rode the White Pass Railroad up to the White Pass Summit.  It was beautiful with lots of great scenes of the mountains.  We even saw parts of the old trail the “stampeders” used to get through the pass in the dead of winter.  I cannot imagine how horrid that must have been.  Below is a picture of the town and our train heading up the pass.

  

From Skagway, we were once again at sea and spent the night sailing, then all day the 26th was spent in Glacier Bay National Park where we picked up some “rangers” who spent the day talking about and showing us neat sights in the bay.  Incredible!!  After dropping off the rangers about 5 pm, we were once again off to sea.  This shot of Margerie Glacier (near the upper point of Glacier Bay) is from our Lido Deck on the ship.  It was such an awesome sight that we took a lot of pictures of this glacier.

On July 28, we docked in Seward at 6 am.  This was where we left the ship (about 10 am) and set off on a Kenai Fjords tour.  Again, we were out on another jet powered boat and saw many glaciers and more whales.  After the tour, we were taken by bus to our hotel for the night.  I must say at this point we were very impressed with the promptness and professional service we had from every Holland America Representative.  We were at this point done with the "water" portion of our cruise, so we weren't too sure how things were going to go on our land portion.  We were NOT disappointed.

We had the morning of the 29th at leisure, then in the afternoon, we were picked up and bussed to Anchorage where we were to spend the night.  We made it to Anchorage and our hotel (Westmark) about 5:30 pm.  It was still early, so had a quick dinner at a local pub and walked a bit in a park near our hotel before calling it an early evening.

The next morning (early) we were picked up and shuttled to the Alaska Rail Road Depot where we got on a wonderful domed Holland America Line Rail Car for Denali National Park.  Traveling with us was a Holland America Lines (HAL) Rep who took wonderful care of us.  He (Scott) had all our room keys, tour info, etc. all arranged prior to our arriving our destinations.  I forgot to say that we didn't have to worry about our bags either.  After we got off the ship, our bags were picked up at each point along the way and transfered separately to our next destination.  All we needed to worry about was our small carry on's, cameras, meds, and small personal stuff.  We were never in want for anything!!  This is our rail car.  Very nice!!

It was an 8 hour ride to Denali, but we were served breakfast and lunch on board (lower section of car) and of course, there was a bartender on board to take care of all our "liquid" needs.  As you can see in the picture above, the rail car has an open platform in the back where people could ride and get some great pictures.  After we made it to Denali, we were picked up and taken to the McKinnley Chalets where we spent two nights.

In Denali, we had time to take a bus tour back into the Tundra Wilderness and see the wildlife and "The Mountain."  Yes, it was clear and we did see Denali (Mt McKinnley).  We also saw 6 Grizzly Bears, 2 Moose, a herd of Caribou, and many different birds.  We were on a Blue Bird Bus, but we had lots of stops along the way and plenty of time to enjoy the surroundings.

After Denali, we again got on the Alaska Rail Road in a HAL car and headed for Fairbanks.  In Fairbanks, we were signed up for a Gold Dredge Tour and a Stern Wheeler trip up the Chena River.  This portion of the rail trip was 4 hours, so we had a nice afternoon to enjoy before calling it a day.  Speaking of day, it was still daylight out at 11:30 at night.  Thank goodness, the hotel had darkening shades or we never would have gotten any sleep.  This is our train arriving at the station in Denali.

The morning of Aug 2, we were off to see Gold Dredge #8 and get some experience on panning for gold. Ken and I got a few flakes ($21 worth), but the couple that was traveling with us ended up with $45 worth of flakes....(they were the big winners).  Yes, here is Ken panning for his $13 worth of flakes (I got $8).

While at Gold Dredge #8, we got to see the pipe line and hear a long story about it and how it works (impressive).

After the gold and pipe line experience, we were then bussed to the Discovery Stern Wheeler II where we floated up and down the Chena River.  This river flows through Fairbanks and in the winter is frozen solid, so they use "Ice" bridges to cross it.  Today, it was a very hot 87 degree day, so no ice in sight.  We got to see an Athabaskan Village and even got to see a dog sled demonstration while on the river.  The picture below is Ken and I waiting for the stern wheeler.  Of course, there was a huge souvenier complex there.

After all the tours were over, we said good bye to our tour guide and all of Holland America staff.  We extended our stay at the Fairbanks Westmark Hotel by one night, so the morning of Aug 3, we took a shuttle to the Fairbanks Airport and rented a car.  I neglected to say that our grandson Justin, who is in the Air Force, was transferred to Fairbanks Eielson AFB, and he and his family arrived late in July to set up residence for the next three years.  It was our plan all along to take another day here and spend the weekend seeing them.  We did get to see them Saturday afternoon, but the highlight was when we picked them up Sunday at Noon and headed an hour out of Fairbanks to the Chena Hot Springs Resort and Aurora Ice Museum.  We didn't have a lot of time to see everything there, but we did have a wonderful late lunch/early dinner in the restaurant and then had a tour of the Aurora Ice Museum.  What a neat place.  It is always at a constant 20 degrees, and they supply you with very heavy parkas for you to stay warm while enjoying the ice carvings.  We had a wonderful time and our grandkids vowed to go back to spend a weekend.

  

The above first picture is of me and my granddaughter-in-law (Holly) having an Appletini (yummy) in an ice glass.  The second picture is of me, my grandkids Justin & Holly with baby Tristen leaving the ice museum. We had a great time and couldn't believe all they can sculpt out of ice.

After the ice museum, we had a very long drive back to Fairbanks and did have a Moose cross the road just ahead of us.  She was far enough away that there was no worry of us hitting her.  Anyway, as we took them back to where we picked them up, we just had to stop at The North Pole.  There was a visitor center there that we enjoyed, but the Santa Clause House was awesome!!  I never saw soooooo many Christmas decorations....EVER!!  Thank goodness we don't have that much time to decorate our home anymore or otherwise, Ken would have had a hey day picking up more decorations.

These pictures are taken in the town of North Pole.  In the first picture is Holly, Me, Justin (holding Tristen). The second picture is Ken and Me in front of the Santa Clause House.

  

We had a wonderful time with our grandkids, but sadly had to say goodbye as we were due to catch the red eye out of Fairbanks that night and fly back to Portland, Oregon.  We earlier had checked our bags at the hotel where they had an Alaska Airlines Desk, so all we had to do was turn the rental car (a Rav 4) back into Hertz, then make our way to the gate (there were only 6 gates-a very small airport).  We got there at 9:30 pm and were the only ones going through security, so had no problem.  After a bit, more people showed up, but when we boarded at 11:30 pm, there were not that many getting on our plane.  We ended up having a row of three seats each to ourselves (yay).....  We landed at PDX at 4:30 am on the morning of August 5 and our daughter and son-in-law picked us up.  Needless-to-say, we were exhausted and needed some long down time.

After being home for two weeks, we are now in the process of packing and getting ready for our September Salmon fishing trip in Yakutat, Alaska.  For many years, Ken has gone to "Yak", but I have only gone since 1999, so getting a chance to view other parts of Alaska was a dream come true.  Seeing our grandkids while there, was priceless!!!

This is a picture of Ken and Me while at our "Formal Dinner" the second night of our cruise on Holland America.  The next cruise we take will most likely be to another dream spot via Holland America Lines: Australia and New Zealand in 2014!