There are some special places in the world that no matter how many times you’ve seen them, they always are more special than you remember. I know how awe-inspiring Yosemite is, but every time I visit Yosemite Valley that first view as you drive into the valley is always better than what I remembered. The same is true of Yellowstone, and on this trip, it was that way with Alaska.
In my mind I know how wild and scenic Alaska is, but seeing the snow-capped mountains rising up out of the ocean, the small towns dwarfed by the surrounding mountains, the rugged coastline, and all the wildlife once again surprised me as to just how awe inspiring and beautiful it is.
We spent twenty-eight days there and the closest thing we came to an urban area was Anchorage and even there you were minutes away from the wilderness. Our weather varied from warm and sunny to cold and rainy, but the beauty of Alaska was always there. We saw eagles, sea lions, otters, grizzly bears and whales on this trip. We saw glaciers, we sailed up long fjords and visited a few places we’ve only read about or seen on TV. This was truly a wonderful trip for us.
We enjoyed all of it, but I think my favorite experiences were our whale watching tour out Juneau and our visit to the grizzly bear sanctuary out of Prince Rupert. Both of those tours were really special days for us. My biggest disappointment of the trip was catching COVID and missing out on visiting Nome. Nome isn’t exactly what you’d call a picturesque spot, but it so isolated it would have been interesting to visit and since we had rented a car, it would also have been very interesting to explore the surrounding area. Oh well, maybe there will be another time.
It took me two months to publish this blog for a one-month trip, but we’ve been pretty busy and it just worked out that way. No matter how long it takes, I always enjoy going back through what I wrote on the trip, picking out pictures and then publishing a post for each day – I get to relive our trip.
We have some upcoming travels planned, but not all of them will make it to the blog. Soon we’ll be leaving for a week in Lake Tahoe, but we do that so often unless something unusual or special happens, I don’t bother writing about it. After getting back from Tahoe, we take a short break and then head out for a month's trip to New Mexico and I will write about that. We have been talking to my brother about a trip to Michigan next June to visit our family, but that is tentative, and then a year from now, Val and I have booked a two-month cruise into the South Pacific, but that may turn out to be tentative also as Val and I may have some big changes coming in our lives; nothing bad, but it would mean a big change.
I love having travel plans to look forward to so I’m glad to have a few things lined up. Will we end up doing them all? That remains to be seen, but whatever the case, we’ll see you on down the road.
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