We had a great time in Alaska visiting with Nettie and Walter. I am putting just a few of my favorite pictures up to go along with our week. Everyone knows Walter would do nothing wrong……I think the look on his face on the beach in Talkeetna will dispel that theory. Over our week we looked around every corner just hoping to see a bear in the wild. The only one we got a clear sighting on was this one wearing a Thrasher’s shirt. We did get a glimpse of the elusive brown bear on the trail near Bryan Glacier. But it just turned out to be Walter; we made that mistake a couple of times. It seems Walter is not a “follow the trial” kind of guy. On Monday we rode the train to Talkeetna, as you can see Brian thinks his safety training for Norfolk Southern allows him to pass the sign that clearly just applies to untrained tourists. Once we got to Talkeetna we took a jet boat up 3 of the rivers in the area. We were very lucky and got to see ¾ of Mt. McKinley. On the bus ride back Nettie was returning to her Jekyll Island senior status and took the last seat on the bus. There was a lot of giggling going on back there so the rest of us just faced forward for the ride back to town. After dinner we were heading back to our motel room and we got this great picture of Brian at 10:15 pm with daylight in the back ground. On Tuesday we had breakfast intown and then took a flight plane tour to see Mt. McKinley up close. It was a really small plane, just the 4 of us and the pilot. Because the winds were strong we got about 30 extra minutes on our ride. We got to land on a glacier and have snowball fight. Nettie won when she shoved a handful of snow down Walter’s back. We took the train back to Anchorage that night. Apparently the wild animals did not get the memo to be right beside the train tracks, we only saw a few eagles and Nettie saw a porcupine. On Wed, while poor Walter worked, Nettie drove Brian and me down to Seward where we went on a boat ride out into Resurrection Bay. We got to see sea lions, puffins, seals, eagles, lots of birds, an otter and 2 humpback whales. We tried to make it out around the end of the bay to see calving glaciers but the seas were angry and we had to turn around due to 10 to 12 foot waves. It was really great to ride the waves. There were 3 people that we saw did not enjoy the ride as much as we did. One lady raised her hand to be sick and we never saw her again until we docked. We went to the Seward Marine center and got to see the animals that we saw on the boat up close and personal. That is where they bring the injured animals; it was funded by Valdez after the “spill”. On the way back to Anchorage that night we stopped at Exit Glacier. It was really cool to see glaciers that close up. As most of you know Brian cannot be held back by a little rope, so he jumped the rope and got right beside the Glacier. On Thursday Walter was off work so we went to Whittier and got to ride thru the train tunnel. Whittier is everything Nettie and Walter said it would be……Yuk. It took all of 3 minutes to see the whole place. Back on the main side of the tunnel we stopped at the visitor center and walked up to Bryan Glacier. There is a picture of Walter’s contribution to global warming. You can walk on a piece of the glacier with a river running under it. Walter was walking along and stopped to look down a hole and heard a popping noise and then a chunk dropped about a foot with Walter in the middle of it. Lucky for him he was near the side and caught himself with a boulder. There was a terminal moraine just behind the part we were standing on so Walter and Brian decided to go exploring. Want to guess what was on the other side of the big pile of rock??? That’s right more rock!! We drove over to the Alyeska Resort and Brian and I rode the tram to the top. We got to see some parasailers jump off the side of the mountain. Inside the Alyeska resort we saw a polar bear drinking a Coke. It was amazing how it looked like he had human hands. Driving back to Anchorage we stopped at Bird Creek to watch the fisherman and look for salmon. We talked to the park volunteer and there had been 2 bears fishing in the creek but they did not come out while we were there. On Friday, Walter went to work and we continued to play. We went to the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center to see the rescued animals. Nettie found a mold of a brown bear paw. As you can see it is as big as her head. As much as I would have liked to see a bear in the wild that paw print helped me get over it. We wrapped up the day panning for gold in a glacier stream. After an hour no one had found any gold, and we decided we would have not survived in the old days. The water was very cold and moving really fast. That night we ate dinner at a seafood place in downtown Anchorage. We had some great smoked salmon while we waited out the clock for the all you can eat snow crab legs to begin. Once we ordered dinner Brian decided against AYCE and went for a pound of snow crab legs and a pound of king crab legs. They were a lot of work for Brian to get the meat out but the bites I stole were worth it. On Saturday we stayed in town since our flight was that night. We walked down to the train station to do some souvenir shopping. They were having a street market near the station so we walked thru to find some gifts. It was really neat to see the handmade carvings, the clothing made out of muskox hair, things made with fur, and the Avon lady. That evening Nettie dropped us at the airport and we almost gave up our seats for $400 each but they only needed one more seat so we let the guy behind us do it. All and all we had a great time in Alaska. Nettie and Walter were great hosts driving us around all week and doing the sight seeing things that they had already done. Thank you for a great vacation.
No comments:
Post a Comment