Big animals behind wire

From the SeaLife Center, we drove north up the Seward Highway, up the Kenai Peninsula, through the beautiful Chugach National Forest and Chugach Mountains, toward our evening’s destination:  Alyeska (or do you say Girdwood?).  I believe it was the only truly BRIGHT, sunny day of the whole trip, from beginning to end. We passed Sheep Mountain (Sheep [...]

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Sea life after the Exxon Valdez

  Before leaving Seward, after boarding our tour bus and meeting up with the guide and passengers for our land tour, we took a short drive to the Alaska SeaLife Center, where we saw the birds, water mammals, and fish of Alaska.   Seward is roughly 100 miles by sea from Bligh Reef—the site where the Exxon [...]

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The top ten percent: Our view of Hubbard Glacier

Between 6 and 10 a.m. on the last full day of our cruise, our ship pulled up to Hubbard Glacier, the longest tidewater glacier in Alaska, and one of the few in the world that is currently advancing (i.e. growing).  Stretching 76 miles to the sea at Yakutat and Disenchantment bays, it has an open [...]

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Can you get there from here?

Our excursion from Skagway to Haines and the Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve was definitely the single best day of our trip.  But we almost didn’t get there, and the story about my numerous foiled attempts to make arrangements tells you something about the difficulties of traveling in Alaska – especially if you’re on a [...]

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Juneau: After the Twisted Fish

After my rafting trip on Mendenhall Lake and River, Mom and I reconnoitered and spent the afternoon on dry land in Juneau. (Well—they tell me it was dry land.  I could feel the earth moving under my feet after so much time on the Pacific Ocean.  And it rained hard enough to soak through the [...]

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Librarian’s lake

  Our first Alaskan port was Ketchikan.  I was excited to arrive because I had convinced my mother to go on her very first paddling trip with me, somewhere in the Tongass National Forest (the cruise ship excursion description didn’t tell us where).   Knowing that we were going to the Tongass National Forest didn’t help [...]

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How big IS Alaska?

Yes, we all know that Alaska is the largest state in the union.  Yes, Alaska is more than twice the size of Texas. (Perhaps this is meaningful to Texans.)  Sure, we can read that Alaska is 586,412 sq. miles in area and has 40,544 miles of shoreline.  But what does that mean, really? This question [...]

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