Tuesday, June 21

Our last day in Alaska.

Today Steve is on an all day fishing adventure with Millers Landing Charters.  This is a combination trip, Halibut and Salmon, but we know there probably won't be any Salmon since we are too early for the Salmon run.  I plan to check out the town of Seward and relax.

Seward is a nice little town with a few gift shops.  There are no expensive jewelry stores like all of the other Ports.  I spent a few hours walking the town and checking out the shops.  I found some beautiful Qiviut (Musk Ox) yarn and just had to buy a skein.  It is very expensive so 1 skein was all I purchased.  I don't know what I will make with it, but whatever it is, I will keep for myself.  On Friday after disembarking from the ship and starting our Land Tour we stopped at the Alaska Wilderness Conservation Center on our way from Seward to Anchorage.  There were several Musk Ox there.  I have never seen nor heard of Musk Ox before, but they are very wooley animals.  I noticed a wood post that had lots of wool on it from the Musk Ox rubbing against it and commented that it would be fun to gather the wool and find someone to spin it.  Little did I know, when we visited the gift shop, they had Musk Ox fiber on display and spun yarn from it.  It is very soft and beautiful when it is processed into yarn.  I just had to have some, but didn't want to pay the price, so for the rest of our trip I checked out all of the stores and finally found some in Seward.

Steve had a great day of fishing.  A 60 lb halibut, 12 lb yellow eye, and his limit (4) of black rock fish.  Add both of our limit (8) of black rock fish from the previous day and we have a nice amount of fish that is being shipped home to us via Fedex.

Our friend's John and Sharon Hively have been traveling through Alaska in their RV.  They started their adventure about a week before we started our cruise.  We have been keeping tabs on them through text and Facebook.  They were leaving Denali Park as we were arriving and surprisingly enough we passed them on the highway as they were headed to Anchorage and then on to Homer.  As I was checking e-mail today I received an e-mail from them saying they would be in Seward this afternoon and did we want to meet up for dinner.  I immediately responded yes.  We met at the Chinook Restaurant and caught up on all of our adventures.  We were the last to leave the restaurant at 11 p.m.  It was still bright and light outside.  We all commented on the fact that it never gets dark in Alaska.  John and Sharon are continuing their adventure and slowly making their way home and we are headed back to Anchorage in the morning to catch our plane home.

Alaska is an amazing place to visit and we have enjoyed every minute.

We have been asked by lots of folks what we thought about the trip.  We have had not one issue with reservations, cost overruns, appointments, excursions, luggage (other than one of our bags decided this was it's last trip), nothing.  No complaints. We did find we spent a lot of cash on tips.  We took enough, but we were running out by the end.  We would definitely recommend an Alaska visit to anyone who asks.

Yellow Eye 12 Lbs

Steve's Halibut is the one in the Middle 60 Lbs

John, Sharon, Steve and I enjoying dinner in Seward

Water Runoff from the Exit Glacier in Seward

Monday, June 20

This morning we said our goodbyes to Glen and Tobey and wished them a safe and speedy trip back to St. George.  It was fun sharing our Alaska adventure with them and will be seeing them soon.

Steve and I picked up our rental car and headed back to Seward for 1-1/2 days of deep sea fishing.  I am joining Steve for an evening 1/2 day of fishing.  This should be interesting, I have never been deep sea fishing before and am excited and apprehensive about it.  I still have my sea sick patches from our cruise, so I have one on, plus my sea bands, and am ready to go.

It took us abut 2-1/2 hours to drive from Anchorage to Seward.  We arrived in plenty of time to  have lunch at the Seward Brewery, find our hotel and leave off our luggage and we were told to visit the Fish House for rain gear.  It looked like we might get some rain that evening, but the next day looked like it was going to be clear.  I picked up a nice light weight rain jacket/wind breaker in Anchorage and Steve found a very nice rain jacket/wind breaker at the Fish House in Seward.  We sprayed our jeans and shoes with water repellent and headed to Miller's Landing for our Charter.  We found that we were the only 2 booked for the evening fishing.  Also, found out that the Salmon was not running yet, but we would have rock fish for catching.

Off we went.  The guide was very patient with me since I was a newby.  Steve caught the first fish, but threw it back.  I caught the next fish and we both limited out on Black Rockfish (bass type fish). I caught the biggest!!  So excited.  We got back to the dock about 10 p.m. and headed back to our hotel.

Launching the Boat

The big one in the Middle is Mine

Steve and I limited out on Black Rock fish

Sunday, June 19

This morning we had a leisurely breakfast in Glitter Gulch, just out of Denali Park.  We spent a couple of hours just walking around and checking out the gift shops.

At noon we were back on our Motor Coach headed back to Talkeetna.  We had about an hour to spare in Talkeetna before boarding the Alaska Wilderness Express train for our journey back to Anchorage for the night.  The train ride was a nice change from the motor coach we had been riding in the last 3 days and very enjoyable.  Our dinner was exceptional.  We arrived in Anchorage at about 9 p.m. and headed to the downtown Marriott for our last night of our CruiseTour adventure.  We said goodbye to our Tour Guide and Motor Coach driver and headed off to bed.

Waiting for the train to arrive

Here comes the train

Our rail car, the Wilderness Express

Saturday, June 18

Denali Park is our destination today.  Steve and I are scheduled for the 62 mile (124 mile roundtrip) Tundra Wildness Tour.  We are hoping to see the "Big 4" (Moose, Grizzly, Dall Sheep, and Caribo).

We were not disappointed.  We saw 6 Moose, 4 Grizzly, 12 Caribo and 9 Dall Sheep.  It was a very good tour.  The Grizzly were quite a ways from us, so we only saw them up close and personal through our binoculars.  There was a Mama laying down for a nap with her 2 very active and playful cubs.  She kept swatting at the cubs so they would leave her alone.  The other grizzly that we saw was by itself out in an open area just lumbering along.

It was too cloudy to see the entire mountain, but the wildlife made up for it.

Our tour was about 7 hours long and we were ready to get off the bus for the night.  Our accommodations in Denali were marginal at best and the restaurant service was slow and the price was way expensive.  We were ready to head back to Anchorage the next day.

Moose in Denali

Friday, June 17

Our cruise is coming to an end.  We have arrived in Seward and will disembark the ship at 7:50 a.m. or there abouts.

We are headed to Anchorage on a motor coach, the Monarch, for lunch and to pick up our luggage. From Anchorge we are headed to Talkeetna for the night.  Tonight is laundry night and an evening to just kick back.  2 loads of laundry later, we are repacked and sitting outside the lodge enjoying the beautiful evening.  We definitely chose the right time to visit Alaska, the mosquitoes are not out yet, so we can enjoy the outdoors.

Thursday, June 16

This morning we woke up to an incredible sight.  We were in the inlet to the Hubbard Glacier.  This is our first sighting of ice floating in the water and our Captain got us within a 1/2 mile of the glacier. You could hear the cracking and loud booms from the glacier as it was calving.  An incredible sight.

The rest of the day we were at sea heading toward our final destination, Seward, AK.  We spent the time remembering all that we saw and did the last 6 days.

Steve was very successful at the Roulette wheel as you can see from one evenings winnings.  2 more nights yielded the same winnings.  He quit after that. we met new people, had fantastic dinners and desserts and saw incredible sights.

Roulette Winnings

Steve's choice of dessert.  Our Waiter made this especially for him

Hubbard Glacier

Wednesday, June 15

We are in Skagway today.  It is really warm outside, beautiful blue sky.  Steve is thinking he should be in shorts!!

Our excursion today is the White Pass Railroad and Klondike Highway.  The White Pass Railroad is an old Narrow Gauge railroad that was established to help the Gold Miners make the trek between Canada and Alaska.  We had beautiful scenery and a view of the old foot trail the miners used back in the day.  The Miners had to have 1000 pounds of supplies before Canada would let them enter so they made several 36 trips to and from Alaska with 50#'s of supplies on their backs or pack horses to get enough supplies so they could enter Canada. And then, I think they had travel 300 to 600 miles to the gold fields. I must say they were very trusting, leaving their supplies at the border and returning for more.  It was common that when they got back to their claim what they left behind would probably not be there when they got back.  Boy, those people were a lot tougher than we are. We ended our train ride in Fraser, Canada, boarded a bus and drove on the Klondike Highway back to Skagway.

In our travels the last few days we have found that most of the young adults working in the shops, driving the buses, etc., were recruited from college campuses from all over the world.  They come to Alaska for 4 months during the tourist season to work and then return to school in mid Sept or October.  One of the young guys said he will miss the fall semester because he won't be back in time, but will return for the winter semester.  I think about being 18 - 21 years of age in the 70s and there is no way I would have struck off on my own or with a friend to Alaska for 4 months.  I guess the kids are more adventuress than I was.

White Pass Railway

Original Trail from Alaska to Canada

Original Trail Bridge