Alaska

I would love a vacation in alaska, thats my dream vacation. Are you flying or a cruise?

 

Are you driving? If you are you might want to take a jaunt down to Skagway to see the narrow guage train there. You can go for a ride to the summit and back on the train, too, but it seems pretty expensive to me, and you can see the summit on the car trip down there, anyway. There are quite often various sorts of ships in the dock there in Skagway as well.

Taking the southeast Alaska ferry is not expensive if you are a walk-on (no vehicle), and you can access that from Skagway, too. The scenery from the ferry is spectacular--iceburgs, glaciers, whales, seals, etc, etc. You could park your vehicle at the ferry terminal and take a trip on the ferry down to Juneau and then come back.

There is a railroad from Anchorage down to Seward, too, that is interesting.

You will see a lot of good natural sites just driving around Alaska. Don't miss Denali, for sure.
We have always camped on our trips. It's a lot cheaper, but you need to be of the hardy sort. We are used to the wilderness, so we are quite comfortable with camping, but others aren't. My seventy-year-old uncle from Kansas took a trip there a few years ago, and he and his wife slept on a mattress in the back of their topper covered pickup bed. He loved it, couldn't get enough, and his wife hated it.

Anyway, I have been just about everywhere in Alaska. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. There's a good chance I'll know the answer.

 

Ed and I just returned from Alaska. You have been given some great advice.

We went on Holland America's Volendam. Because time was limited, we cruised from Vancouver to Juneau, Skagway,Glacier Bay, Ketchikan and back to Vancouver.


It was a wonderful trip...saw lots of wildlife, birds, whales, eagles...even a brown bear. The scenry was spectacular. The most impressive site was the calving of a glacier and the sound of white thunder.

We also enjoyed meeting people, lots of Canadians, people from all over the world, South Africa, from all the United States. Everyone was so friendly.

My husband wore his OU hat and we met people at every port that had attended or graduated from the University of Oklahoma. The most dangerous part of the trip was encounters with Oklahoma State University fans, students, and graduates.

I have to leave now to get pictures developed and the digital ones on CD.

I'm sure Ed will have them up on his website soon.

 

Thankful,

Did you take the bus trip up from Skagway to Whitehorse? Whitehorse is where I live, so I'm curious.....

Rebecca

 

No, Rebecca, we didn't. I'm not sure if we had time to do so. Wish we had known that you lived there and we would have tried to make time to take the trip. Some road the train, but we just stayed in Skagway.

You live in some beautiful country. We had wonderful weather, just a few sprinkles. Returned home to rains and flash floods. We had 1/2 inch of rain yesterday in 30 minutes and this morning an inch of rain in about 2 hours. This is very unusual for June in Oklahoma.

 

Rebecca, we did a bus trip from Skagway up into the Canadian mountains. Is that near Whitehorse? It is stunningly beautiful.

Ernie, make sure that you see Skagway & Haines. I've heard that the Alaskan ferry system is quite reasonable, and it travels the same passages that the cruise ships do.

Whatever you do, enjoy the beauty that God created up there.

 

Thankful,

You probably didn't have time. Holland-America usually runs tour buses up here from the cruise ships if there is time.

If I'd have known you were coming, I just might have buzzed down to Skagway for a cup of coffee.

It was an absolutely beautiful day out here today. Sunny, 70 degrees F. Took the dog for a long walk on the trail down by the Yukon River. The new leaves are on the trees, several kinds of wildflowers are blooming, and there is still some snow on some of the sand banks in the river.

I grew up in wild and wooly parts of Minnesota, but I could never move back--way too much civilization for me....

Fof S,

Well, the only road out of Skagway goes to Whitehorse, so you must have gone at least partway here. We're about 100 miles from Skagway.....

 

Ernie, we watched as RV's of all sizes were loaded on a ferry. The ferry is very different from the kind we took in the Gulf of Mexico. These look just like small cruise ships.

Are you going by car, RV?