from the porches

mt. mckinley

     

Onward with our journey. Next stop:  Mt. McKinley.  We rode the McKinley Express rail to Whittier, Talkeetna and then motor-coached to Mt. McKinley Princess Wilderness Lodge.  We both agree the next time we go to Alaska we will go by rail.  The luxury of a train is definitely the way to go. You can play cards across the table or dine in the dining car, order drinks or just plain old walk up wide aisles.  But I do have a lesson for you.  Run to the train first so you can grab the seat facing the front of the train.  We lagged behind because we knew we had an assigned table on the train, but by the time we boarded another couple had chosen the best seats; therefore we were in essence riding backwards.  It's hard to take photographs backwards.

     

    

I was fascinated by the houses with sod roofs and loved the tasteful placement of homes in the trees along the mountains.

    

    

Even the McKinley Princess Lodge was environmentally friendly.

    

 How about this wolf?  He doesn't look too friendly, does he?

    

Since it is rainy or cloudy most of the time at Mt. McKinley, you have to get lucky to see the highest mountain in North America.  And we were lucky!  Truett was able to capture the bottom and top of the mountain (to the left), but as you can see a cloud hugged the middle of it. Mt. Mckinley was 80 miles away from us.

    

So are you ready for some wildlife on our tour around Mt.McKinley area?

How about a moose?  Just as the bus turned a corner to leave the lodge, there it stood. Thank goodness it was on my side of the bus so I could photograph it. 

    

How about a caribou?

         

The guides said we were lucky to see caribou because they have a low tolerance for mosquitoes.  (Worse than Florida's mosquitoes unless you live on the river.)  Because Alaska gets a lot of rain, they have tons of these biting, pesky insect.  The caribou will soon migrate north because their hide is not thick enough for mosquitoes.  This fellow is lying on a cool riverbed.

Well, that's it for today.  I feel like I have re-traveled Alaska this week.  Whew!

                                        

 

glacier bay

Following Skagway we boarded the ship and headed for Glacier Bay and College Fjord.  Truett stands in front of our Princess ship after spending a long day on a Motorcoach through the Yukon for hours, and look.  He's still smiling.

    

This was our very first cruise and I find that even though it was nice to be pampered by courteous stewards, our goal was to photograph Alaska first and foremost.  In this next picture you will get a glimpse of the Princess.  Our stateroom was immediately to the right of the rescue boat on the far right.  It will be the one with the balcony adjacent to the red roof of the rescue boat.  This is where we spent plenty of time gazing at the ocean, icebergs, glaciers and mountains.

    

I suppose you have all heard about the meals on a cruise.  All you can eat all day long.  A never-ending buffet.  Truett and I chose the anytime dining and chose not to dress up in formal wear even though we packed it.  At one point we looked at each other and said,  "This is our vacation.  We can do what we want to do."  We preferred to look off our deck at the wonders of Alaska.

I must tell you the next picture disturbed me.  I had already eaten when I spied this delightful main dish on the sideboard.

    

Poor pig.  Here's how we spent our days on the ship.

                   

                            

Now for some of those good old Alaska wonders.

    

                                                 glaciers

    

    Face of a glacier.  The dark line was caused as the glacier carried rock and debris with it.  The pile at the bottom of it just "calved" into the sea.

     

 An iceberg.  The bottom is 9x larger than the top or more.  I had fun forming animals out of icebergs like I do clouds in the sky.

    

This is not the pavement where the snowshoe hare was.  This is ice in the water.  Brrr!  I think I'll go curl up and read my book now. 

ketchikan

During our cruise to Alaska we sailed from Vancouver to Ketchikan, Alaska's first city.  Ketchikan is located on an island and began as a fishing camp.  Ketchikan comes from a Tlingit Indian phrase meaning "eagle with spread-out wings" and refers to a waterfall near town.  Truett and I spent most of our time on our balcony of the Princess ship photographing mountains, water, birds and other cruise ships.  I liked this ship particularly because it was so colorful.

    

                                      It even looks like it has lips.

   

While in Ketchikan we toured the dense forest of the Rainforest Wildlife Sanctuary.  We strolled through tall stands of hemlock, spruce and Alaska cedar.  The whole time I kept my eyes open for a bear which the young tour guide said was a possibility. I did see a bear in a clearing but it ducked into the forest opposite us so I was unable to photograph it.  You will find that many of my pictures will be of wildlife.

 I was able to feed Reindeer and observed a totem pole carver at work.

    

   

Here is an injured eagle and Great Horned Owl living in the sanctuary.  Eagles in Alaska are as common as cardinals in Florida.

   

The next day we headed on up the Inside Passage toward Juneau, Alaska's state capitol.  Many people want to change the capitol to another city because there are no roads into Juneau.   The only way to get there is by boat or plane. 

Whale watching was one of our major events.  I must have taken thirty pictures of whales, orcas and Stellar sea lions in all, but will only share a few.

     

    

 The humpback whales were swimming shallow because the krill were near the surface.  Many of my pictures show part of the whale's back, so I decided to show the tail since it's easily recognized as belonging to the whale.

The Stellar Sea Lions were so cute.  Here is a photo of them huddled on a bouy to escape being eaten by the Orcas.

                      

I do believe this is enough for one post so tomorrow we'll pick up with the Mendenhall Glacier and an original Alaska Salmon Bake.  Yummy!