Alaska Gallery

While out here on the west coast, Julia and I figured that a few trips to see some of this side of the country would be in order. So here's our quick 3-day tour (plus a day of travel on either end) of some of what Alaska has to offer.

This is my first attempt at using my new Canon D30 camera. While it's certainly a very potent piece of electronics, it always takes a bit of getting used to something different.

Note that the white-water rafting pictures are coming later, as I didn't want to risk my new camera in the water (a wise move, I might add), and we used cheap-o disposable waterproof cameras instead. Still gotta scan in those pics.

The Pictures

The Journal

Here's a short journal by Julia of our trip.

August 3, 2001 We flew into Fairbanks, and luckily my luggage arrived safely. I had specifically packed two carry on pieces of luggage, which was difficult because I had no idea how to pack for the Alaska summer weather. When we checked in they said we were only allowed one carry on because the plane was packed. And was it! They asked for ten volunteers to give up their seats. So I checked my bag, and the plane was full of people, but there was definitely room for more bags overhead. I got increasingly frustrated as our plane was delayed. I was concerned that we wouldn't make our next flight, or we would and my bag wouldn't make it. But it did. We took a shuttle to our hotel. We had dinner at Chena's Fine Dining and Deck. That was when I started to clue in that we were the youngest people (besides grandkids) on vacation in Alaska. We went to the Aurorium Northern Lights slide show where my theory was confirmed. The show started off slowly, but got much better, with some beautiful and amazing shots of the aurora borealis. We came back to the hotel where it was weird for it to be so late, yet so light.

August 4, 2001 Wake up time: 6 a.m. We took the Alaska Railroad from Fairbanks to Denali where we had spectacular views of the Alaska landscape. We painstakingly kept our eyes open for moose, or any wildlife for that matter, but we didn't see any. Okay, I didn't see any, and Nadim saw a moose off in the distance but was unable to get a picture. We arrived in Denali and took the hotel shuttle to the Denali River Cabins on the Nenana River. We checked out the gift shops and skipped some stones on the river. Then we got ready for whitewater rafting on the Nenana. I wasn't sure what to expect, so I dressed very warmly. When we got there they provided us with drysuits and a floatsuit which was very thick. So when it was all said and done I had ten layers on top, five layers on my feet, five layers on my legs, and 8 layers on my butt area. Good thing too since the water was glacier runoff and 35 degrees! So I got to enjoy the rafting from my own little cocoon. Luckily Nadim had the brilliant idea to get underwater cameras from Walmart before we left so hopefully we got some good pictures. After we got back we had dinner and called it a night.

August 5, 2001 Today was a bit frustrating, but we did get to see and do some cool stuff. We had problems with the handicapped accessible shower, with getting the ice cold water to heat up, keeping the shower head from falling, and keeping the water from running all over the floor. And then the van that was supposed to pick us up at 8:30 didn't get there until 9. But we immediately felt better when we were handed a puppy to hold when we got off the van. We were taking Jeff King's Iditarod dog kennel tour. We learned a lot about dog sled racing and saw some beautiful dogs. We headed back to our hotel, had lunch, and headed over to the bus tour. We ended up in the back of the bus, which was good because we could see out the back of the bus, but bad because the bus driver couldn't hear us when we wanted him to stop so we could look at wildlife. We saw a wolf, many caribou, a grizzly bear and her cub, a Dall sheep way off in the distance, and a moose, again far away. We got back in time to squeeze in a quick hike before heading back to the hotel to find the hot tub out of order, so we hit the sauna.

August 6, 2001 Today we took a helicopter ride to a glacier and got to walk on it. I felt like I was in an Imax film. We saw a glacier surge, which apparently is a pretty rare event. It was 4 degrees Celsius outside on the glacier. We saw blue ice. On the helicopter ride back we saw moose, sheep, and caribou. We then hit the gift shops and saw The Night Sky film about the northern lights. We were the only ones in the theater. We then took the Alaska Railroad back to Fairbanks and got to our new hotel.

August 7, 2001 We took it easy today, we slept in late and caught our flight home.

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