Alaska - Land Tour

To celebrate our 15 year anniversary, Tyler wanted to cruise Alaska, so I packed my long pants, sweatshirts, and jacket. I was so excited to get away, do some reading, and have someone totally pamper me for 11 days.

We flew into Anchorage by way of Houston. That's right, Houston. It seemed so wrong to be going in the opposite direction for three hours to turn around and fly for 7 more surrounded by a 2 year old and 2 month old in front of us and a 1 year old sitting next to Tyler. To their credit those kids did amazingly well for such a long flight. The young mother sitting next to us was returning home after spending several weeks with her husband who is deployed to Afghanistan. I took her little guy from time to time to give her a break.

While we were waiting for our connecting flight in Houston, I told Tyler I wanted to try the Blue Bell ice cream that I've heard is supposed to be some darn good ice cream. Well . . . it was okay. Frankly, I thought Tillamook ice cream in Oregon was just as good, maybe even creamier. So that's my take on Texas's ice cream.

When we finally got settled in our hotel in downtown Anchorage (which really isn't much of a downtown) it was still light out and we decided to see Anchorage. When we came out of a store around 10:30 pm, it was still so light. I knew we should head back to bed, but it sure didn't feel like it. Living in Alaska would definitely take some getting used to. I'm afraid my internal clock would be a little messed up. There were many mornings when I woke up thinking we had overslept only to find that it was only 4:30am!

The next morning we hopped aboard the bus headed to Mt. McKinley Princess Lodge. I happened to score the seat right over the tire wheel and was dozing, listening to our bus driver describe his life living in Alaska, when there was a huge pop right under my feet. I opened my eyes to see something black hit the window and I SCREAMED! I thought for sure we had hit a black bear.

No, it was nothing more than a blown tire. But for the remainder of our land tour I got more comments of where I should and should not sit from all the other passengers who were also on our bus.
Mt. McKinley, also known as Denali, is the United States's and North America's tallest mountain. It's tall enough to have it's own localized weather and is often shrouded by clouds. Not many people get to see the entire mountain. When we checked into the lodge there was an option for the front desk to call us should "the mountain" become visible. It is pretty cool to think that from the base to its peak, Denali is the tallest mountain in the world at 20,320 feet (Mt. Everest may be the tallest but it starts at a higher elevation). I was very surprised at how low in elevation Alaska is. I live at a higher elevation on the foothills of the Oquirrh mountains in Utah than most of Alaska. There were many times in our travels where we would come to a summit to find a sign telling us the elevation was somewhere in the 2000 foot range.
After a day at McKinley we headed to Denali where we were supposed to see grizzly bears. Sadly we got skunked. It was the only day of our entire trip where it rained and I think that kept the animals at bay. Also after talking to several others it looked like we should have paid a little extra and taken the 8-hour excursion that takes you deeper into Denali National Forest. That's where they saw the bears.

We did see a caribou and moose. For reals. This is just Tyler's pretend moose.
Alaska is unique in that you can go from forests, where they only have basically 3 types of trees due to the permafrost and very short summers, to tundras where there is little vegetation. There are no hardwoods like maples and oaks, only softwoods. There are so many lakes that many of them are not even named, and there aren't many roads. In fact the main road connecting Anchorage to Fairbanks was only completed some 40 years ago.

Our final day on land included a 9-hour train ride to meet our cruise ship. It truly was a scenic way to see Alaska, but I was ready to get off the train and experience life on a cruise.