Alaska 2025

 Today is our transition day between the end of the 10 day sea/land excursion and the southbound sailing from Whittier to Vancouver BC. Since we decided not to drive to Seward, our backup plan was to transfer our goods to the Hilton hotel, and have them store them for the day.  We then took a special trolley tour of Anchorage that lasted one and a half hours. The regular trolley tour only is an hour and doesn't have as many stops. Our tour was scheduled for 11 o'clock, and we had about a half an hour to do some shopping. So we went over to the polar gift shop and stumbled across a close out on some nice Alaska raincoats. We purchased a couple for $15 less 10% coupon special and then return to our tour embarkation point in front of the little park on Fourth Avenue. There were 12 of us on the special tour and we sat with a couple from Connecticut. The tour went down the hill by the railway station to the Ulu knife store where I bought a new and smaller knife. I really like the k...

 Some days have unexpected surprises and today was definitely one of them. We woke up just before 7 o'clock in order to put our luggage out and then dressed and prepared for our day. with everything packed, we gathered up our things and made our way to the shuttle pick up point. It was raining quite hard and fortunately we were able to get right on the shuttle which after a few stop was totally full. We were dropped off in the lobby around 7:30 AM and it was very crowded. We found a place to sit and then get it off to the coffee and snack bar to purchase some breakfast items. Our meal voucher was good for $25 each and we stocked up with sodas, fruit, hot breakfast sandwiches, and other small items for breakfast. We ended up sitting with a couple couples from Kansas and they are going to be on our return cruise to Vancouver as well. We have a great discussion with them. Around 8:30 AM or show group was called out and we boarded one of the school buses normally use for the tundra tou...

 This morning started the earliest the trip with our alarms going off at 4:45 AM. We had to catch our tour at 6 AM so we quickly dressed and then walked up to the lobby where there is a coffee shop and we used our breakfast voucher to purchase breakfast items there. We only used one voucher which was worth $25 and bought some fruit, some sodas and some cheese and a couple hard-boiled eggs. We had our breakfast in the lobby while waiting for the tour bus to arrive. It was prompt and Peter our driver for the day Greeted us just before six. Most of the bus was from our tour group, but he also picked up a few passengers over at the princess Lodge to fill out the bus which was 40 people. Essentially, the tour drives the highway through the park the first part of which is paved, and the bulk of it is not using converted school buses. The driver is equipped with a high-powered camera which is electronically connected to viewing screen so that if any wildlife has spotted, he can focus the ...

 As has been typical on this trip, we had to have our bags out by 6:30 AM and we didn't have to be to the coach until 8:15 AM. So we enjoyed our turkey burrito and banana for breakfast before joining our group and boarding our motor coach with our new driver, Doug.  He transported us about a 15 minute ride to the Chena River where we were to take a river boat cruise. This excursion is one that we really like and I'm glad to see that it was part of this year's offering. The pier where the river boat leaves from has an extensive gift shop, including a room that is kept at 40 below zero so you can experience the cold. The tour is done by the Binkley family and we were on the Discovery III which is the latest of the sternwheel paddle boats that they use to do these tours. It's a nice boat tour down the Chena river with a seaplane landing demonstration to start out with followed by a visit to Susan Butchers kennel where there was a sled dog  demonstration. At the end of the ...

  Our time in the Yukon finally came to an end this morning. We had to have our bags outside the room by 6:30AM. Then we had to line up at the airline ticket desk in the breezeway at the hotel at 7 AM. I was first in line and so it went really fast for me and I returned to the room where we snacked on the food that we had purchased the night before. around 8:15am we boarded our bus and Judy took us out to the airport. At the airport, we were loaded on to a charter Air North 737–700 airplane. But first we had to go through a detailed security screening without the use of scanners. Our bodies were wanded and our luggage carry-on was searched by hand. Fortunately, this year it went smoother than last year so we were able to get on the plane and our tour guide had assigned us the front half of the plane so we were in around the 3rd or 4th row. Air North flies a fleet of 737's. They are long in the tooth to say the least. The one we were flying on was 32 years old. It was a nice clear m...

 Today turned out to be a long day of walking. I logged just over 9 miles of walking. We slept in a bit this morning as we didn't have to have luggage out at 5 AM. After a light breakfast of cheese and crackers and fig bars, we headed out to walk to the ferry. This ferry runs 24/7 across the river and there were six or 8 foot passengers on board including a number from our tour group along with a full load of vehicles. We met a couple, Diane and Lonnie, who were just going to ride the ferry over and back but when we said we're going up to see the paddlewheel boat graveyard they wanted to come along so we walked together.  To get to the paddle wheel boat graveyard, one gets off the ferry and walks up the road 300 yards or so and enters a provincial park. This provincial park is used for camping and it's quite nice. You walk the length of the park and then go down to the river and walk up the river another approximately quarter mile. The graveyard hadn't changed much from...