North to Alaska

Good morning!  Those of you who regularly watch these Thursday videos know that I didn’t post any for the past couple of weeks.  That was because we went on a trip…a trip to Alaska by way of the Inside Passage to Seward, then by motor coach to the Denali National Park and Preserve, and then on to Fairbanks on the Alaska Railroad.   This was a trip that was five years in the planning, and had been postponed several times because of the COVID pandemic.  Finally, however, the stars all aligned and we were able to go these past couple of weeks.

The wife and I didn’t go alone, however.  We also took our sons, daughters-in-law, and four of our oldest grandchildren with us.  Our travel agent went with us as well, making a total of twelve in our group.  We had a great time, saw some things we had longed to see, and generally wore ourselves out in a very good way.

I’ve posted some photos on line that you may have already seen, and will continue to do so, probably one or two at a time.  I don’t like photo dumps, as there usually is no explanation of the photos one sees.  There also are far too many pictures in a dump, most of which probably are never seen.  So I’ll not bore you with lots of generic scenery and pictures of what we ate.  What I will post will be what I consider to be the unusual or the out-of-the-ordinary that we may have seen.

I’ll offer here a couple of takeaways from the trip.  There could be many more, but in the interest of not being boring myself, I’ll limit it to just two or three.

First, Alaska is huge.  And by huge I mean just that.  We traveled for three days in the interior and saw only a small portion of the state.  And the Inside Passage is a whole ‘nuther world with miles and miles of territory that mankind has never to my knowledge set his foot upon.  The state covers four time zones, although by law all of Alaska is on one time.  Alaska’s 730 thousand and some residents roam around with lots of elbow room and lots of open space.  The concept of all of that land in one state of the union is difficult to comprehend.

I’ll not talk here of the incredible scenery and the wildlife of the state.  You can see some of that in the posts I put on my time line.  But do take a look at them.

Second, Alaska’s people are truly a friendly bunch.  Yes, I know that most of the ones we encountered knew we were tourists and catered to us as people who help support them.  But there is a genuineness in most of those we met that is sometimes not always there in others.

Alaskans are also a hardy bunch.  Summers when the night sky never truly grows dark and winters when daylight is a scarce commodity make up the year.  Temperatures range from the 90’s to the 50’s below zero.  Much of the travel done in Alaska has to be done by boat or by air…roads are not very numerous, and even if there are roads, permafrost, landslides, and other natural phenomena make for sometimes difficult travel.  In many communities, virtually everything that comes in to that area comes by barge or by plane.  It’s a different way of life and living.

Third, Alaskans have a sense of humor.  They celebrate the summer and winter solstices, and actually say, “Happy solstice,” to those they greet on those two days of the year.  In Fairbanks, their independent league baseball team schedules a baseball game on the summer solstice…to begin at about 10:30 at night.  They play a full game lasting well into the 1am time and never turn on the stadium lights because the natural light is enough for them to play.

Of course, there is the usual celebratory mood in the crowd, many of whom I suspect don’t really watch much of the game.  Our older son and his wife attended the game, along with one or two from our tour group.  I was invited, but declined as by that time I was getting rather worn out from the trip, and we were scheduled to fly home in just a day or so.

Speaking of flights, we left Wichita at 6am and arrived in Vancouver, Canada shortly after noon Vancouver time.  I was surprised at all of the people already in the Wichita airport at 4 in the morning when we arrived.  It’s really kind of a busy place during that time.

On the flight home, we left Fairbanks at 9:30 pm Alaska time, flying to Minneapolis to catch a connecting flight to Wichita.  We arrived in Minneapolis at about 6am central time.  We had over a four hour layover and arrived in Wichita in the early afternoon Friday.  We had been up since 7am Thursday morning, and had slept only fitfully on the flight from Fairbanks.  I think I don’t really want to do that again.  By the way, the Minneapolis/St Paul airport is about as big as  Alaska, I think.  We walked forever just to get to the departure gate for our connecting flight.  That kind of thing makes one appreciate the smaller places like Wichita’s Eisenhower Airport all the more.

All in all, it was a trip well worth the five year wait.  And to take along our family was just icing on the cake.  If you’re able to do some kind of a once-in-a-lifetime trip like this…it doesn’t have to be an Alaska cruise…it can be anything…please do it if you at all can.  It’s worth it.

 

Blessings,