North (but mostly West) to Alaska

Ted. Way back in 2010, Judy joined several friends on a visit to Alaska. Ever since then, she has been promising to take me there. Not only was the scenery unparalleled, it would be the 50th state that I had visited (a goal that Judy herself had accomplished a few years ago). Well, the time had finally arrived! 

It is not easy to fly from Edmonton, Alberta to Anchorage, Alaska. We first had to fly to Vancouver and then to Seattle. We boarded our third flight of the day around 8:30pm (local time) and taxied out onto the runway, only to be told that there was a mechanical problem with the plane. In my experience, it is always better to learn about a problem on the runway than at 35,000 feet so we had no objections when the pilot returned our plane to the gate and asked to get off. Fortunately, we were able to rebook another flight departing three hours later. We landed at 2:00 am (local time) and staggered in to bed around 3:00 in the morning (exactly 24 hours after waking up in Edmonton). 

The next morning, we were scheduled to take a floatplane from Anchorage up to Mt Denali, the tallest mountain in North America. Unfortunately, the mountain was socked in with bad weather so that flight was scrubbed. We picked up our rental car and grabbed some excellent Mexican food at El Jefe Taco Joint but spent most of the day catching up on our sleep. 

The next morning, we tried once more to fly up to Denali but again the flight was cancelled. By now it was time to drive down the Kenai Peninsula to our home for the next eight days – the small fishing town of Seward. While the weather was still pretty wet, we were able to sneak some glimpses of the beautiful snow capped peaks and raging rivers. The photo below was taken from the deck of our little cabin in a hemlock forest. My first impression was most favorable!

Mt Eva