When we got off the ship we rented a car and headed north to Denali National Park. We really hoped to see Mount McKinley, but we were told that only 30% of the visitors to Alaska are lucky enough to see the mountain. We were among the lucky ones!
The sky cleared for a few minutes, and the mountain is so beautiful!
I think the sight of this majestic mountain was worth our trip to Alaska.
We took a bus trip into the National Park and we saw a lot of wildlife. Our first spotting was this moose.
All the tours into Denali National Park are on converted school buses. The seats are not school bus seats, and it was a pretty comfy ride.
The roads in the park are steep and narrow, and I was so glad that Bob could just sit back and enjoy the ride.
It was overcast the whole day so there were no Denali spottings. That was ok with us because we had our view of the mountain.
We did see this cast of a dinosaur footprint found in the Park,
and Bob checked out this set of caribou antlers.
Moose like to hide in the brush.
We saw a lot of caribou.
This was our first bear spotting. Everyone on the bus got very excited!.
These antlers were on display at the Visitors Center. Two moose fought, locked horns, and stayed that way forever. Sad.
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There’s a small inn at the end of the road in the National Park, and we had lunch there.
After lunch we were given a talk on dog sledding by this man who ran the Iditarod, and won. I was happy to see that he was very smart in choosing his favorite baseball team too!
Don’t you just love the dog’s eye gear?
If you look carefully you’ll see that that animal in the center of the photo is a lynx! They’re not sighted very often, so we got lucky there too!
More bears on the hillside. Momma bear, baby bear, and another bear that made momma bear very angry!
It was so hard to choose which photos to keep and which to eliminate. I loved them all.
That’s not a grouse or pheasant. It’s a ptarmigan, or Alaskan chicken.
We left Denali and headed south in our rental car through Anchorage to the Kenai Peninsula. Our first stop was Seward, and we enjoyed our time there. Those people love to fish! Look at all their boats!
It was in Seward that we took our first ever whale watching cruise. I thought it was just a bunch of hooey and didn’t think we’d see whales at all, but I’m happy to say that I was wrong, and we had a great time on the cruise. This wasn't our boat, but it’s similar, and they served a very nice salmon and prime rib dinner on the cruise.
The whales were beautiful, and Bob did a great job taking pictures, but I'll only show you a few of them.
Some of my favorite shots were of this whale breaching, It was amazing!!
It looked like the whale was having a good time. I hope that it was as happy breaching was we were watching it’s show!
This is a momma with her baby!
It was quite a show, and well worth the trip. No, Bob didn’t get seasick on the whale watch cruise!
We saw more glaciers, and they were just as awesome as the glaciers we saw on our Inner Passage Cruise
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I loved the seals!
The little white dots are puffins! I've always wanted to see puffins, so that’s crossed off my list!
Ah, Homer. While planning our cruise I read about Homer and the Homer Split. It sounded like a beautiful and fun place to visit, and we decided to check it out. You can see the isthmus, or split, in the above photo. Doesn’t it look pretty?
Another view of the Homer Split. If you watch Alaska the Last Frontier, or if you’re a fan of Jewel, this is where the family is from – Homer, Alaska.
OK. This is an up close view of Homer Split. I imagined something beautiful and peaceful, and it turned out to be the Alaska version of the junkiest part of Wildwood! It was filled with tourist traps, and row after row of shops.
There were fleets of fishing boats and, apparently, they do a good job of catching halibut!
More shops.
The Coast Guard has a station here, but we stayed out!
We did see some people fishing for salmon, and I even tried to talk to some men who just snagged a salmon. They weren’t very friendly!
So, that’s it for our FIRST trip to Alaska. We had a really enjoyable trip, saw many beautiful sights, did fun things (zip lining is not included in the fun part ), and we hope to go back again to explore more of this beautiful State.
I think Lauren came in third, but I don't know for sure, because I was still running!
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