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| Glacier as seen from the ship. |
I like thinking of life as an adventure. Discovering every day something new about the world around me as well as about myself. Learning how to live as a single person and finding joy in it all, I will admit at times is a challenge. The loneliness can be a killer. But getting out on the road, meeting new people, seeing new places, and experiencing things outside of my comfort zone I have found to be very satisfying if not challenging. But through it all I see life and living all around and know that I just have to keep getting out there and stay involved. This I realized as I took my first ever “tour”—part cruise, part bus. Now I have cruised before and found a great pleasure in it,, but now having done 3 of them, choosing another one will depend on where in the world it will take me. This one took me to Alaska.
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| The Mendenhall Glacier |
If you want to talk about a rugged state and rugged people this is a place to put on your list. First I found it beautiful in many ways, but extreme also. The rawness of it’s natural resources were a wonder to look at and experience. We were lucky to have experienced a very passive inside passage of Alaska. Lots of fog, but wait fifteen minutes and the weather would clear. An ever changing landscape presented itself as we cruised down the waterway.
Heading further up north from Vancouver, found us experiencing a drop in temperature with each passing day. As we approached the glaciers it was bitter at times, but experiencing the glaciers and floating ice, took my mind off my numb lips and cold hands. I was trying to imagine how the natives of Alaska survived the harshness this part of the world handed out.
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| Up close and personal |
The cruise ship stopped in three ports during our 7 days. Ketchikan, Skagway, and the capitol of Alaska, Juneau. I discovered that the cruise lines work very hard to get you to shop at their shops often making you believe you are doing the local economy good. But in Alaska there was an opportunity to find the local shops and in the end make out better doing business with the “real locals” not the cruise-line owned stores that filled the streets. I made it a point to talk with a couple of locals and got directions to the locally owned businesses rather than to further pad the pockets of the cruise lines. In doing this I saved money. I was asked by a friend to pick up an Ulu knife, found everywhere in Alaska. I found them in a locally owned business for $6.99 each. But the shops owned by the cruise line was 13.99 and 21.99. Same box, same packaging.
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| Ketchikan as seen from the ship. |
The towns were small, somewhat ragged (except for right where the port was) and it was easy to see that life was not full of many opportunities living there. Juneau, the capital of the state of Alaska was not very pretty. The tour guide who drove us through town described the capital building as the uglies capital he had ever seen. He was right. It was not very pretty or grand at all.
One of the locals told me that the towns we were visiting were towns we had to drive to, not thru. One way in and one way out.
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| Totem poll done by a native carver. |
I enjoyed seeing this part of Alaska but know from what I have read, that there are other exciting and adventurous places to visit. Something to consider as I make my new travel choices.
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| Strolling the town with the clouds hovering close. |
Tomorrow I will share the adventures of traveling with a tour group and the characters I met along the
way.
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| Driving back from our road tour. |
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