North to Alaska and the last state – 50 states – check!!!! June 9 – 16, 2013 What a grand finale in our quest to do all 50 states. The Golden Princess Cruise ship took us a total of 2,267 miles to Skagway, Alaska along the Inside Passage. We started the trip on a ferry from Bremerton in Puget Sound to Seattle. If you see the photo of the ferry, the small people, by the spot of pink is us. The Ellis’ took the photo from their home in Port Orchard. Alaska – the Land of the Midnight Sun where the sun rose at 3:44 a.m. and set at 10:04 p.m. We were blessed with perfect viewing weather the whole way. Alaska is considered the Last Frontier. The population of the entire state is 690,000 much less that the Capital District area. It is two and a half times the size of Texas. Piper once said, “I feel like I am in my imagination.” That is how we felt the whole trip! We cruised in Puget Sound, past Vancouver Island and Olympic National Park, in the Lynn Canal the (US deepest and most narrow canal) and in the Tracey Endicott Arm to Sawyer Glacier and in the Gulf of Alaska just to name a few. Our stops were Ketchican (the salmon capitol of the world), Skagway (population 690), Victoria and Juno. And yes, we saw where Sarah Palin grew up. We saw the Sawyer and Mendenhall Glaciers, hundreds of water falls (called ice falls, one of which was 1,550 vertical feet – the longest falls in the US), humpback whales, dolphins, orca’s, sea lions, puffins and salmon ladders - again just to name of few. We learned all about the Klondick Gold Rush which was actually in Canada and not Alaska at all) and visited the National Park and heard presentations from the on-board naturalist Kathy Slump who made us be in awe of all that Alaska is! Alas, Chuck also got to practice what he teaches by helping a passenger who had a heart attack on the upper deck. The cruise was unforgettable!
Posted on: Wed, 19 Jun 2013 04:40:30 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015