Joe Kelly's Alaska Slideshow
By: Import User
Updated: September 19, 2008
Hi there everybody,If you ever get the chance, go north to Alaska.
You'll love it. I was fortunate and got to spend two weeks in Alaska this
summer. The trip was organized by the good folks at Holiday Vacations. They did
a great, great job. It was an incredible trip, made even better because of the
wonderful people I got to travel with.
We flew into Anchorage and toured that area,
including Lake Hood, which is a float plane airport. I'm a licensed pilot but
have never flown a float plane. Not sure I want to. I have a tough enough time
taking off and landing on solid ground. But it was great seeing all the float
planes and visiting an aviation museum. We even bumped into and got to talk with
a veteran "bush pilot" who was visiting the museum.
The motorcoach took us to places such as Whittier,
Palmer, Fairbanks, Denali National Park. We even got to see Mount McKinley,
which is often hidden by clouds and weather. We got lucky, though.
Some of us also got lucky panning for gold at the
El Dorado Gold Mine in Fairbanks. We saw Iditarod Trail sled dogs, the Alaskan
pipeline, and got up close to glaciers. We got lucky there, too, because as we
cruised up close to a glacier a big chunk of ice broke off and plunged into the
sea. It's called "calving."
And we saw moose, bear, caribou, fox and Dall
sheep.
We visited a recreated Athabascan fishing and
trapping village, drove the famous Alaskan Highway and explored the Yukon
Territory, stopping at Whitehorse and Beaver Creek. We rode the White Pass &
Yukon Railway through rugged mountain passes and toured Skagway, where we
boarded the Norwegian Sun for a cruise down the Inside Passage to Vancouver,
B.C.
I'd love to get back to Alaska. Other folks on the
trip would also like to go back. As I said, it was an
incredible experience.
Pictures don't begin to show the beauty of Alaska
and the Yukon and I'm not much of a photographer but I tried. Here are a few of
the more than 1,000 pictures I took.
I hope your travels are happy and
safe.
Joe Kelly
