Alaska

We just got back on Sunday from our trip to Alaska. It was one of my favorite vacations. We spent 11 days driving around in a motorhome to check out the state. The beauty and wildlife there is just amazing. Here are some pics from our trip. When we got home we had over 500 pics, we narrowed it down to 200. I'm only going to show you 21 for now to keep it easy. :)

Here's our ride for the trip:

We first headed up to Denali National Park. Thankfully we were able to get a glimpse of the mountain. WOW!! We took a bus ride into the park one day and we got to see some amazing wildlife. The funny part of the bus ride is that the driver tells the passengers that it is their responsibility to spot the wildlife and when you do yell out "stop" and he will stop the bus. I would think that would be stressful but he seemed to handle it very well.

At one point on the bus ride we came alongside of a momma bear and her little one. We got some great pics of it. It was sooooo cool to see grizzlies up close like that.

Big Bull Moose that Ry spotted.

Caribou

After spending a few days in Denali we headed up to Fairbanks. About the only thing we did there was pan for gold. Suz found it very fun, one might say she ended up with "gold fever".

After Fairbanks we did some driving and eventually ended up in Seward where we took a 9 hour boat trip out into Kenai Fjords National Park. We picked a boat that went the farthest into the park and it was well worth it. We probably saw at least a dozen humpback whales, some sea otters, 4 orca whales and lots and lots of seals and sea birds. We even got to see some amazing glaciers along the way as well.

At one point we ended up with 3 humpback whales playing around our boat and one surfaced right next to the boat and caused just about everyone on the boat to let out some sort of a scream/holler.

The boat captain let us know that the 4 orcas that we saw were transient orcas rather than local ones. What proved that fact was that we almost ended up with a "National Geographic" moment as the orcas tried to chase down a young humpback. The adult humpbacks intervened and the orcas ended up swimming away.

Seal popping up near the boat.

View of a couple of glaciers from the boat.

Cute little sea otter.

Ry on the boat. He was actually somewhat smiling for the pic.

After out boat trip we headed to Exit Glacier to take a hike up to the Hardding Ice Fields. We almost stopped and did not go to the top because of the fog, but we decided to push through and we were very happy that we did because the sun was shinning at the top and the views were absolutely spectacular.

The only picture of the two of us on the trip taken on the way down of our Exit Glacier hike.

On our hike Ry finally found the Alaska state flower "Forget Me Not" and got a great picture.

Alaska is an amazingly beautiful place and we had the best time. I don't think either of us have a favorite part of the trip as all of it was just amazing.

More pics to come later possibly. :)