Not Quite Home

 Recently, Ward and I took a trip to Alaska, with stops in Seattle on the way there and back. I am chronicling it here.

After an uneventful flight from Anchorage, we found Caroline waiting for us at the baggage claim in Seattle. On the way back to her house in Poulsbo, I said the first thing I wanted to do was visit the famous Sluy's Bakery, which was recommended by blogger friend, Lili. So that's what we did. There was a line out the door, but the peanut butter and chocolate cookie I had was worth the wait.

The day was hot, and we were tired, so we didn't spend any more time exploring the charming town of Poulsbo. We spent the rest of the day at Caroline's house catching up and watching the fun movie, Enola Holmes. The movie is based on the children's books by Nancy Springer and features Sherlock Holmes' younger sister, Enola. 

The next day, we had a leisurely morning before heading out to the Grand Forest for a hike.

We hiked through a lush hemlock forest.

This was not quite what we expected when we saw a lake on the map.

After Indian food for dinner, we watched another Enola Holmes movie. These have inspired me to finally read the books. I have the first one on deck.

The next morning, Caroline took us to the airport, which involved a pleasant ferry ride. 

Our trip was not delayed like it was when we flew to Seattle from Baltimore.

From the plane, we had one last look at the spectacular, rugged mountains in the west
before we flew home to our beautiful, rounded mountains in the east.
(That's Mt. Rainier in the distance.)

We were happy to be home, but not happy with the temperature. A lightning strike damaged our air conditioner while we were gone. Theo had met with a repairman, and a part had been ordered, but it was not in yet. We really appreciated our cool(er) basement and fans until things got fixed the next day.

It was a wonderful trip with beautiful scenery, experiences, and friends. We couldn't ask for anything more. 

Alaska, June 28, 2025, Last Day

   Ward and I recently took a trip to Alaska. We flew into Anchorage (via a stop in Seattle) and used our friends' house as our home base. I am chronicling our trip here.

One of our souvenir stops

This was our final day in Alaska, so it was a day to do all of our last-minute things. First up were souvenirs. 

Bo and B took us to downtown Anchorage for shopping. Our first stop was the Ulu Factory. Ulu knives were a new thing for me, but I learned they have been around since at least 2500 BC and were widely used by the indigenous people. Now they are one of the most popular souvenirs from Alaska. We'd stayed with the trend and bought two. We used one the other day to chop nuts, and it made the job easier than it ever has been. 

Ulu knife with bowl-shaped cutting board

After visiting another souvenir shop and having lunch, we headed to the Anchorage greenhouse. There, we saw a wide variety of tropical plants. 

Next up was Chugach State Park, where we got a good view down into the city of Anchorage. We also watched paragliders. 

In one direction, we looked down on Anchorage.

In the other direction were the Chugach Mountains.

Then we had to face reality, and that it was time to leave. We packed and got airplane snacks for tomorrow before heading out to dinner.

Ward was especially happy with our choice for dinner.

The next morning, we left Bo, B, and Charlie at 6:30 a.m. to head for the airport. It was sad to leave our incredible hosts, but all good things must come to an end. Everything went smoothly at the airport, and a few hours later, we were back in the Lower 48, meeting our friend Caroline in Seattle. 

Until next time...

Alaska, Tired yet?

The last eleven posts have been a travelogue about our recent trip to Alaska. Are you tired of them yet? Well, I am, so I'm going to take a little break before I finish up the last few days. However, the flowers you see in this post were from wildflowers we saw in AK. :)

The weather has been miserably hot here, so I am especially happy for a working AC because that's not what we came home to. The squash, zucchini, and cucumbers have been enjoying the heat and have been prolific recently. However, the bugs have joined the deer in using our vegetables for a tasty dinner, so I don't know how much longer before the plants succumb to the pests. The tomatoes have been suffering from deer munching for a while, but we'll soon have our first ripe tomato. I can't wait. The first ripe tomato is a highlight every summer. 

I am slowly getting back into exercising. I hope to soon be back at the fitness level I was before the trip, but I gotta tell you that some of the early classes I did after our trip were brutal. Keeping with my effort to hold myself accountable, below is my exercise report for the last week or so.

We were away for 15 days on vacation without any regular exercise. Some days on our trip, I reached 10,000 steps or more, but many days it was much less. I was a little hesitant about jumping back into classes, but it had to be done.

Thursday, July 3, 2025

Zumba: I haven't been to a Zumba class in a long time, but the last time I remember going to one, I found it exhausting. I didn't really want to start back with this class, but it was the only one that fit my schedule. It turns out that I found it both fun and tiring, but was able to recover from it fairly quickly. I will seek out this instructor again.

 Friday, July 4, 2025

Stretch and Tone: This class sounded like just what I wanted. The description made it sound like a gentle combination of yoga and pilates. There was nothing gentle or easy about this class. While not high intensity, I was sweating the whole time doing the challenging exercises. I was not alone. Most in the class couldn't do everything, including Ward, who is very fit. I was so challenged that I felt sick by the end. I stayed the whole class, but just did the bare minimum at the end. I like the instructor, but I won't be trying this class again for a while.

Saturday, July 5, 2025

Free Day: I needed a recovery day after yesterday, so I didn't do much exercise-wise today. However, we spent a lovely afternoon at a baby shower for my niece.

Sunday, July 6, 2025

Free Day: I was just not feeling it for exercise today, so I didn't do anything extra physically. Instead, I puttered around the house and yard, catching up on things.

Monday, July 7, 2025

Zumba: I went to a class with the same instructor that I had on Thursday. I mostly kept up and enjoyed the class, which gave me a good aerobic workout. Unfortunately, this instructor has only been subbing for other instructors who are on vacation. Rumor has it that she teaches once a month at the gym. I'll have to find out when that is because I like her style.

Tuesday, July 8, 2025

Line Dance: We were back at our regular Tuesday morning class. It was fun to be back, and we learned a couple of new dances. I got most of the steps and definitely had a good aerobic workout by the end.

Wednesday, July 9, 2025

Free Day: Even though it was only a couple of days ago, I can't remember what we did. But I do know that I didn't do any formal exercise. Wednesday doesn't have any classes I'm interested in.

Thursday, July 10, 2025

Beginner Line Dance: It was good to be back in this class. Several of the dances seemed new, but that just may be because I hadn't been to class for almost a month. Some of the dances went really fast, and I struggled to keep up. But I mostly did. I watched a bit of the advanced class, and someday I hope to be able to do those complicated dances, too. I had a good aerobic workout in this class, but it didn't wipe me out.

Friday, July 11, 2025:

Strong and Balanced: There was a sub today in this class, and she had us moving every minute. There seemed to be a lot of shoulder work that I got very tired from. But, I guess that means that it is an area that I need to work on. 

Until next time...

Alaska, June 27, 2025, Two Tour Buses

  Ward and I recently took a trip to Alaska. We flew into Anchorage (via a stop in Seattle) and used our friends' house as our home base. I am chronicling our trip here.

Getting ready to check out after breakfast. The hotel complex had 22 buildings similar to this one, where our room was located. Parking was over the hill. That seemed odd to me until Ward pointed out that most of the people staying here had someone bring their luggage from the ship to their room.

After breakfast at the 20230 restaurant at the hotel and another tour around the grounds, we headed for the town of Talkeetna, our destination for the day. Talkeetna was about an hour away, but before we got there, we stopped at the Kalhiltna Birchworks. 

The Talhiltna Birchworks make birch syrup, and they were tapping trees while we were there. They tap 16,000 annually. It takes about forty gallons of maple sap to make one gallon of maple syrup, but it takes about 110 gallons of birch sap to make one gallon of birch syrup. I tasted the birch syrup, and I thought it tasted like molasses.  

Then it was on to Talkeetna. Talkeetna is a town of about 1000 people and began in 1917 as a district headquarters for the Alaska Railroad. Today, it thrives on tourism and is home to many seaplanes. The Denali Park ranger station, located there, is where everyone who wants to climb Mt. Denali must register. 

This was the current status of activity on the mountain.

Main Street is lined with shops and restaurants, and was very busy. I think many of the people we saw were from the lodge we stayed at last night, because I saw two big buses loading for Talkeetna that morning when we were checking out. 

For the time being, we avoided Main Street and did a historic walking tour throughout the town, including a museum. It was a small but interesting museum with two informative movies about the railroad and climbing Mt. Denali.

Ole Dahl Cabin, the oldest existing home in Talkeetna, was built in 1916.
We saw other structures similar to this on our tour.

We ventured onto Main Street for lunch and took a look at many of the shops. Then it was back to Anchorage for some relaxation and a dinner of grilled salmon and baked eggplant.

I took a walk that evening with Bo and Charlie.
This lush creek, along the way, was beautiful.

Somehow, I managed to do a post without a picture of mountains. They were still around and awe-inspiring, but we must have been getting used to them. Or we were still living with the pictures of Mt. Denali in our minds. :)

Until next time...

Alaska, June 26, 2025, Chasing the Peak

   Ward and I recently took a trip to Alaska. We flew into Anchorage (via a stop in Seattle) and used our friends' house as our home base. I am chronicling our trip here.

We had a made-to-order breakfast at our Dome House B&B, checked out, and headed back to the Denali Visitor's Center. It is a large center with well-done displays that we enjoyed perusing. After about an hour, we headed to the park bus depot, where we caught our bus for the day. Both the park and a private company run buses into the park. Upon recommendation of our B&B host, we took the inexpensive park bus. All buses take the same route, and all buses give commentary and stop for animal sightings. We were happy with our choice. 

This was our bus for the day. It was a transit bus, and you could get on and off anytime.
 We picked up several hikers along the way. We had a bathroom stop on the way in and out and a 20-minute stop at the Mile 43 turnaround. The whole trip took about 5 1/2 hours.

There is only one road into the park, and the public can only take cars to mile 16. After that, only pre-approved buses (or dog sleds) are allowed on the road. The entire Denali Park road is 92.5 miles long, but a rock slide (actually a rock glacier as it has been moving for many years) closed the road at mile 43 in 2021. They are building a bridge over the slide and hope to have it done next year. Meanwhile, the backcountry trails and camps are only accessible by plane now.

We drove through a lot of tundra at the base of the Alaska Range. The bus driver has been driving this route for 20 years, so she was very familiar with the area and gave good insights.

We saw a moose and her calf, caribou, and ground squirrels on our ride. However, most of them were far from the road, so they were hard to see. And with no special lens, you can't see them in photos. This is a photo of caribou. Trust me, they're there under the top snow bank. We saw them with our binoculars. :)

Ward explored the East Fork braided river at our turnaround spot. It was cold and windy at this spot, so Ward explored longer than I did.

There were three places along the bus ride where you can see Mt. Denali if the clouds decide to part from around it. That didn't happen. Actually, 70% of the time, the peak is in the clouds, so it was no surprise we didn't see it. And I thought, what's the big deal? We've been seeing big mountains the entire trip. How can this one be any more spectacular than what I've already seen? Luckily, I got to find out that I was wrong. 

After we returned from the bus trip, we decided to get on the road. We had a two-hour drive to our hotel for the night. We stopped along the way at two viewing sights in Denali State Park that have good views of Mt. Denali/McKinley (which I will refer to as Mt. Denali from here on out). However, while we had more amazing views, Mt. Denali was not in sight. The South View at the state park often has one of the best views around, and it was only a few miles from our hotel, so we decided we would come back later that night for another look.

We stayed at the Princess Wilderness Lodge in Trapper Creek. The complex was coordinated with the cruise line and was quite large, with multiple restaurants, fireplaces, movie theaters, and more. Although I've never been on a cruise, it had a cruise ship feel to it from what I've heard. There were long waits at the restaurants, so we decided to go out and find somewhere else for dinner. 

Down the road just a bit was McKinnley View Cafe. It didn't look like much from the outside, but we were hungry. As we approached the porch and entrance to the restaurant, we saw several excited people. Mt. Denali had just come out of the clouds and was shining bright in all of its glory. Wow. It was something to see. We had a good dinner that was somewhat communal as we all talked about Mt. Denali that we were seeing.

That's all 20,230' of snow-covered Mt. Denali under the clouds.
 Per usual, our pictures do not do it justice.

We went back to our room and decided to take one of the hikes around the complex. We got turned around and didn't end up on the trail we intended to go on. Instead, we found our way to the Treehouse Trail. During our walk, it started to rain and I thought we should turn back. But Ward kept going forward, and I'm glad he did because we found the treehouse. 

It turns out that this treehouse was built for the cruise line and was featured on the TV show Treehouse Masters. The show was playing on a screen inside, and we watched as we waited for the rain to stop. It was really cool watching something on the show, then looking around, and seeing it in person. We had another great view of Mt. Denali from here. 

The entrance to the tree house.

Another shot of the Treehouse from down below. With over 4 feet of permafrost and an active earthquake zone, the Treehouse needed extra engineering for its design.

Even more clouds had cleared from Denali.
This is pretty much the same view of the mountain as seen above, but it is several hours later, so we were seeing the mountain in shadow.

We went back to the hotel, took one last look at the grand mountain from the lodge viewing deck, and retired for the night.

Tune in next time for a bit of this and that on the way back to Anchorage.

Until next time...

Alaska, June 25, 2025, North to Denali

  Ward and I recently took a trip to Alaska. We flew into Anchorage (via a stop in Seattle) and used our friends' house as our home base. I am chronicling our trip here.

After breakfast, we started our 4-hour drive to Denali National Park. Along our drive, we drove out of the Chugach Range, through the Talkeetna Mountains, and into the Alaska Range. Needless to say, the scenery did not disappoint. 

I only took a couple of photos during the drive because pictures from a moving car are not always of the best quality. At least, mine aren't.

We appreciated the wildflowers we saw along the way.
These were wild geraniums at a roadside stop.

There wasn't much development along the Parks Highway (Rt. 3), but we finally found McKinnley View Cafe for lunch, just 15 miles south of Denali National Park. We had a nice view while we waited a very long time for our order, which was wrong when it came. But, we made do, especially since we were trying to make it to the park to see the 4 pm sled dog demonstration at the park.
 

   We made it to the park in time to catch the bus to the dog kennels

         for the last show of the day.

We were surprised, but you were encouraged to pet the dogs before the show. Many of them presented themselves for scratching and petting.

They started the show by having dogs pull the summer sled around the area. The dogs are used mainly in the winter to haul supplies and patrol the outer parts of the park when it is covered in snow.

These dogs are Alaskan Huskies, which have been cross-bred over the years to develop the breed. They have a variety of looks because they are bred for performance rather than appearance, unlike AKC (American Kennel Club) breeds. The dogs in the park are bigger than the Iditarod dogs because one is selected for hauling and the other is selected for racing. 

There was a cuteness overload at the end of the presentation
when volunteers came out carrying the five puppies they have now. 

By the time the shuttle took us back to the visitor's center where we were parked, it was dinner time, so we headed to Healy, where we were staying for the night. Healy is a town of approximately 1,000 people, located 20 minutes north of the park. 

We stayed in the Dome Home B&B. Our room was the one with the window you see in the front.

After dinner at the local restaurant, we bought ingredients for lunch tomorrow, and then we retired for the night. Tomorrow was going to be another early morning.

Until next time...