The first trip was work, I was hired by AARP to present a training on elder abuse at the University of Alaska one May. I flew into Anchorage late in the evening, arriving at the hotel at about 11:00 PM. There was a note from the training coordinator to call her when I got in, to let her know I had arrived. The front desk connected me to her room, she answered the phone, looked at the time and flew into a panic. She had a meeting at 11:30 and she was going to late. I assured her the meeting was 12 hours from now, and she insisted it was daylight outside and I was wrong. It took me a minute to calm her down and assure her the sun sets very late at that time of the year that far north.
I had arranged a partial rest day, before the training. I booked a float plane tour, from Anchorage to Denali National Park, with a landing on a glacial melt lake. It was an amazing experience. The training went well.
The second visit to Alaska was an inside passage cruise from Seattle in the fall of 2008. It was my first cruise and it was great fun. We had four port stops, and a day of cruising glacier bay. The cruise was selected to allow us to ride the White Pass and Yukon Railway. If you enjoy trains, and mountains, and amazing scenery, go ride this one.
I would gladly go back to Alaska, maybe 2026?
Ray always regretted that we did not take the Alaskan inside passage ship cruise when we visited western Canada. It would have meant we would have missed Toronto, Niagara Falls and New York.
ReplyDelete