Alaska and Hawaii, 2011

Anchorage, Alaska

Our hotel was near the train station and it was a quick walk to get to the downtown shops and restaurants.

There are many flower beds and hanging baskets in the downtown area.

Look who we ran into in downtown Anchorage!!

This is a statue commemorating Alaska becoming the 49th state during Eisenhower's presidency.

We went to the Alaska Native Heritage Center, which has a huge outdoor area with examples of how the different Alaskan tribes lived.

We signed up to go on the day-long bus tour of Denali National Park - 13 hours long. We had lucked out on the weather. It was a gorgeous, clear day. We were told that it is rare to see Mt.McKinley; the weather is usually too overcast. We also saw lots of wildlife: grizzly bears, caribou, moose, dall sheep, Arctic squirrels, and a wolf. Our bus driver told us we had the "Grand Slam" tour.

Seward, Alaska

The drive to Seward was full of great sights to see. The road goes along the coastline for most of the drive and looking at the snow-covered mountains next to the ocean was amazing. We stayed in a lodge near the Exit Glacier.

Woody, a stellar sea lion

The Exit Glacier

There's a trail that takes you near the edge.

Fjord National Park

We took a boat out to the fjords and along the way we saw glaciers and lots of marine animals, including both Orca and Humpback whales, porpoises, otters, sea lions, harbor seals, and lots of birds. Just an amazing day.