Alaska Trip: Anchorage, Talkeetna, Embarkation

For Christmas last year my wonderful mother paid for each of us kids (and spouses) to go on a 10 day trip to Alaska, including a 7 day cruise. Fun, fun! I must admit that I was pretty nervous to leave the kids (especially Mary) for that long, but thanks to the wonders of modern technology (i.e., the breast pump), I was able to prepare. David's dad, Ralph, earned Grandpa of the Year honors for coming to our house, with Joseph, and taking great care of Josh and Mary for us while we were gone. Two of my siblings and their spouses weren't able to come, but we had 22 of us that did go...not to shabby!

Me, Celeste and Pam waiting to board

We flew from Phoenix to Anchorage on Monday 8/24. David and I flew on the same flight as several other family members, so that was fun. We got settled into our hotel, the Howard Johnson, got some dinner (I ate reindeer sausage) and walked around downtown Anchorage for a bit that evening, then slept on a mattress about as soft as our tile floor.

My mom booked the trip through a group called “Fun For Less,” which is run by LDS people, and most of their “guests” are LDS as well. On Tuesday we had a little excursion scheduled with them, which included a bus ride to Talkeetna. During the bus ride the tour director had everyone come to the front of the bus and introduce themselves. Pretty much everyone else in the group besides our family was older, so they would be telling about their families and missions and how much they enjoy traveling with Fun For Less. It was actually pretty fun to hear about these other peoples’ lives, but it sounded an awful lot like some testimony meetings I’ve been in. I dared Travis to start with “I’d like to bare my testimony…” when it was his turn. Crystal beat him to it, though (and she didn’t even hear me!). Our family got a good chuckle out of it, hopefully it wasn’t too sacrilegious.

On our way to Talkeetna we were able to get a good view of Mt. McKinley (aka Denali to the locals) from a hundred or so miles away. Mt. McKinley is the tallest mountain in North America, and since it creates its own weather system, only about 20-30% of the tourists actually get to see it, as it is usually covered by clouds (this is according to our bus driver, btw). We felt pretty lucky! I love the brilliant white behind the clouds!

We got on a jet boat that took us for a ride on a couple of rivers (I’ve already forgotten their names). We saw a bald eagle (the first of a few throughout the trip), an eagle’s nest, and some of the others on the boat even saw a bear scamper away from the river as we drove by.

Then we got to go on a nice little nature walk and got to see how the hunters/trapers/gold panners/etc. lived back in the day (which for Alaska, was only around 100 years ago or so).

Here is a tiny one-room cabin where they would live. Notice the sod roof, and several different commonly trapped animal pelts.

Here's the "cache". This is where they would store all their pelts and food to keep it away from live animals. If you'll look closely you'll see stove-pipe at the top of the poles. These are to keep rodents and other climbers from climbing up the poles and getting into the loot.

An inside view of the cabin.

David pretending to be a trapper.

A beaver trap...the beaver would gnaw on the skinny pole and whack!...you've got yourself a beaver!


Brandon, David and me playing with not-so-teddy bears

Our guide even carried a shotgun in case we ran into bears (it is slung over her shoulder--you can barely see the barrel in front of the beaver trap) ...


After our jet boat ride

Mom and me

After the boat ride we went to the Talkeetna Lodge for lunch, and it had the most beautiful views. Pretty much everywhere we went was beautiful, but this was especially so (not the best picture of me...oh well)

After lunch we boarded the bus again and headed for Wasilla to the Iditarod headquarters. The Iditarod is a big sled dog race going over 1,000 miles from Willow, AK to Nome. I don't know if it was the race on the movie Iron Will, but it's like that. Anyway, we got to ride in a little cart pulled by real race dogs (we had to do the cart with wheels since there's no slow), then watched a movie about the race.

Celeste, Jeff, me and David ready for our turn.

They even had some cute puppies.

Penny and David trying their hand at the sled.

We didn't leave Anchorage to drive to Whittier, where we would board the cruise ship, until around noon on Wed., so we had all that morning to walk around and see more of downtown Anchorage and do some more souvenir shopping.

Do we look like tourists?


Admiring one of the HUGE cabbages they have growing in the flower beds around the city. On the plane ride there I read that they can grow really big vegetables, etc. because during the summer they have so much daylight. At the state fair they have almost 80 lb. cabbages!

According to one of our bus drivers, the visitor's center has the only roof in town that has to be mowed.

On our way to Whittier our bus driver told us about how during the earthquake in 1964 this ground lowerd significantly so these trees were under the ocean water for some time and became petrified. When people later tried to cut them down their saw blades would break, so they just left them standing there.

Some more beautiful scenery on a little stop between Anchorage and Whittier.

Between Anchorage and Whittier there is a 2.5 mile tunnel only wide enough for one way of traffic at a time. On the top of the hour the north-bound traffic goes while all the south-bound traffic waits in lines, then at half past the hour it's the south-bound vehicles' turn. Throughout the tunnel there are 8 safe houses interspersed with provisions in case of an emergency.

We finally made it to Whittier and boraded the Carnival Spirit, our home away from home. (This is a picture we took at a different port.) That thing is HUGE!!! We spent the rest of the evening eating dinner, unpacking and generally exploring the ship.