Bears oh my!!! On our drive from Skagway to Carmacks (Canada), we were tooling along when all of a sudden, what is that large brown furry thing in the ditch?!?!? A large brown bear munching on the grass in the ditch without a care in the world. It couldn't have been more than 25 feet away, and it didn't care that were taking a bunch of pictures. Shortly down the road (less than 80 feet) there was a black bear doing the same thing! Wow!
This is Mt. Edgecombe outside of Sitka, Alaska. We got to see this beautiful mountain as we were leaving Sitka on the fast ferry, the Fairweather. The Fairweather is a catamaran style ferry, and for a while, we had a top speed of 37.8 knots which was much faster than any of our other ferries!
Mom, Dad, and I right in front of the gorgeous Mendenhall Glacier! This was a fantastic stop, with beautiful small icebergs in the lake, a graceful waterfall, and a wonderful view of the deep blue glacial ice. Mom and I hiked to the waterfall and carried back a small piece of washed-up ice for Dad and Joyce. The ice has a beautiful dense crystal structure, which is responsible for the pure crystal-like ice and the deep blue color. And yes, it was "cool" here. :P
This is historic downtown Skagway. The building on the left, the Mascot Saloon, was restored by the Park Service, and every business downtown takes it upon themselves to have period storefronts, which gives the town a really neat feel, especially conducive to cruise ship tourists' wealth redistribution.
Outside of Dawson City is Dredge No. 4, the largest wooden hull bucket line dredge in North America. It was used for gold mining for decades, and only 4 people were needed on board to actually operate it. This was a very efficient gold extracting machine, collecting 95% of all the gold in the gravel and bedrock it went through. Believe it or not, this machine actually floated along in its own pond as it worked!
Bears oh my!!! On our drive from Skagway to Carmacks (Canada), we were tooling along when all of a sudden, what is that large brown furry thing in the ditch?!?!? A large brown bear munching on the grass in the ditch without a care in the world. It couldn't have been more than 25 feet away, and it didn't care that were taking a bunch of pictures. Shortly down the road (less than 80 feet) there was a black bear doing the same thing! Wow!
This is Mt. Edgecombe outside of Sitka, Alaska. We got to see this beautiful mountain as we were leaving Sitka on the fast ferry, the Fairweather. The Fairweather is a catamaran style ferry, and for a while, we had a top speed of 37.8 knots which was much faster than any of our other ferries!
Mom, Dad, and I right in front of the gorgeous Mendenhall Glacier! This was a fantastic stop, with beautiful small icebergs in the lake, a graceful waterfall, and a wonderful view of the deep blue glacial ice. Mom and I hiked to the waterfall and carried back a small piece of washed-up ice for Dad and Joyce. The ice has a beautiful dense crystal structure, which is responsible for the pure crystal-like ice and the deep blue color. And yes, it was "cool" here. :P
This is historic downtown Skagway. The building on the left, the Mascot Saloon, was restored by the Park Service, and every business downtown takes it upon themselves to have period storefronts, which gives the town a really neat feel, especially conducive to cruise ship tourists' wealth redistribution. 
Outside of Dawson City is Dredge No. 4, the largest wooden hull bucket line dredge in North America. It was used for gold mining for decades, and only 4 people were needed on board to actually operate it. This was a very efficient gold extracting machine, collecting 95% of all the gold in the gravel and bedrock it went through. Believe it or not, this machine actually floated along in its own pond as it worked!
