R and J in the USA

Here’s what we learned about Alaska, for those of you who don’t already know. Take any state’s most coveted beautiful place, the one that is a must see, that you’ve just got to visit. 

That’s everywhere in Alaska. 

Maybe not the exact feature, but the beauty and the grandeur is at that level in every piece of Alaska. At least all the places we made it to, and we got the impression that’s just the norm in Alaska.

It seems that in any city, town, or village you make it to, if you are not immediately steeped in natural wonders worthy of awe, just look to the horizon. They are there, looking at you. You’d have to work to get away from them – but, of course, you wouldn’t.

It’s no wonder that a great many of the people one runs into in Alaska start their story with something like, “I came out here once in 1971…and I’ve been here ever since.” Or some version of that. There is something about Alaska that calls to certain people. For those who it doesn’t directly beckon to stay and marinate in for a lifetime, it still makes quite an impression. 

There are a handful of places in the eastern United States that give you a reminder of nature’s dominion. But, it is, on average, easier to lull yourself into some semblance of a sense of control or, dare we say it, even, significance in the natural balance of things. The further out west you go in the United States, we find, the more you get the sneaking suspicion that nature is, and always is, in fact, in charge of this whole thing, no matter what we might like to think. Well, in Alaska, you are dang sure of it. The awesomeness of the natural features are so ever present and indisputable that you have to find a way to let them be normal so that you can just go about your day. Even once it starts to feel “normal” Alaska seems to elevate one’s sense of normal to a different place altogether. 

At least that’s how we felt in our 11 days amidst its wonders.

And for all the ground we were able to cover in those 11 days between planes, boats, and automobiles, we didn’t even see what constitutes a teeny tiny little portion of this massive land.

Some folks that took their grade school maps too literally may have the impression that Alaska is a tiny little island in a box just south of Hawaii, and those who know that it is really a large state north of the lower 48 and to the west of Canada might still have only a modest sense of it’s true stature.  Not only is it the biggest state in the US of A, it is the biggest state, BY FAR. Texas – you know, our everything-about-Texas-is-big state. Well, you could fit two of them in Alaska. Alaska is bigger than Texas, California, and Montana combined. It’s ⅕ the size of the entire rest of the United States. And much of the state is hard to reach and hard to live in for those other than the people that have called this land their home for thousands of years. As is the case in the rest of the United States, many, many different tribes have known the shape of these lands for millenia. 

Whether you come from a lineage that has made Alaska home for eons, were born and raised in downtown Anchorage, or took a trip here once in the 60s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s or whenever and never came home, there is something about Alaska that stirs the soul and provides comfort in reminding you of your place in this grand natural world as a humble speck. Of course, as with any place, there are people that don’t care for it or aren’t particularly moved by it’s landscape, culture, or overall vibe. We just didn’t run into a single one of them while there, encountering just the opposite with everyone we met. 

There is a relief to be found in feeling your own smallness and an elevation in getting to stand in awe of the power and beauty around you. That’s the impression we got in our short tour of this tremendous place.

We did hear some tales of those who are born and raised here and don’t partake of its natural wonders, but that is endemic to any place where human beings grow up and want to break free to escape. As far as we could tell, that is the exception to the norm here where everyone either hikes, fishes, flies, boats, or all of the above. There is not much asking ‘what do you do for fun’, because the answer is, for the most part, already known to all.

And we are not worried about hyping it up too much. If anyone can go to Alaska and find a way to be underwhelmed by it, our hat’s off to you for having unbelievable standards.

We found out early on from the locals that we were lucky on two counts regarding our timing in coming to Alaska. The gentleman at REI who rung up our purchases when we first arrived in Anchorage told us that fall in Alaska is his favorite time of year – he just wished it lasted longer than two weeks. Apparently we were smack dab in those two weeks. Then there was our hiking guide on the gorgeous sunny Saturday we scheduled for a jaw-dropping hike in mountains glowing with fall colors and overlooking a stunning emerald green lake, who told us, “Now don’t go on the internet telling people it’s gorgeous and sunny in the fall in Alaska. This almost never happens.” We got a similar message when our cruise ship docked in the state’s capital city on a crisply cool, but warm for Alaska, sunny Thursday. It being in a rainforest, it rains there well over 200 days per year and they get the kind of day we were having maybe 7 or 8 times per year. It was the same in each of our ports. As we reboarded the cruise from Ketchikan, the locals thanked us for bringing the sunshine. We got one or two cold and rainy days that gave a us a sense of what it is like more often than not, but we weren’t complaining about the aberrant sunshine.

So, we picked a good time of year to come. But this particular good time of year was particularly lovely.

Alaska is the first state we saw without the van. It would be a great place to visit with a van, but we weren’t ready to invest the time to make the 1200 mile drive to it, nor navigate the ferries we would need to use to see the towns of the inside passage, most of which can only be reached by boat or plane. So, we decided a few days near Anchorage followed by a cruise would not only be a great way to celebrate our 8th year wedding anniversary, but it was also the most practical way to tackle America’s biggest and northernmost state for us during this trip. 

So, we hopped on a plane in Jackson, Wyoming, where we left our van in the parking lot to enjoy the views without us, and flew to Anchorage. After three months of planning our own itineraries day after day, which takes a certain kind of energy, we were looking forward to 11 days where we would pay the extra token to let professionals tell us what to do, where to go, and when to show up. And that’s what we did.

We arrived in Anchorage and took the hotel’s free Lyft to our suite with a…wait for it…bathtub! Julie was in it before you could say bathtub. We filled our three and a half days in Anchorage with pre-planned excursions, then hopped on a cruise from Seward down through the Inside Passage to Vancouver, British Columbia, as our official honeymooniversary trip that we take every year. 

Our adventures took us as far afield as we could manage in our short time between south central Alaska and southeast Alaska.

We flew in teeny little puddle jumper bush planes over mudflats and oil rigs that fit five people max, flying so close to mountain tops it would seem an unexpected wind would be enough to call it a day.

We lazed on pontoon boats in breathtaking scenery, whose vibrant colors were almost shocking to our eyes every time we looked at it, while counting the brown bear mamas and cubs not 20 yards from us on shore.

We hiked down valleys to emerald lakes, ate reindeer sausage, and ran a 5K to celebrate healthy heart care and the survivors of heart disease, which you can read about in our 5K section.

We saw more glaciers than we can count and spotted a few sea lions and sea otters along the way. We saw bald eagles day after day and heard stories of how common it is to see moose, even in the city of Anchorage, but didn’t see one until we were at a wildlife conservation center. At the conservation center we saw every animal Alaska had been hiding in the wilds that didn’t want to show itself to us other than here in this sanctuary, from musk oxen to caribou to elk to wolves to black and brown bears to porcupines and reindeer. 

We were rocked to sleep by the ocean waves in a massive cruise ship, our first cruise experience, where stumbling side to side as you walk was something sober people did. We took in the ship’s entertainment, from comedy to rock and roll revues.

We saw, and were quite taken with, the capital city of Juneau, and learned all about Alaskan history in its capitol building and at the state museum just down the street. We rested, Julie partook of her happy place on a massage table in the ship’s spa, and we celebrated our anniversary on the gorgeous shores of Icy Straight Point, where we had what felt nothing short of a magical visitor, which you can read about in a separate Alaska post.

We had numerous encounters with lovely folk from all over the country and world as we cruised the icy waters of Alaska, some of which you can read about in our People Along the Way section and had one (and only one) encounter with one of the famed “rude cruisers”, taken almost directly out of the book “the Ugly American”, that was so strange it bordered on comical. We aim to spread tales of the good things in this world, and are not so interested to dwell on gossip or the moments where folks don’t put their best foot forward, as there is more than enough of that already abounding, but we also want to be equal in representation of our experience. And also, the story is just so weird it’s worth telling, so you can read about those folks as well in our People Along the Way section.

We visited Skagway, a small town of 900 year round inhabitants that has a strong gold rush history, as do so many Alaskan towns. Julie rented a bike and got her Alaska bike ride in, riding beyond the small tourist town that can sometimes host 12,000 cruisers in a single day to find waterfalls and an old gold rush cemetery. We took a little walk in the Salmon Capital of the World, Ketchikan, and were struck by how its natural setting was the least impressive of any we’d seen in Alaska, which meant it was still some of the most beautiful scenery we’d ever seen. We saw a sea lion swimming down the river through town and Julie got a gluten free crepe filled with local salmon. 

We spent long hours on the cruise ship resting, reading, writing, or not doing much of anything other than eating too much at the buffet. This was a nice respite from our enjoyable but still demanding itinerary in each state during the rest of the trip. Having gotten our larger Alaska adventures out of our system from our base in Anchorage in our first few days in the state, we had no problem turning down the opportunity to do excursions and adventures in each cruise port.

Julie got her swim in Alaska in at the last moment as the ship was nearing the Canadian border and she dove into the cruise pool in the crisp, cool, fall air. 

We marveled at the massive amount of tourist gift shops and jewelry shops in each of these Alaska port towns that are used to receiving thousands upon thousands of tourists each day in the cruise season. 

We hit the cruise ship’s casino and threw a little bit of money into it for fun. We were happy we were able to leave the blackjack table with just shy of the $100 that we had thrown at it, having lost and gained, and able to call it quits when we were able to break just about even. 

We enjoyed our first cruise, in itself an experience worth having if you want to get to know life in the USA, as cruise life is a whole world unto itself.

And we loved our time in Alaska. As we do with each place we go through, we imagined living there and questioned if we would ever choose to move there. We could see how Alaska’s physical separation and distance from the rest of the United States could be a major part of its appeal for some, but we both found that we would want to be closer to life in the lower 48. So we wouldn’t be counted amongst the many folks who would someday recount how their first time in Alaska would be the beginning of the rest of their lives. But we certainly would count ourselves among those who had been moved by this place and leaving with the question in mind not being if we would ever come back, but when.