Cruising the Fjords

Our big adventure for today was the 6-hour Kenai Fjords National Park Cruise with Major Marine Tours. Since the tour didn't depart until 11:30AM, we headed out after breakfast for a look around Seward. 

At the southern end of town is the beginning of the Iditarod National Historic Trail. Established by Congress in 1978, the trail celebrates the route that first connected Native Alaskan villages and later served mining camps, trading posts, and other settlements founded during the Alaskan Gold Rush Era (1880-1920). Sled dog teams were the only reliable means to transport goods and people along the route in winter. Most notably, when a diphtheria outbreak threatened the residents of Nome in 1925, the only way to get them enough serum for inoculations was by train from Anchorage to Nenana, and then mushers and their sled dog teams (have you heard the story of Balto?) relayed the precious cargo the final 674 miles in less than 5.5 days.

 

938 miles from Seward to Nome

Monsters of the Midway

For our last full day in Katmai National Park, we spent most of our time hanging out with the bears. I had asked the lodge about the possibility of a flightseeing tour to visit Alagnak Wild River, Aniakchak National Monument & Preserve, and the preserve portion of Katmai, but nothing could be arranged for today. Guess we'll have to come back to Alaska another time to check those units off my bucket list!

Another sign pic

Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes

When making our reservations for Brooks Lodge back in January 2024, I also booked us on the day-long bus tour out to the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes to ensure that we had spots. Good thing I didn't wait until we got here because the tour was full, and there were several people at the check-in spot this morning hoping to take the place of any no-shows. 

Here are a few foggy bear pics that I took while we were waiting for the tour to start at 9:00AM...

Now that's a fat bear!

We're Going on a Bear Hunt

After checking out of the hotel and returning the rental car this morning, we started the second leg of our trip with a one-hour Alaska Airlines flight from Anchorage to King Salmon. 

Cook Inlet

Anchorage Away

We didn't have much on the schedule for today, so that gave us the opportunity to explore the area around Anchorage at a more leisurely pace. From Wasilla, it took less than 30 minutes to drive to Chugach State Park. We paid the $5 day use fee at the kiosk in the parking lot of the trailhead and started the hike (~1 mile, one way) to Thunder Bird Falls.

100-foot elevation gain in the first 0.1-mile

The Power of Water

To get to Paterson Great Falls National Historical Park from West Orange, the iPhone sent us there via small local roads instead of the Garden State Parkway. I'm usually happy to avoid traffic and tolls, but the problem with blindly following directions on this alternate route was that we didn't see the usual signage directing us to the park as we got closer.  On top of that, the streets of Paterson were super congested with kids getting out of school nearby, so we had a little trouble figuring out exactly where we were supposed to park the car. But after an extra trip around the block, we managed to find a spot in the lot next to Overlook Park.

25 miles

Into the Woods

This morning we checked out of Lake Crescent Lodge and made our way towards the western side of the Olympic Peninsula. We passed through the small town of Forks, but since we haven't read the books nor watched any of the "Twilight" movies, we didn't stop to look around for any vampires or werewolves. The movies weren't actually filmed in this area, but that hasn't stopped them from capitalizing on "Twihard" tourism.

170 miles

Chasing Waterfalls

Early this morning we rolled out of bed, threw yesterday's clothes back on, and headed out the door to hike up to Marymere Falls first thing. We only had directions from the trailhead at Storm King Ranger Station, so we probably added some extra distance to the 1.8-mile roundtrip hike wandering around the area trying to figure out if we were going the right way. Sadly I left my Fitbit behind in the room, so I didn't get any credit for the steps! 😭

Would have been nice to have this map this morning!

Memories Deceive Me

I used to scrapbook, as the cabinet full of supplies and tools still in my house would attest. Maybe one day I'll go back to it and catch up on the projects I've been meaning to complete. But at least I can stay reasonably up-to-date on this blog. Even if no one outside of our family ever reads it, I'll keep posting entries because I enjoy writing about our travels. It's important to me to have a record of what we saw and what we did because I'm sure that I won't remember the details as clearly later on. 

Case in point: Our first stop today was Deception Pass. R asked if we had come here during our trip to Washington in 1996 because it seemed familiar. 

I said, "Nope."

Bzzzzzt! Wrong answer. 🤦🏻‍♀️

May 1996

A River Runs Through It

I'm not usually a morning person, but somehow I rarely have a problem getting up when we're on vacation. Maybe it's because I hate the thought of wasting daylight when there is so much to see and do wherever we happen to be traveling. 

This morning was no exception. I walked along the lake in the hopes of getting some good photos. The sky was still a little hazy, but with very little wind, the lake was like a mirror.

Empty Nesters

Son #1 has flown the coop, working a full-time job and living in his own apartment. Son #2 is back at school for his junior year at UCLA. What are two empty nesters to do?! Go on vacation, of course!

Back in May, I started researching a couple different options. One possibility was going to New England or Acadia National Park for some fall color. But finding a cheap airfare ($178 roundtrip) to Seattle sealed the deal for a road trip thru the Pacific Northwest!

End to End

We were out the door early this morning to visit Waimea Canyon and Kōkeʻe State Parks. It was raining steadily as we drove around the southern end of the island, but when we stopped at the Hanapepe Valley Lookout, we were treated to this sight.

Totally Tubular

When I started planning out our itinerary, one activity I really wanted to do was mountain tubing. The pics I've seen of friends floating through irrigation ditches looked so fun! The 10:00AM tour was the only thing we had on the schedule for today, so we didn't have to be up too early since it would only take us about 15 minutes to drive to Hanamāʻulu. (Stupid chickens didn't get the memo! Grrr!)

After we checked in with Kauai Backcountry Adventures, we were provided with helmets, head lamps, and gloves. Then we boarded the truck with the rest of our tour group and headed up to the lands of the former Lihue Plantation.

After the Blip

Everyone in our family is a big fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so the parallel between the fictional havoc wreaked by Thanos' snap and the global chaos of our real-life COVID pandemic was eerily obvious to us. 

Life imitating art, if you will. 

Now that we are all fully vaccinated and things are opening up, we frequently talk about life after "The Blip". Using this pop culture reference is an intentional way for me to avoid saying "back to normal", because what is "normal" really?! 

Which brings us to the reason for this blog post - traveling to see our extended family for the first time in almost 18 months! Yay!

Another Day in Paradise

Our itinerary for today included a couple of popular tourist spots, so we were out the door early to beat the crowds. Since our hotel stay didn't include breakfast, our first stop was Hawaiian Style Cafe. Two of us had boring run-of-the-mill dishes, but the other two ordered more local fare: Kalua hash (left) and Hawaiian sweet bread french toast with, what else, SPAM!

Wonderful Waterfalls

As I was looking into things to do during our short time in Portland, a segway tour of the city sounded it could be really fun. But a segway tour of Portland in the cold and rain?

Not so much.

So, we moved on to Plan B for today: driving the scenic Historic Columbia River Highway. 

Yosemite Circa 1997

The last time R and I visited Yosemite National Park was in June 1997 (the summer after the valley had flooded). We flew out to California for a college friend's wedding and decided to make a vacation out of it, celebrating our 2nd anniversary by visiting San Francisco, Yosemite, Sacramento, and Monterey. Here are some pics so that you can see what has changed (us) and what hasn't (Half Dome) over the past 15 years!

Big Trees and Big Rocks

Since today was a summer weekend day, our goal was to get inside the park early to try and avoid the crowds. After a quick “breakfast included” at our hotel, we loaded up and checked out – we have this routine down-pat from last summer’s road trip! Driving through the foothills up into the mountains on winding Highway 41 meant that I was the designated driver.

Crooked River

For this Independence Day, what could be better than visiting a national park?! Yes, there is an actual national park (the same designation as Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, or Yosemite) just outside of Cleveland -- Cuyahoga Valley National Park. It preserves and reclaims the rural landscape along the Cuyahoga River between Akron and Cleveland. Cuyahoga is the Mohawk word for "crooked river". For us, this visit is #24 of 58 national parks. Making progress on that bucket list!

Too hot, so no one would get out of the car for my pic!

As for the Rest of South Dakota...

We spent the night at the Sunshine Inn, a small motel in Wall, SD. Normally I'd pick a chain place, but this one was half the rate and even still, had excellent reviews on TripAdvisor. I'd definitely agree with the other reviewers - the room was clean, the couple who own the motel were nice and gladly filled up our ice chest, and it was only a block away from Wall Drug! I'm also going to take some space here to give the TripAdvisor website two big thumbs up! It has been invaluable in choosing places to stay, as well as finding things to do -- not only for this trip, but also for others that we've taken. The forums are also a great place to get advice from local experts.

All done with the public service announcements, now back to our regularly scheduled programming...