Alaska Trip

 מַה-גָּדְלוּ מַעֲשֶׂיךָ יְהוָה; מְאֹד, עָמְקוּ מַחְשְׁבֹתֶיךָ.

We returned from a 13 day trip to Alaska. I am having a hard time deciding which photos to display. The first 6 days were land tour, the last 7 on cruise ship.  I definitely preferred the land part. I probably will not go on a cruise again.  I did like the small harbor type boat we took in the Kenai Fjords. That's where I saw this family of orcas. The Hebrew verse is from Psalm 92, verse 6. When I attended the Sabbath morning prayers, that is what I thought about this trip. English translation: "How great are Thy works, O Lord! Thy thoughts are very deep."

Our first view of mountains on our way from Anchorage to Denali National Park.  This is a view through the bus window.

We enjoyed our visit to the Alaskan sled dogs, learned about how they are raised and how they race in the Iditarod. We got to play with the puppies too.  These sled dogs are not the same as the Siberian Huskies which are also used in Alaska during the winter and are much bigger and heavier.  They are bred for stamina, not pretty colors.

This was one of the stops on the tour of Denali National Park. The park is huge and we only saw a little bit on our 8 hour bus tour.  We did see a grizzly mom and her cubs, a moose, some small ground squirrels and birds. The highlight was when we were almost out of the park and had to stop for a lone caribou that was taking her time walking along the road. I didn't get a photo of that one through the bus window.

We took the train from Denali to Talkeetna. Saw more beautiful scenery along the way. I learned new words "Taiga" and "Braided Rivers". Taiga is the Russian word for the boreal forest.  The braided rivers were interesting and had gravel islands from the glacial silt.  We had seen beautiful lakes in Alberta years ago with green and blue colors from the glacial silt there.  The rivers we saw on this trip were a different shade of green, not as bright.  We did not actually get to see Denali mountain since it was behind clouds.  We did see the base of it though.

We visited a conservation area. The animals have some kind of injury and once they are healthy, they are released back into the wild. I watched a staff member bottle feed an orphan musk ox. He drank the milk very quickly. They feed the baby every 4 hours.

We had a harbor boat tour of the Kenai Fjords. According to the guides, these are tidewater glaciers and are not shrinking. (I'm not sure of that, but they certainly were big). This is the area where I saw the orcas. It was really beautiful there.  I have more photos from the cruise part of the trip, but I have to select which ones to pick out. I'll do that later this month.

I bought some large canvases a couple of months ago. Now I have to decide which scene to paint.  We saw so many beautiful mountains, it is a hard decision.