Alaska was a place I figured I would never go. I am such a little weenie; I can’t stand the cold and it’s always cold in Alaska, right? (Side note:  “cold” is anything less than 75º in my world.) Well sure enough, it was “sweater weather”. But the surprising thing:  I loved it! This was a family trip, planned by my patient mom who was so worried about everyone having a good time that she kept apologizing for the weather as if she could have done something about it. But I really, truly loved it. We went in August and it was cold enough in the evenings to merit eating soup and having a fire, but warm enough during the day to make it possible for us to get out, do some hiking, and generally explore. 

As a native Texan, I have to admit that I can’t help but slightly resent the fact that Alaska is bigger than Texas. But seeing as how there are so many different topographical areas of Texas, and none of them are even remotely close to anything in Alaska, I guess I’ll let it slide. Traveling from Georgia to Alaska is just about from one corner of the country to the other but it was worth it to see my parents and brother and his wife, flying from Texas, my other brother flying in from Oregon, and my sister flying in from Malaysia.

What I was really worried about was meet a bear. Honestly, I would have been disappointed had I not seen one, but everyone I talked to before I left made sure I heard every horror story under the sun about bear maulings. 

One beautiful afternoon, toward the end of the trip, we hiked to Russian River Falls to watch the salmon attempting to swim upstream. Turns out that it’s basically the ultimate feeding ground for bears and we ended up spending a half hour watching three cubs, a couple of years old, doing a terrible job trying to catch fish. They were probably within 40 feet of us but they were doing such a terrible job fishing that between that and having the river between us, I wasn’t terribly worried.

One of the reasons for this trip was to celebrate my dad’s 70th birthday! Check out this stud:

I can’t imagine what my life would be like without my family. This man is the reason I had the opportunity to travel growing up and I’m sure I would never have become as passionate about seeing the world if I hadn’t had the opportunity to give it a go as a kid. But like I said, even Alaska was pushing it for me. I’m so glad I didn’t give up on it before I got there! 

We saw mountains and wildlife, I tried (and failed) to learn how to play poker, I went through 5 rolls of film, and I didn’t get really rained on once. 

We did go on a very damp tour of one of the bigger bays in an effort to see a whale. The fog was wonderfully eerie and we did manage to catch a glimpse of a dorsal fin at one point. Most importantly though, I learned that puffins are referred to as flying potatoes.

See how blue the water is? Apparently its the result of water from the melting snow in the summer running over copper deposits on its way down the mountains.

We tried the coffee. We tried the pizza. We tried the beer. It was all good.

We saw marshes, we saw mountains, we saw rivers, and we saw the ocean.

We saw planes, and reindeer, and glaciers, and fish.

But most importantly, we saw each other. 

If my math is correct, it had been 2.5 years since we’d been in the same place and unfortunately our group still wasn’t complete since my husband wasn’t able to make it. But despite an incomplete group, missing my better half, it was a much needed vacation. I told myself before I left that I wasn’t going to do a lick of work while I was there and I was going to let myself shoot as much film as I wanted. And I did. It was wonderfully relaxing and invigorating. The thrill of adventure mixed with the comfort of fuzzy socks.