Lavernbj

We love to travel together and share our travel with family and friends. We are so excited for our Alaskan Adventure. Our trip will begin in Anchorage with a stop at the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge for some "up close and personal" viewing of some of their amazing animals. Then we are on to Denali via a glass top train to spend a couple days exploring Denali. We plan to do an all day inside tour of the park and a half day river banks tour on atv mules.
Our trip down to Seward is by bus where we have a fishing charter looking for halibut. I hope to get us a couple horses for a day to discover back country..keep your fingers crossed! They have a well known mammal center we will visit for amazing underwater views. We will board the Rc Radiance of Seas from Seward for 7 days visiting ports, fishing, crabbing, and doing some whale watching. Hopefully I'll catch some glacier calving moments to share with you.
Along the way we plan to sample many popular menu items and, of course, the beer courtesy of LaVern.
We will miss our family and friends and hope all of you stay safe and healthy...

Ketchikan and the deadliest catch

North America » United States » Alaska » Ketchikan September 12th 2012

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Lavernbj

We had such a fun day with our trip. Our excursion on the Aleution Ballard started right from our dock, which was nice since it was down pouring. One of our captains was Derrick Ray who took over for a while after Capt. Phil Harris of the Corneila Marie passed away during Season 6 I believe. We headed out to open water and they passed out raingear to those who were in the line of fire with the rain/winds. The captain and crew shared stories of their lives on the crabbing waters of the bering sea. We saw two different kinds of nets pulled up containing king crab and snow crap, similiar to Orphelia crap. We also saw dungeness crab and cod nets pulled on board. What was really neat is they took pictures with everyone ... read more

Icy Strait Point-Hoonah

North America » United States » Alaska September 12th 2012

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Lavernbj

Icy Strait Point-Hoonah The marine wilderness of Glacier Bay National Park is millions of acres of snow capped mountains, deep fjords, freshwater rivers and lakes, and tidewater glaciers. Long ago, this was the ancestral home of the Tlingit before a rapid glacier forced them out. Still with a strong spiritual connection, the village of Hoonah is the largest Tlingit settlement in Alaska. Our Hoonah morning started with a fishing trip with Eric from Ear mountain charters. The weather started out sprinkling but turned into a beautiful day with sun poking thru. Our trip was 4 hours leaving us wishing we had more time to fish as the trip out and back in takes close to two hours. I caught a 24" Halibut that was fun to pull in but not quite big enough to keep. Rules ... read more

More Juneau and skagway

North America » United States » Alaska September 10th 2012

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Lavernbj

Spending day in skagway and after having a couple spruce tip ales At skagway brewing house with no luck on wifi we found a wifi store and for 5 bucks could get an hour of Internet...yeah I ll post a couple more pics from yesterday's trip and a couple from Skagway. We don't have a trip planned for today so just hanging in town. We stopped at bit of broadway, a cute place run by a couple guys from down south. We bought their cheesesausage biscuits which are well known but have no appetite to eat so will save them. You know the ship has no food...lol Weather is around 55 today and cloudy so quite nice for walking around. We starTed taking off clothes an hour ago. Tomorrow is icy straight and fishing..yeah. Oh yeah, ... read more

Juneau

North America » United States » Alaska September 9th 2012

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Lavernbj

Went with Harv and Marv whale adventures today and saw orca, humpback and sea lions , seals and dolphins. It was neat being so close to something's so big. It's taking a while to load pics so I will try to load some before we get kicked out of this restaurant..lol... read more

Hubbard Glacier

North America » United States » Alaska » Hubbard Glacier September 9th 2012

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Lavernbj

Cruising Hubbard Glacier We spent our day cruising out of Seward into Hubbard Glacier on our way to Juneau, Alaska. The glacier was covered with a light covering of silt, a grinding of the glacier ice against the mountain rock. The temperature was cold out by the front of ship but didn't keep cruisers from viewing the glaciers. We met up with others from cruise critic to do our slot pull. It was a fun way to spend our 21.00. We didn't strike it big on the slots but we eached earned 10.00 back. We moved onto to red, white, blue slot machine that was dad and Ann's favorite and won around 25.00. Lavern won $14 on a penny machine. I lost some so when we headed out of casino we had an enjoyable hour and ... read more

Inside Seward

North America » United States » Alaska » Seward September 7th 2012

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Lavernbj

Getting packed for our luggage to be transferred to ship. We plan to explode Seward more and visit the sea life center today. Having problem loading pics last night so will put more on today if possible. Hoping Internet in ship isn't crazy expensive...lol... read more

Seward Adventures

North America » United States » Alaska » Seward September 6th 2012

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Lavernbj

It was a dog gone day today..gone by the way of iditarod sled. We headed out to seavey's dog sledding business to take a ride thru the woods on a wheeled summer sled and meet some pups. The seavey's have owned their business for many years and have 3 generations of iditarod racers. The race begins in anchorage and ends in nome Alaska, 1049 miles. We met the dogs before they took us out and the dogs were crazy excited to be selected to take us. The seavey's have 120 dogs they have trained and the dogs sell for a couple thousand. They have barrels that keep them off of ground and out of wind but can still be close enough to sniff each other. They burn so many calories a day and are so strong ... read more

Seward

North America » United States » Alaska » Seward September 6th 2012

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Lavernbj

We caught our connection bus from Denali to Seward in front of our hotel. It was similar to a greyhound type with large windows and bathroom in back. Our drive took close to 10 hours which included our stop in Anchorage for lunch. We drove thru rain part of the way and it was a relaxing trip. A bummer was after getting dropped in Seward at the small boat harbor we found out our chartered fishing boat trip tomorrow as cancelled because of the forecasted weather. I guess 12 foot seas and 36 mph gusts are not great fishing weather...disappointing. I'm glad we still have the fishing in icy straight to look forward to. Our weather in town sounds good though for tomorrow so we booked a sled dog tour with a family of ididorad winners. ... read more

Denali thoughts...

North America » United States » Alaska » Denali September 5th 2012

Lavernbj

Last thoughts of Denali....we met many individual people who travel independently..no relatives or friends..just come to Denali for a change in life. They found jobs for the extended summer and plan to winter somewhere else. Maybe the vastness of the area or the simple beauty of god's creation calls certain souls for the adventure. There is a feeling of simplicity here and general kindness. So many people just being kind... Our guide into Denali said its 2.5hours to grocery store one way..lol that is an adventure in itself. Lavern says he could handle it..I've trained him well. She has lived in Denali for 10 years and just got electricity 2 years ago..still no running water. What a woman!! It will take 8 hours by connection bus to get down to the small boat harbor in Seward, ... read more

Into Denali

North America » United States » Alaska » Denali National Park September 5th 2012

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Lavernbj

Where do we begin? Our day started early with pick up at 7am and it was amazing from the first 15 minutes. We saw a mommy moose along the roadside brush. They were 2 of 6. I will post pics but the baby wasn't viewable long enough for me to snap. Today was special because we saw 5 grizzlies, 1 as close as 40 yards. We also had a wolf hop on road and walked towards our bus. Note..there is only 70 wolves in Denali which covers 6.2 million acres. There are only 300 bears here do to lack of vegetation to eat..can u imagine? It takes 400,000 berries a day to sustain a bear. Our bears were eating ground berries in the pics. We even saw 1 bear chase a moose in the tundra. We ... read more

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