Here We Go - North America First

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HI,
We started to write this a couple of days before leaving Quincy. That is hard to believe because we have already been gone for two months. It was with sad hearts that we left a LOT of people who we know very well. If we walked down the street about 3/4 of those we met would say hello. And if we went by a couple of people in a row who did not acknowledge us, it would seem strange. We have been here in Quincy almost 25 years. It has always been unbelievable how much people here care about each other. If someone gets sick, has a house fire, an accident, etc. it is always unbelievable how many people would offer to help. Maybe the same thing happens everywhere, it may just be more obvious here. It has been great place to live, to raise Tony and we think it was the right place for us. It is not that we are tired of Quincy; it is just we want to see more and do more.

We adopted Tony when he was 9 years old, 11 years ago. He is now living in the Bay area. He is getting ready to fly on his own. We took him on a lot of trips and his favorite was a canoe trip down the Amazon. We will miss camping with him.

Juneau, Alaska is interesting as it is the only state capital that you can only get to by water. Our cruise was wonderful. We found out we are not too young for cruising. We then visited Banff and Jasper National Parks in Canada and headed south to Idaho to see Beth's sister and our nice nieces. Greg has an old friend in Hastings, Nebraska to see and then on to Michigan. We will look up some "OLD" friends and then up north to Mackinac Island and a stay at the Grand Hotel. Beth asked me to marry her there, on the Grand porch. Although, she might tell you the story slightly differently. Then we will aim for New England and hope to be there in the early Fall for some great pictures. After that we plan on going down the coast to Florida and look for a condo on the beach. That part is sort of up in the air and regardless if we find a place or not we hope to continue traveling for what we hope is a long time.

You will see pictures from Alaska here. We will let you know when we do the next blog entry with pictures from Banff and Jasper National Parks, Jackson, Wyoming, Mt. Rushmore and the Badlands National Park.

It's always been fun to jump off into a new space.

Bye for now,



Beth and Greg Gilman

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Photos

Glacier Bay
Glacier Bay

Eagle on iceberg
A Bald Eagle landed on a small iceberg (car size) in Glacier Bay next to the ship and floated on by.

Flowers
Bouchart Gardens