Smiles from Whittier, Alaska

Hello again….  I last left you in Denali, Alaska. It was an amazing place. I wish that we could have stayed there 3 nights instead of 2.  However, we had to move on to get to our cruise ship.

As we left Denali we got one last view of Mt. McKinley. Amazingly we got to see her all 4 days that we were on land. That is very rare indeed. She usually is very shy and likes to hide in the clouds.

We were also amazed that the trees that were brown when we had passed them 4 days earlier….

… had turned green. I’ve never seen anything like it. Our guide told us that Alaskan plant life knows that it only gets 3 months of sunshine so it makes the most of it’s short blooming period. It literally went from barren brown to rich green in 4 days.

It was an 8 hour bus ride to Whittier but we didn’t mind. We drove through some little towns including Wasilla where we saw Sarah Palin’s home. (She did not invite me in for a tea party.) We stopped at some fun places like this store. I bet you can guess what they sold there.

We even passed an igloo. (That was not Sarah’s house.)

We passed beautiful scenery all along the way.

Then we got our first glimpse of our Ship

The Coral Princess

We said goodbye to Jon, our bus driver who just happened to be another BYU boy working in Alaska for the summer and

Headed into the terminal to board our ship.

We had really enjoyed our 4 days exploring Alaska but we were all pretty worn out from all of the traveling and we were glad to board the ship.

We think Whittier is a beautiful little port.

It is very scenic. You can get to it by road, sea and rail which is not the case  for many Alaskan towns.

Many Alaskan towns are only accessible by air or sea. We were told there are only about 200 people who live in Whittier and nearly all of them have a boat or a sea plane. That is the main mode of transportation.

As we sailed away from this pretty little town we once again thanked God for making such a beautiful earth for us to enjoy. Our 4 days on land had ended. We looked forward to the 7 days of cruising and the lovely views that lay ahead of us.

Thanks for coming with me to Whittier, Alaska. Next we are headed to Glacier Bay.

I hope you have a great week.  Hugs, Lura