Need a vacation to get over vacation

Back from vacation, and now I need a vacation to rest up. Spending many hours in airports getting home was the worst part about our trip. It took 24 hours from Vancouver to Cincinnati.

After hearing friends talk about going to Alaska for years and the “oohs and ahs” they said about it, my wife and I decided to see for ourselves what it was like.

Some people call it a dream vacation. I call it okay. There is plenty of beautiful scenery. As for the animals, we see more in our yard than we saw in Alaska. We saw a couple of moose, a few caribou and a couple of whales. No bears, no mountain goats, oh we did see a hare, or a big rabbit to us. In all, very disappointing.

The first four days of our vacation were spent travelling by land. I enjoyed this part the most because it included an eight hour train ride from Denali to Anchorage. It was one of those trains that is completely enclosed by glass and you sit up high and can see everything.

I had never ridden a train that felt like you were floating on a cloud. It was so smooth and comfortable and there was a dining car down below with good food.

Next was a seven day cruise aboard the Holland America Nieuw Amsterdam ship. We saw plenty of snow capped mountains and icebergs, plus lots of water. It was beautiful.

We stopped at ports along the way. The weather was beautiful. It was 80 degrees at Shagway, warm enough that the tour guide said he was suffocating. I found it pleasant.

After landing at Fairbanks we took a paddle wheel boat ride that was interesting. We saw dog sled teams being trained, villages that were homes to settlers, and giant mosquitos.

 What impressed me the most were the many pots of mixed flowers hanging from every post and route, the most beautiful that I have ever seen. They were everywhere in Fairbanks and Anchorage

The lady tour guide in Fairbanks had lived there seven years. She was from California but she liked it there. She lived in a dry cabin, about as big as my living room. Dry meant she had no running water and she carried in water for drinking and washing dishes. She took showers at the laundry mat for $5 or at the University. She had an outdoor toilet.

Last winter in one week they had eight feet of snow and the temperature got to 55 degrees below zero. There were only four hours of daylight in the winter. And she likes it there?

We started out our trip with 18 hours of sunlight. Alaska is four hours behind us in time and in spite of the brightness we were ready for bed early.

Having to wear a mask onboard the ship made our trip less enjoyable. Also, it was so annoying to have to continually fill out Covid papers and take Covid tests. Three in our party of 40 tested positive and they are still in Canada and will be there until July 10th.

I’m glad we made the trip. But I would not want to go back again. However, a couple at our dinner table were making their second trip.

I’ve gone on vacations I’ve enjoyed much more than this one, but until you’ve seen the wonders of nature there for yourself you can only make the decision whether or not it is good or not so good.