The Wonder Of Alaska

I was blessed with an opportunity to spend 10 days in our

49th state very recently, and I want to share some observations with you. If

you look at a world map, you can see that Alaska is enormous.....as big as

Europe.....a third to half as large as the lower 48 states. I visited Denali, Talkeetna,

Anchorage and Seward in the southeast and cruised the panhandle (Juneau, Hoonah, Skagway and Ketcikan) before returning to Vancouver.

Some observations:

1) The mosquitoes weren't nearly as bad as expected. Hardly any seen.

2) It was cold, cold, cold, even though the thermometer read in the 50's.

    I wore 4-5 layers everywhere we went and that wasn't enough at times

3) It rains a lot in the panhandle, a rainforest, with Juneau getting 200" a year !

4) It is very cloudy most of the time. Patches of blue sky are called "cloud failure."

5) Most of Alaska's population lives in Anchorage, a modern city of 270,000

6) Gas is nearly $5/ga everywhere in Alaska. Cigarettes are $7/pack.

7) Denali (Mt McKinley) is seen only 10-20-percent of the days. We saw it !!

8) There are three or four native population groups, the Tlingits being most

obvious in the southeast and panhandle. They are only about 10-percent

of the population in total

9) It is daylight until 1:00AM and daylight again before 5:00AM on the mainland.

    In the extreme north, summer is all daylight.

10) Wildlife is everywhere, including the villages and cities. We did not see

any bears but everything else......including whales !

11) The locals are very nice, helpful and proud of their state.

12) I am thankful to have seen the state but probably won't return. It's a long trip !!

(I have not been able to upload photos here but will keep trying)