Orcas and Belugas!

A whole pod of Orcas.
Hard to see, but this is a Beluga whale in the Turnagain Arm on our way home from Seward. We saw many of them, but boy are they hard to photograph!

Humpback alert again!

We saw a total of three humpback whale on our cruise of the bay. It is always a thrill to see whale and my friend Marsha was especially thrilled to see whale on her trip. In fact, she saw these humpback, the orcas and belugas that will be in the next blog post.

Birds of Resurrection Bay

After our trip to Denali and Fairbanks, we were home just long enough to get a good night's sleep and then headed to Seward and a cruise of Resurrection Bay. Here is a Cormorant with babies on the nest.
This is a new bird for me. This is Red-Faced Cormorant with babies. It was exciting for me to see this bird.

And of course the resident favorite, Tufted Puffin!

The Creamery and Alaska Pipeline

Here is what is left of the fireweed. Around here we watch the fireweed closely. It blooms from the bottom up and when the blooms are near the top we know summer is just about over. After they bloom, they turn to seed. So, you can see SUMMER IS OVER!!
It was the Sandhill Crane Festival at the Creamery in Fairbanks. There were thousands of cranes in the fields.

This is one of the viewing points of the Alaska Pipeline as it works its way from the top of the state at Prudheo Bay to Valdez.

Riverboat Discovery

While riding in the tour boat, we got to stop and watch lots of 'Alaskan' happenings. One of these was a float plane taking off and landing beside the riverboat.
Another thing we did was stop and talk with Susan Butcher's husband who raises sled dogs. Susan Butcher was one of Alaska's favorite women, the first to win the Iditarod. She died last year of cancer. It was a treat to get to listen to her husband explain what they do with the dogs and to get some great pictures of him and his dogs. It was interesting how the riverboat tours did this. They pulled up next to these things and had microphones set up so that the guests could speak into the microphone and all the passengers on the riverboat could hear what was being said. Pretty cool.
Here they are getting ready to run the dogs. It is summer so they run them with a 4-wheeler.
After the dogs work, they play! As soon as they unhooked them from the run, the ran into the river.
Another really neat part of the riverboat cruise was the confluence of these two rivers. Taken from the Riverboat Discovery website: Nuchalawoya, an Athabascan Indian term for the "wedding of the rivers." The marriage of the clear waters of the Chena River and the silt laden Tanana River creates this unique demarcation line.

Fairbanks, AK

We arrived the next morning, after a beautiful drive from Denali to Fairbanks. What a cute city. I was very impressed with Fairbanks (in the summer! LOL)
We had to make a stop at North Pole, AK to see Santa's house. Even did some Christmas shopping!!
The University of Alaska at Fairbanks is blessed with an amazing museum. Although we didn't have time to go through it on this visit, it will be first on my list for the next trip.

While in Fairbanks, we took the Discovery Riverboat for a nice look at the Alaskan culture and life in Fairbanks. Here is a working fish wheel.

The end of our Denali trip...

We saw this nice rainbow in Denali.
We saw this double rainbow in Fairbanks. We actually saw MANY rainbows on the trip, but I only got good pictures of these two.
On the bus ride back someone else spotted this grizzly eating the soapberries.

This final picture is the moose and bear warning sign at the start of the trail Marsha and I walked just outside the visitor's center in Denali. Needless to say, the 'bear fear' I have was too great and we only walked the little loop!

Highlight of my wildlife viewing!

Okay, so we are riding a glorified school bus with a full load of senior citizens and all of a sudden I see this grizzly taking a walk up the hillside. Of course I can't contain myself so I (kind of) 'yell' GRIZZLY! LOL There he was. Walking up to the top of a hill and then deciding to take a nap for all of us to watch. It was just incredible.



Make sure you click on this picture and open it up for bigger viewing. It is quite wonderful.

Denali Grande Lodge and wildlife

Here is the beautiful Grande Denali Lodge. This is where we stayed the first night. After checking in, we caught the bus for an 8 hour tour inside Denali Park.
More views of the beautiful fall colors.
A Pika! I was SO happy to get to see one of these. All of the pictures of the wildlife were taken from inside the bus. So, they aren't the best pictures, but I was pretty pleased with most of them.
These are Willow Ptarmigan. They are just starting to turn white. Their feet have already turned. Later in the winter they will be completely white. Click HERE for a picture of the Willow Ptarmigan in the winter.
Snowshoe Hare. Again, just starting to turn to winter white. There were lots of Snowshoe Hare in the park.

Sights from Denali National Park and Preserve I

Beautiful caribou feeding on the shrubs. They are in velvet at this time, but rut season has now begun. The ranger we spoke to told us the best time to be in Denali is the beginning of September as the caribou and moose go into rut and begin fighting with each other for mating rights.
Lots of Dall Sheep in Denali.
Even though it was the last week of August, the fall colors so far north were just amazing.
More of the beautiful colors.
And one more.

Majestic Mt. McKinley

Well, during the month of August in Alaska, one comes to expect rain, rain and more rain. My friend Marsha decided to visit during our 'rainy' season. The next few blog entries will be of our romps through Alaska, to Denali and Fairbanks, to Seward and Girdwood. Take care to look at the skies! Other than late afternoon on the cruise in Seward, and an afternoon shower in Fairbanks, it was SUNNY the whole week. It was amazing. We started our travels heading NORTH into new territory for me. I had never been to Denali National Park or Fairbanks so I was very excited to experience this with Marsha. The first two pictures here are of Mt. McKinley, which is only supposed to be visable 20% of the time, from the south on our drive up the state. These pictures were taken on our drive up. Okay, what an amazing, majestic mountain. As I post more on the blog, enjoy the amazing sights from Denali National Park and Preserve.

This third picture was taken inside Denali looking at Mt. McKinley from the north. You can see the top poking through the clouds.

Spawning Salmon

There is a small creek in our area where the salmon spawn and are protected from fishing. While my friend Marsha was here, we stopped for a look. This is really interesting. I thought this creek was full of Silver Salmon, but what you are looking at here are Sockeye or Red Salmon. They have already gone into the fully spawning stage with the dark green head and very red body. They will continue to 'spawn until they die', which is a favorite saying up here in Alaska and can be seen on bumper stickers and t-shirts! LOL

These are Chum Salmon. Not too good for eating, but they sure look cool spawning.
Here are some of both kinds.