Our Alaskan Adventure, Part I

(drum roll, please)

Finally.

I'm a good portion of the way through the pictures from our trip to Alaska in July, and I just couldn't wait any longer to share them with you. For the sake of your eyeballs and my finger muscles, I am going to break our trip down to day-by-day digestible chunks, and today I am starting at the beginning with our arrival into Anchorage.

Nick and I flew into Anchorage the day prior to embarkation, on a Tuesday – the flight was longer than I expected (I’m not sure exactly what I expected … Alaska is HUGE and, like, really far North, duh, but after the 3 hours from San Diego to Seattle, another 3 hour flight made for a long travel day). My first impressions of Anchorage: wow, it’s gorgeous! and wow, it’s small! It being the largest city in Alaska by A LOT immediately puts the population density of this state into perspective. Anchorage is bordered on 2 sides by the Cook Inlet and on the other two by mountains. And oh, those mountains. When we flew in, they were difficult to see. Everyone we talked to told us how gorgeous the weather has been this summer – sunny and warm, clear, dry … until the day before we showed up. I think they got several inches of rain in the 24 hours before we arrived, and it was still very overcast that evening. At one point just before sunset the clouds lifted over the mountains long enough for us to get a glimpse of the peaks from our hotel room window. Nick, of course, loved watching all of the small bush planes in their take-off and landing cycles. It was hard to figure out where they were actually landing, as there were numerous small air strips in the area and we could see at least two small water runways with docks for floatplanes. I pulled out the monster lens that I rented for the vacation - my abandoned (returned) lover, Canon's 100-400 IS L-series lens - and took some pictures of the mountains. It was my first test of the lens in Alaska! These shots were taken at full zoom (400mm, which is ~660mm equivalent on my camera), so the image stabilization definitely did its job well.





I've recently become a little obsessed with layering textures over pictures in Photoshop. Thanks to the internet and Flickr, I'm able to access thousands of textures created by generous artists with the intent that strangers like me use them to enhance our own pictures. My favorites are from SkeletalMess, Boccacino, and BorealNZ. After pasting the layer onto my image, I can adjust the blending mode and opacity to give a range of effects. Anyway, I'm absolutely geeking out trying a bajillion combinations. For example ...



We were on our own for dinner, so we decided to get the vacation started with some good beer and some fresh Halibut at the Glacier Brewhouse.

We woke up Wednesday morning knowing that we had little on the agenda until departure for the Grandview train in the early afternoon. The Grandview train is a scenic railway that runs from Anchorage to Seward, following Turnagain Arm and passing through some of the most beautiful scenic valleys that probably exist on Earth. So yes, we were super excited to ride this train, despite the gloomy, rainy weather.

Just before breakfast, we headed over to the Regent check-in desk to get our seat assignment for the train … and found out that the train tracks had flooded and there would be no train ride after all. I guess having two weeks of 80+ degree temps had caused massive snowmelt in Seward; the rivers flooded and burst their banks, and in the process also flooded the tracks. I had so been looking forward to the train ride – I didn’t want to let it get me down, but I’ll admit I was a little bit of a grump about it for a few hours.

To shake off the 'tude, We decided to head out for a walk around town, and followed a little spit of the coastal trail that runs along the inlet. The trail quickly became decidedly less urban and soon we saw water - and ships! There was a small dock with some commercial vessels across the way, but what made it an iconic Alaska moment in my mind was the color of the grasses growing on the piece of floodplain between the trail and the ships. In the middle of summer, there was an orgy of yellows, oranges, greens, and reds that was so unexpected we had to stop and take some pictures.



Plus texture:


We were a little surprised to see two F-15 fighters land, but then Nick remembered that there’s an Air Force Base up here in Anchorage. He also remembered that there is a squadron of F-22 Raptors up here, too. Sure enough, we saw a few Raptors come in and bounce repeatedly (coincidentally, this was also the day that Congress voted to terminate the F-22 program …). Also a couple of C-130s and perhaps a C-5.

We saw several of these planes land while down at Ship Creek, a stream that runs through the industrial area of downtown Anchorage. The salmon had just started running, and the season had just opened the day prior. (On our flight into Anchorage, a gentleman sitting next to me described last year’s fishing season and how he and his friends caught their subsistence quota of salmon within 3-4 hours. Which is remarkable, considering that subsistence quotas are 30 (?) fish for each head of household and another 10 for each dependent. They just dipped their nets into the water and came away with hundreds of fish in one afternoon.)

There were several locals out fishing in Ship Creek, and we spent an hour or so just watching them fish:





This particular fish was, unfortunately, hooked in the gullet ...





Looking downstream, there was a line of men and women in waders trying their hand, although we didn't see too many fish in that part of the creek. For each one of these guys in waders, there were three or four fishing from shore.



Of the bridges over Ship Creek, the nicest was the one atop the dam - it had the additional photographic advantage of beautiful lightposts along the length and the most amazing old industrial building at the end.

(Nick caught me taking the above picture of the line of fisherpeoples)

And my shot, original and with a texture:





Reinvigorated after our trek around town and a stop at the Ulu Factory, maker of the famous Ulu knives (yes, we made sure we acquired one), we rendezvous-ed back at the hotel with the bus for our transfer to Seward. The rain had started up again at this point, and it looked like it was going to be a very gloomy ride to the ship. Given the fact that Regent had to scramble to get all sorts of extra buses to transport the passengers who had been scheduled to take the train, the transfer was pretty smooth. Would there have been more room on the train? Yup. Would it have been more comfortable? Yup. Would the scenery have been better? Hard to say … for the ride along Turnagain Arm the tracks followed the road, so it’s safe to say they would have had the same view we did for that portion, although the bus windows were grimy and interfered with the picture taking and the train windows would have been less so. The train would have also traveled at a much slower pace, enabling better picture-taking. However, once past Turnagain Arm, the weather rolled in and it started raining, which makes me think that the train windows would have quickly gotten just as splattered as the bus’s. The ride along the mud flats of Turnagain Arm was beautiful despite the low clouds and limited visibility of the mountains. The tide comes into the Arm quickly and violently and, I’m sure, rolls out just as fast. But in the areas that don’t flood at high tide, there are rivulets in the mud, almost tiny canyons. There were a few that looked like the Grand Canyon in miniature, and it made me wonder how long it took to create these little majestic mud channels.





The rest of the ride was also beautiful, although I wish our coach driver had either given us a little narration or stopped at a few scenic points to let us really view it all. Next time we’re here, we’ll be traveling at our own pace, Erin-and-Nick-style, Nick driving patiently while I holler at him to “pull off!!” or “stop here!” or “mwuuaaaah!” (which roughly translates to either of the previous phrases). Frustratingly, there was construction on this highway, shutting it down to one lane, which meant that only one direction of traffic could go at a time. We sat at a full stop for half an hour waiting for our turn.

I think normally we wouldn’t have cared, but we were comparing it in our minds to what the train would have been like (no traffic!) and the dead stop was the final nail in the coach’s coffin. When we arrived in Seward, the town was totally fogged/clouded in, and what I’m sure is a stunning port town surrounded by mountains was instead a wall of white with some gray water stretching out in front of us. After we had boarded the ship and got settled in our stateroom, the weather lifted just enough to see a bit of the town across the water:

Even though we were starting to think that our trip was off to an iffy start with the weather-induced inconveniences, once we were on board were so excited for the days ahead. See? Excited!





Apparently, Nick was SO excited that he decided to impersonate ... someone ...



(disclaimer: that picture was the result of us saying, one too many times, "I'm on a BOAT!" and other ridiculous lyrics from this SNL digital short. Before you click on it, beware that there are several f-bombs and other curse words. If you are inclined to be offended by such language or you have small children around, please don't watch it. You're warned.)



The onboard naturalist Terry Breen came on over the ship's speakers (or piped through the ship's channel on our stateroom TV) to narrate our departure from Seward. She remarked about the incredible flooding around Seward and how a huge proportion of the floodwater was glacial runoff, which has a milky green color due to the glacial silt. As she was describing it, Nick and I went out onto the balcony and noticed not only the color, but how there was a distinct line in the bay where the glacial runoff met the rest of the oceanic water.

And as the ship's engines started up, the silty green water began combining with the darker ocean water, swirling together beautifully. (Look closely for the seagulls.)



We went up to the Observation Lounge to enjoy a cocktail before dinner and continue to watch the departure from Seward:

As the rain picked up again, the view out of the Observation Lounge windows was so obscured, it was hard to see much of anything:

So we headed down to the Horizon Lounge, which has the advantage of a) being covered and b) being on a lower deck. We caught the last glimpses of land before heading out to open ocean for our transit South:

And I got my Bon Voyage shot of the ship's path through the water:

We shook off the day's misadventures, kept our fingers crossed for better weather, and hit the sack, preparing mentally for the next day's adventure, cruising Hubbard Glacier, the longest tidewater glacier in the Northern hemisphere. But you'll have to wait for those pictures ... (not too long, I promise).