I’ve done a couple things over the past couple of years that I never thought I’d do, and FLYING to Alaska was one of them. I do NOT like to fly…I am a very fearful flyer. However, after a night of wine with my husband and cousins out on the deck, I said, “Sure!”. Without asking me a second time, hubby bought those plane tickets. OMG…what did I do?! But….Covid hit and everything came to a halt, including plane travel. I was never so excited for a plague to happen. However, we found out we could postpone/reschedule, but not get a refund. Looks like we’re going after all.

Instead of the summer of 2020, we went the summer of 2022. It was breathtaking! We enjoyed visiting/staying with family, and we even got to stay a weekend in Talkeetna and go camping on another weekend (we couldn’t see Denali through the fog and mist, though). I don’t know that I will go back because flying was almost physically painful for me because of the fear, but it is a wonderful place to see and I could envision us living there (Anchorage).

I would always be enthralled with the fact that the sun doesn’t really set in the summer. It was light at 11:00 p.m. to midnight…and never really got full dark, even at 3:00 a.m. While we often stayed up too late because there was no darkness to remind us it’s time for bed, the birds DID go to bed every night around the same time as they do at home. It was so eerily peaceful late at night because it was silent. They don’t have as many bugs up there so there were not really any cricket sounds, etc.

It was also unusual to have to be on the constant lookout for bears. We took bear bells and bear spray when we went for walks, and I couldn’t even take Santiago out in the yard to potty without keeping a close lookout. (Yes, I took my little Santiago with me…I can’t imagine being without that little guy for more than a day.)

Enjoy some of our photos…and Mount Rainier was spectacular from the plane.