Fairbanks - Pioneer Park

The flowers haven't come out blue but they were - they are the state flower of Alaska - forget-me-nots.

Heather and Susan.

Steve

Fairbanks

Susan, Steve and Heather's home:

VW shop (and yes, Mac did buy something too):

Susan at the Library where she works:

This in the entrance where each ceramic book represents a donation, and has the name of the donor on the spine instead of the title and author - very cool.

Heather at roller derby practice:

Pioneer Park:

To Anchorage

It was so exciting to get on the plane to Anchorage, where we were to meet up with Steve and Susan again after 11 years. It was a lovely flight over clouds and mountains that made it feel as if it was indeed a whole new world we were entering.

After meeting up without any waiting time by either couple we were off to Talkeetna to stay the night. Unfortunately The Mountain was covered in cloud and has stayed that way ever since - cloud or haze. There was plenty more to see - this is a very green and beautiful place in summer. We stayed the night in little log cabins with huge mosquitoes buzzing at the windows trying to get in.

Petersburg

Petersburg was next, named after the Norwegians who settled there. It was a bit bigger and a bit tidier than Wrangell. 

Sadly, from this point I have almost no photos except those Mac took on his phone, due to a communication error between Mac and me about how to download photos onto his computer - I thought they were all downloaded,and deleted them from the camera card, but it was only a few of them. So no pictures of the moose, the ravens, Juneau, the cabin we stayed in etc etc etc = many tears.

From Wrangell to Petersburg

This part of the journey between Petersburg and Juneau where the land was very close on both sides of the boat was a real highlight despite not seeing the animals that are often seen there - deer, sometimes bears, and very occasionally moose.

There were lots of houses through this passage.

This spot is for sale if anyone's interested.

Very narrow channel here - the big cruise ships can't come though here, and the ferry only just fits in places.

We did see lots of bald headed eagles though.

At one place there were masses of eagles on the beach and in the trees - the remains of someone's fishing trip had obviously been thrown onto the beach.

Keep between the markers!

Coming in to Petersburg.