The Internet is Slow and I Am Too Tired to Wait For It!

I am trying so hard to keep this blog in chronological order but I give up! We have been lucky to have internet at each place we have stopped at, even in little out of the way places like Haines and Tok. The only problem I have is that it is slow, and I have no patience waiting for the pictures to upload. So I am just going to insert this little journal here and wait until later to post more pictures. Hopefully it won't be too much later.

We are actually in Tok, Alaska tonight. This is the last leg of our journey, but not the last of our great adventure. Tomorrow we will be in Anchorage and hopefully settled into our new "home". We are looking forward to finally reaching our destination. We have had an incredible trip and have enjoyed all the new places we have seen, but we are getting tired of living out of our suitcases and being cooped up in the 4Runner.

Each part of this trip has been amazing. We realized that even though we have been to a number of places on vacation, we have never really taken a road trip - unless we count Robert's trip to Tucson - and I guess we can count that. We have seen the congestion of LA, the coast of southern Calif. , the endless fields of whatever it is they grow up through the middle part of that state to the redwood forests of northern Calif. It turned overcast on us in Oregon but we still enjoyed the coastal areas we could see and even enjoyed the endless winding roads we thought we would never see the end of. The forests were amazing and we loved every bridge we drove over.

It was great to finally reach Bellingham and start that part of our trip. What an experience it was to drive onto the car deck of the ferry and then make our way up to our stateroom. We were constantly amazed (I know I have overused that word) that we were where we were and doing the things we were doing, spotting water spouts on whales, watching swans take flight, spying hundreds of sea lions on the rocks along the inside passage.

We will never forget the bed and breakfast we stayed in Haines, Alaska. We had just gotten off the ferry and drove through town, wondering all the time where town was, when off on our right we spied a snow packed road that led right to our B&B we had reserved for the night. We took one look at the place and each other and wondered where on earth we had landed! But that's a story for another post.

We drove all day from Haines to Tok on snowy roads looking at all the snow covered mountains (the Watsach Front has nothing on these here hills) and frozen lakes and rivers with one thought, no maybe two on our minds. First - everything in Alaska is so remote and so huge! Two - it is so cold! The silver lining to this day though is that for the first time in four days we saw the sun. I know that in St. George (okay, Ivins) after four days we start grumbling if we haven't had any sun. I think that I am going to celebrate every sunny day I see this winter. And I can not fail to mention the incredible experience we had of driving up the Haines Highway. It is Eagle season in the Chilkut valley. We saw well over a hundred bald eagles in the trees and along the river. They come to this area this time every year to feed on the chum salmon. What a sight!

The closer we get the further we feel from our family. We love to see our grandchildren on their family blogs, but we feel as remote as our new home state really is. Lucky us to be living in this day of technology where we can keep in touch better. It's our goal to be a part of their lives as much as we possibly can. We may be long distant grandparents but hopefully we can be the best long distant grandparents ever.

So... on the eve of our final drive to our new "home" I vow to be optimistic and to enjoy all I can about Alazka and everything that is Alaska, even if it involves snow and cold!