The Quest for The Perfect Picture

Here I am on my post, trying to get things going again. We got back from our cruise on Thursday evening.

During the trip, we traveled on 9 different forms of transportation: car, airplane, bus, dogsled, jet boat, train, shuttle bus, catamaran, and trolley. Praise God, He kept us safe on all of these.

My husband, Larry, and I got to Anchorage in the evening. We were more tired than hungry, so got a small bite to eat of salad and bread. Sourdough bread is big in Alaska, and it is yummy. The next day we met my sister, Jean, and her husband, Bob. We ate in a great little cafe where Bob got reindeer sausage and I had sourdough french toast. We saw the Captain Cook memorial and decided to see The Anchorage Museum. Here we learned the names of the native groups and saw artifacts. One interesting one was a whole parka made from animal intestines. It was white and filmy looking. We visited the Ulu factory. Ulus are curved knives uses by native Alaskans and apparently made famous by Rachel Ray. We bought a few as gifts for the cooks in our family. That evening, Larry, Jean, and I saw a movie called Aurora. It was shots of the Northern Lights set to music. Beautiful. Later, we briefly met our land tour director, Tahnee.

Early the next morning, we boarded a bus and traveled to the place where they raise dogs for the Iditarod Trail race. I am holding a cute black puppy. This is where Jean and I had a dogsled race. At the word, those dogs raced off and I felt like I were flying through the snow. What a ride. Then we got on the bus and Tahnee said we were blessed because it was a good day and we should be able to see Mt. McKinley. Only about 30% of the people who go to Alaska get to see it. It is so clouded over most of the time. We got out and took pictures. I got a few, but they weren't too great because it was sunny and I couldn't see what I was filming. The picture I'm showing was taken near that time. Then it was a race for us to try to get a great picture of Mt. McKinley. After that, it clouded over and was never as clear. Some of us got off the bus at Talkeetna, a tiny town. We had pizza and shopped in the cute shops. Then we took the shuttle to McKinley Princess Lodge. We sat at dinner by a window with a view of the mountains. It was so funny, one time you can see mountains, the next time you visit the same site, they are gone. The famous disappearing mountains. We had great food here. I had fresh salmon and a gorgeous Caesar salad. Next time, I will tell about our fishing adventure and the wildlife park.

Thank you all for your prayers for safety and for my hair. The shampoo, serum, and scrubby my doctor recommended plus lots of prayers helped so much. I still have hair and it seems to be doing better already. I missed all of you. It's good to be back.