I wanted to update my blog but I don't have any recent pictures to put on so I decided to add some pictures from our trip to Alaska this summer. It was fun to go back through the 1000+ pictures and choose a few out to put on here. The one above is of the Diamond Princess, the ship we were on. It was huge, as you can see - 946 feet long, 136 ft wide, and 203 ft height above the keel. It holds a maximum of 3078 guests and requires 1240 crew members. (I don't know if there were that many on when were there or not - I do know there were a lot of people!)
Here we are in Denali National Park with Mt. McKinley in the background. We were hoping to see lots of wildlife while we were there, and we weren't disappointed. We saw at least 5 grizzly bears, a couple very close up. Also saw caribou and Dahl sheep in the park. As Denali is a wilderness area, they don't allow people to drive in - everyone rides in on busses from near the park entry. In the winter they patrol the park with dog sleds. It appeared from what we read and saw at the visitor's center that most of these park rangers that ride in on the dog sleds are women. The road goes 90 miles into the park, but we didn't go all the way. We went in 60 miles I believe.
The fireweed was blooming beautifully. Mt. Drum in the background, which is in Wrangell-St. Elias National Preserve. This was taken at Copper River Princess Lodge where we stayed two nights.
It was interesting to see the Alaskan oil pipeline. If I remember right, it is approximately 800 miles long and about 400 miles above ground, 400 miles underneath the ground. Where it is above the ground it rests on big H shaped supports. If there is an earthquake, which there often are in Alaska, it is free to move between the padded support posts, sliding across the horizontal piece. It has been successful so far in keeping it from rupturing from an earthquake.
There is a large Russian influence in Alaska from the Russian people who were some of the early settlers. These Matrushka dolls are made and handpainted in Russia. I loved all the vivid colors and variety in the displays at several stores we visited that carried exclusively Russian products. The stacking dolls come apart and there are smaller and smaller dolls inside. They ranged from small sets with 3 or 4 dolls to very elaborate and very large sets - the largest we saw had 50 dolls in it, and was priced around $5000. Most of the large sets had a religious theme, but others were snowmen, animals, football players - everything you could think of.
I wanted to update my blog but I don't have any recent pictures to put on so I decided to add some pictures from our trip to Alaska this summer. It was fun to go back through the 1000+ pictures and choose a few out to put on here. The one above is of the Diamond Princess, the ship we were on. It was huge, as you can see - 946 feet long, 136 ft wide, and 203 ft height above the keel. It holds a maximum of 3078 guests and requires 1240 crew members. (I don't know if there were that many on when were there or not - I do know there were a lot of people!) 
Here we are in Denali National Park with Mt. McKinley in the background. We were hoping to see lots of wildlife while we were there, and we weren't disappointed. We saw at least 5 grizzly bears, a couple very close up. Also saw caribou and Dahl sheep in the park. As Denali is a wilderness area, they don't allow people to drive in - everyone rides in on busses from near the park entry. In the winter they patrol the park with dog sleds. It appeared from what we read and saw at the visitor's center that most of these park rangers that ride in on the dog sleds are women. The road goes 90 miles into the park, but we didn't go all the way. We went in 60 miles I believe.
The fireweed was blooming beautifully. Mt. Drum in the background, which is in Wrangell-St. Elias National Preserve. This was taken at Copper River Princess Lodge where we stayed two nights.
It was interesting to see the Alaskan oil pipeline. If I remember right, it is approximately 800 miles long and about 400 miles above ground, 400 miles underneath the ground. Where it is above the ground it rests on big H shaped supports. If there is an earthquake, which there often are in Alaska, it is free to move between the padded support posts, sliding across the horizontal piece. It has been successful so far in keeping it from rupturing from an earthquake.
There is a large Russian influence in Alaska from the Russian people who were some of the early settlers. These Matrushka dolls are made and handpainted in Russia. I loved all the vivid colors and variety in the displays at several stores we visited that carried exclusively Russian products. The stacking dolls come apart and there are smaller and smaller dolls inside. They ranged from small sets with 3 or 4 dolls to very elaborate and very large sets - the largest we saw had 50 dolls in it, and was priced around $5000. Most of the large sets had a religious theme, but others were snowmen, animals, football players - everything you could think of.
4 comments:
We would love to see all of your pictures sometime.
First, I have to say that I agree with Susie! I would love to see all of your pictures some time! :)
Next, I LOVE those Matrushka dolls!! Some day I will have one of my own from some trip I take! :) Did you purchase one?
I enjoyed clicking on the picture of the Matrushka dolls to make it bigger & then looking at the designs of each one. They are so pretty and unique!
Thank you for sharing some of your trip. Looks like a great experience. Love, Kathy
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