vacation

Well, I’ve been rummaging about on an old hard drive and came across several dozen letters I wrote back in the late 1990’s. The following is a letter I wrote to my Aunt Gladys (I’ve mentioned her in my blog several times and included photos her husband, my Uncle Edward, took while they lived in Alaska in the 1940’s and 1950’s).  You can see some of his old photos here and here.

Ann and I went to Alaska on a cruise for our honeymoon in 1997–one of the best trips of my life. Here’s the run-down:

I thought that I’d write to you about our adventures in Alaska. I enjoyed talking to you over the phone about them, but I thought that you would enjoy a slightly more detailed description of our trip.

On Saturday, we flew to Vancouver, British Columbia. I wish that we had more time to spend here, but we hurried to the ship. Riding through on a bus was interesting, however. It is a beautiful city and one that I hope to see again, and in more detail. We got on the ship down by the docks, just blocks from the downtown district. The ship was huge, 11 stories tall and 941 feet long. It was very nice and we went to our room to rest after the long flight.

We got up in time to watch as we sailed out of the Vancouver harbor. Leaving Vancouver was beautiful and we sailed past Stanley Park. It’s amazing to see that much green, undeveloped land in the middle of a city. I really liked that and would love to have time to explore the park some day.

The next day, we spent the entire day on the ship looking out at the mountains, which got larger and taller as we sailed north. There really wasn’t a lot to see on this day because we weren’t very near the shore. As a result, we saw mainly commercial fishing boats and sea gulls. It was nice though, because it gave us a chance to rest.

[Read more…] about Good Times in Alaska: Our Honeymoon