Chugg out of Skagway and cruise north, toward the famous College Fjord, (named as it is a 'fjord', and its several glaciers are named after big time colleges, eg Harvard, Yale, et al), and then the famous Glacier Bay.

Besides the glacier walk, this is what most tourists come to see on an Alaska cruise: mtn lined bays with glaciers. The problem is, it comes on day 6 of a 7 day cruise, the weather could be crummy, (ours was blindingly sunny), this 1,000 ft boat can get only so close in and is under a time slot allotment, and all 4,000 passengers pack the rails, as we are all on board...

Good stuff to see, though it pales a bit if one has been to the Antarctic peninsula, as we have. The very sunny, hazy day with its point of solarity making for very contrasty/some back lit pic shooting conditions, was a test of exposures, polarizing filter, etc. And, my fookin Canon 40D was glitching for most of these 2 weeks in Alaska, and after, so I was often stuck on an ISO or white bal setting that was not what I needed for the 'next shot'.

Some typical postcard shots attached...more in the next posts, coming right up, if my upload 'speed' hangs on.

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More pics of College Fjord/Glacier Bay...
When my 40D was constantly glitching this day, it stuck on flash balance, and Iso 400, as I had just been shooting some fill flash pics of my in-laws; I got the freakin cam woikin again, but it was stuck on those settings. Thus, some of there shots were blown out and color weird...even my novice fiddling in Lightroom barely brought them back to 'normal'.

NEway, we chugged out of Glacier Bay, in early eve, sun still very high in the sky, and steamed north over night, at 20+ knots, to the very unusual town of Whitter, AK just 'down the road' from Anchorage. This is the port where most AK cruises start or end. They were kicking our fannies off that next morning at 8:00 AM.

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Get kicked off the boat in Whittier, AK...less than ~300 people and almost all of them live in the condo in the background shot. Unusual to say the least...

We climb on the Alaska Railroad train: 10 1/2 hour ride from Whittier to Denali National Park area. The Cruise lines, regardless of brand, try to tie in some land based stuff, either before or after the cruise: they bus or train you to 'Denali', where one stays in their company built motels/lodges. And, they try to manage one's itinerary to move you every fookin day.

Thus, one spends hours on a freakin bus every day, going from lodge to lodge...and, we got the usual 'tour' of Denali National Park: in a freakin bus for half a day, riding maybe 30-40 miles, seeing trees and trees and inane stuff.

No dis to Denali, and I am sure there are fans of the place, but we were in 13 National Parks, 6 State Parks and several 'local' parks on our trip; Denali is enormous in size, but the usual tourist gets a bus ride up 14 miles of road, and turns around and comes back. WTF?! Certain vehicles, (awd/4wd), can get permitted to go another dozen miles on the gravel road...that's it.

We had gotten lucky and were able to see Denali, The Mountain, from the interminable train ride; alas, when in the park on a bus stop to 'see stuff', Denali the Mtn, was not to be seen in the near constant clouds that cover its
20,000+ height, and enormous 'base'...much bigger footprint than Everest and a couple other Himalayan peaks combined. Our bus driver/tour guide has been doing her job for 9 summers and had never seen Denali/Mt McKinley.

NEway, more bus rides down 2 lane roads, through corridors of trees, and we finally end up Anchorage. Stay a night, fly ~4 hrs south back to Vancouver, spend a night, float plane over to Victoria, spend a night, float plane back to Vancouver, find the Vette which has been parked in a garage for 2 weeks, load it up, and roll out of beautiful Vancouver, BC heading for the Canadian Rockies.

The Alaskan cruise, in hind sight, was one of those things we always wanted to do, and since V's Rents insisted, we went. I would do the cruise differently, if there was a next time, but I was underwhelmed by the cruise, and Alaska in general, with a couple of exceptions...

Onward toward beautiful Banff, Alberta, & the Canadian Rockies, eh!
Thanks for looking and the long read...
BR, mD

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Couple random pics of Van/Victoria...the Fairmont Waterfront Hotel has a BMW for a courtesy car; it was offered, but we were walking to Gastown area, and drinking copiously, .

Float plane, pricey but fast trip over to Victoria: the seats are made for kids and my knees were poking the pilot in the butt. Fortunately, there is no cabin door. Lovely ride at ~2500 ft altitude.

We have been gone a month+, at this point, with a month to go.
More pics coming, soon.
BR, mD&V

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So, we motored out of Vancouver, east and north stopping in Kamloops, a lovely little town with an unusual name. The next day we rolled across Trans Canada Highway 1, another fabulous road, to Banff, Alberta.

Banff is a well done tourist town, with nice shops, lots of bars and good restaurants, and dozens of motels in the 'lodge' tradition. It is surrounded by 8-10,000 peaks, and is at the 'bottom' of Banff National Park. It was sort of everything we thought Alaska would be, (but was not), and Banff was one of our fave stops on this trip. We spent 3 nights and 3 1/2 days there, driving the near empty roads and awed by the sights.

If you haven't been to the Canadian Rockies, Banff/Lake Louise/Jasper, etc. and driven the Ice Field Parkway and the surrounding roads, I highly rec'd it.


The weather was touchy for those days, as it was very cloudy most of the time, occasional rain and snow, and flat light...but, we loved the 'Banff' area. We also motored east to Calgary for part of a day to meet fellow member "rayxi" and his fine family, for lunchola at a quality joint. Exc to meet them, and we owe Ray, et al lunch!


After a great time, and 3 days at the same motel, in Banff, we rolled south through the Kootenay National Park, British Columbia, a fab road and drive, and crossed back into the US at Roosville, Montana. Border crossing was the 3rd degree, with a dozen questions from the 20 sumpin US Border Patrol guy. I guess we looked suspicious... ...

Pics are random order.
Montana & Wyoming coming up today.

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More from Banff...
passed a 1929? SilverGhost RollsRoyce convertible; they were dressed like they were going snowmobiling. We waved; 2 Verts a few generations apart.

The wierd green/blue lake is typical of the glacial lakes and rivers throughout the higher elevations in the Rockies area: the melt water, full of sand/gravel/debris from the glaciers makes for the unusual color and turbidity.

It snowed on us several times during our Banff area visit, though usually at the higher elevations while we were parked and hiking around...we did get some snow showers on the road for a few mins. It was really snowing 'above' us in the peaks areas.

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And, last 2...'car pics', as we rolled down 93/95 from Banff, through Kootenay Nat Park, out of Alberta back into British Columbia, and rolling south for the US border in Montana.

How much did we like Banff? If we did another trip, I would fly to Denver, rent a car that allowed for crossing into CDA, and do a couple/three weeks of Banff area Alberta, MT, WY & CO, all over again.

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"Moving to Montana soon, gonna be a dental floss tycoon..."
great song by Frank Zappa. And, western Montana would be on my short list, if we were to depart western NC. But, so would western WY and southwest CO. Fabulous country in those areas.

We rolled across the MT border back into the USA, and drove down to Glacier National Park. Somehow, in 5 cross country m'cycle trips, I had never gotten to Glacier Nat Park. So we made it a point to this time, hoping to drive the famous Going to The Sun Road through the park. Alas, like several routes earlier in the trip, the Road was closed due to 20+ feet deep snow: they were woikin on it, but other than a few miles of road in, from the West Glacier entrance, and a few miles in from East Glacier entrance, it was no entry. So, we drove in as far as we could, took a few pics and spent an afternoon wandering around.

Note the knuckleheads on the cliff edge above the roaring Flathead River; they managed not to fall in. If they had, it is almost a certain death. More people are killed each year by drowning in the cold rapid waters, in all the Nat Parks, than by any other cause...no one is gonna swim out of 45 deg water going 10-20 mph. Be careful, esp when fishing from the banks.

Nice mounted trophy specimens were in a Best Western lobby in west Glacier. The owner had nabbed them all...

We wandered out of Glacier the next day, down some fabulous 2 lane Montana roads, (speed limit of 70! on almost all these narrow, rural roads), had lunch in a cowboy joint across from the Triceratops, and then jumped on I-15 hauling azz south from Great Falls to Butte, then east on I-80 to Billings, MT. The MT interstates, like many in the western states, have an 80+ speed limit, that is sort of a suggestion.

Those interstates are smooth, fabulous curves in spots, wide open, great scenery and very fun. The couple cops we saw could not have cared less.

Got to Laurel, MT outside of Billings and cooped. Got the Vette an oil/filter, air filter and new vent blower motor the next day at Fitchner Chevrolet in Laurel. Less than 2 hrs and only $200...great to have a 'chevy' that the Chevy dlr can fix in a NY Minute!

Big Sky Country Montana is fabulous, but the fabulous list is getting long, I realize.
Next day, south out of Montana into northwest Wyoming.

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Big storm near Butte, MT but we dodged it; the VetteVert has almost zero protection against lightning, and it's my only phobia...

The 'cumulative mpg', never reset on trip, showed our 'high' for the journey; we had a 30+ mph tailwind all the way south and east, in Montana. Like most car mpg readings, it is a tad optimistic, imo. When we got home finally, the cumulative showed 29.5, (lots of stop and go in NY/NJ for a week), and the actual mpg was just under 28 for ~13,000 miles. Not bad, fully loaded and usually hauling azz...

Thanks for reading, and looking!

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