SLOW JOURNEYING THROUGH ALASKA

Glaciers, Prince William Sound

My husband and I spent many months planning what he calls our Great Alaska Adventure, June-July 2016.  We began with five nights in Fairbanks in a cabin on the banks of the Chena River.  We did everything local we could find--a Fish bake with wood-grilled salmon, wild Alaskan cod, and snow crab; a summer solstice baseball game lasting into the wee hours of the morning; a river cruise by stern wheeler; and a visit to the training grounds of the Iditarod dogsled team. We used local shuttles to get from one adventure to another.

We plunged into the scenic wilderness of central Alaska by taking the Alaska Railroad Goldstar domed train to Denali National Park.  There we hiked, rented self-drive jeeps and photo-hunted moose and the elusive Denali.  We took the same train to Anchorage and rented a car for the drive to Alyeska, a glacier-carved valley in Girdwood, Alaska.  In the midst of seven glaciers, Alyeska became our base camp for trips to Whittier and the glaciers of Prince William Sound and Seward and Resurrection Bay.

On the road 

Amazingly, we saw every single bird, fish and mammal we hoped to encounter, from moose to whales, to puffins, to otters, to seals, to birds of every variety.  The rookeries lining the cliff edges of Prince William Sound were so swirlingly noisy they outdid even the waterfalls.

Rookery, Prince William Sound

Now we monitor the Fairbanks weather and sunlight.  On December 21, the winter solstice, the sun rose at 10:50 a.m. and set at 2:41 p.m.  Three hours forty-two minutes of daylight!  There were fireworks downtown to celebrate the shortest day.  I wish we had been there.

REFLECTIONS--THE GREAT DISMAL SWAMP

We took a slow journey through the Eastern Shore of Virginia.  I've written about slow journeying before.  It doesn't take more time.  You see less, but see it closer.  Some people call this easy pace vacations, or smart travel or insight travel. Different from stealing some sightseeing time on a business trip, which most of us do when we can.  But sometimes, as we all know, less is more. Our plan this time was to stay on the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia, less than a 4 hour drive away, and meet up with old friends.  

Chesapeake Bay Beach, Virginia

Sunset over the Bay the First Night

Then cross the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel (17.6 miles of bridge and two one mile tunnels for shipping lanes), an engineering marvel. I'd been wanting to cross this bridge for ages.  There's no superstructure. It's low level trestle style with single tube tunnels.  The bridge begins in Virginia Beach and ends in Cape Charles by the Bay, a beautiful small town nestled in Virginia's Eastern Shore.  So worth visiting!

Then stay on Chincoteague Island, enjoy the National Wildlife Refuge, and view the wild horses on Assateague Island.  We had only 3 nights, so maybe that doesn't sound slow paced enough, but somehow it was.  An over-the-top nature experience.  Of course we saw the horses.  We caught them grazing at dusk.  I didn't get a good photo of the horses, but my snowy Egret is in a lovely setting, isn't it? More daylight. Delicate long legs on it's own slow journey. I love the reflections in the water.

Finally on the drive back we went through the Dismal Swamp on the Virginia-North Carolina Border.  It's a Coastal Plain Swamp.  These are the most wonderful photos to me.  The reflections made the swamp not dismal at all.  Buggy maybe, but so beautiful to see the clouds and trees upside down.  I read the history later.  What is amazing is that the water is only 6 feet deep.  When you are there it looks much deeper because of the reflections.  We weren't lucky enough to see otters or weasels, and didn't want to run into a black bear or bobcat.  But the birds and bald cypress were plentiful.  We enjoyed it all.  See what you think.

Canal at Great Dismal Swamp

Clouds and Trees, Dismal Swamp

Usually an upside down world connotes something stressful--politics maybe, or something askew at home or at work.  Not here.  Here the trees, clouds and water brought nothing by awe and wonder.  It seems misnamed for sure.