At home and abroad

Early next Wednesday morning (May 14), Steve and I will fly north to spend a month in Alaska. I keep reminding myself we will still be in the United States (home!) thus at least theoretically able to fill in for anything we forget to pack. But I’m expecting (hoping) it will feel a bit like being in another country. Abroad.

Neither of us have ever set foot in Alaska before. We decided it was time to make up for that, and several months ago I started my planning by making the same mistake I made last year when planning our travels in the Caribbean: assuming we could get around substantially on ferries. I soon learned that although Alaska at one time had an extensive ferry system, that’s now a shadow of its once glorious self. Some ferries still operate, and in the end, I was able to book passage for us on two, one from Juneau to Gustavus (aka the gateway to Glacier National Park), and another from Sitka to Bellingham. (We’ll spend two nights on that one in a cabin with actual beds.)

I also booked a ferry from Juneau up to Skagway, but then I got an email informing me the Alaska Marine Highway System operators had canceled it. So we will instead fly in a seaplane (another first) up to Skagway and back to Juneau.

Otherwise, we’ll be relying heavily on Alaska Airlines and the Alaska Railroad to get us around. Even with a full month, we still won’t see many parts of the state that sound interesting. This is a HUGE place, I’ve come to appreciate, bigger than Texas, California, and Montana combined.

To my delight, I was able to secure home exchanges with a couple in Juneau and another in Anchorage. We’re counting on those stays to give us some deeper insight into Alaskan life. On the other hand, the weather (at least in Juneau) looks worse than I originally expected. (I took this recent screenshot of Apple Weather just a few weeks ago. The forecasts haven’t improved much since.)

We’re preparing as best as possible, telling ourselves we can always buy more clothes if necessary.