Alaska

For Karol’s birthday, which we celebrated in Quebec at Winter Carnival, John gave her a trip to Alaska in July.  We flew into Anchorage and arrived about 11:30 PM, which was just about sunset.  The next day, we took the Alaska Railroad to kayak among the icebergs and hike on Spenser Glacier.

 

Here are the icebergs, which wouldn’t have sunk the Titanic, but are icebergs nonetheless.

 

We kayaked for about 45 minutes to get to the glacier, shown here in the distance.

 

Once we got to the glacier, we put on crampons, helmets and harnesses (just in case) and started hiking up the glacier. 

 

Unlike popular belief, glaciers are not pristine piles if clear ice.  In fact, most are pretty dirty, having dreged up rocks and ground them to dust over thousands of years.  Here are some views

 

We hiked on the glacier for about two hours.

 

 

The other thing that surprised me is that glaciers are really blue when you can see inside them.  This is how blue they are.

 

And this is Karol getting a shot into the crevasse.

 

The next day, we had breakfast at Snow City.  It was 1000 on a Thursday morning and there was still a 45 minute wait.  We tookseats at the counter and had a great breakfast.  This is a must stop in Anchorage.

After breakfast, we drove down to Seward.  Along the way we stopped at Exit Glacier.  The hike up to the glacier was hampered by swarms of black flies – but when we got high enough it was windy and blew the flies away.  The interesting thing about Exit glacier is that they have marked the trail at points where the glacier had been over the years.  It is truly amazing how much has melted off during recent years.  Here’s the glacier and Karol in front of it.

 

Seward was rainy so we took a boat ride to see more glaciers and wildlife.

 

We saw a bald eagle, mountain goat, and sea otters. 

 

 

 Then of course we saw Finback and Humpback whales.

 

We also saw a bunch of glaciers, none of which had names I can remember.

 

Quebec January 2016

 

So, for John’s birthday in July, Karol gave him a trip to Quebec, Canada during winter carnival in late January, 2016.  We stayed in the fabulous Chateau Frontenac, right on the Saint Lawrence.

We toured the old city and ate in some great French restaurants.

 

We took a tour which brought us to the Cathedral of Saint Anne, where there was a relic of the saint in the form of an arm bone.  For those of you who don’t know, St Anne was the mother of Mary and grandmother of Jesus.  I don’t know how her arm bone got to Canada two thousand years later, but they sure built a nice church around it.  Here is her enshrined arm bone and another shot from the church which was actually very beautiful.

We also toured the ice hotel where the inside temperature was a balmy 20 degrees Fahrenheit.  Here is a bedroom and a chapel where some people get married.

  

They also had several bars where they served drinks in ice glasses.  Here we are enjoying a cold one. 

 

Finally, we made it to the carnival, where they had lots of games and fun things to do like human foosball.

 

They also had lots of snow sculptures.  We watched some of them being built.

All in all, we had a great time.  Karol really got into the snow sculpture thing.

She also made new friends.