North to Alaska!!

What a beautiful day in Alaska, we could not believe the weather, almost everyday someone would say, "we almost never have this nice of weather. We loved our trip, Brian's sister Carla and her husband Rick were our travel companions.
I love how the trees reflect in the lake and the crisp beauty of the Alaskan wilderness.

This was our first view of Mt. McKinley, our guide told us only 30% of people who travel to Alaska see the mountain, we had an amazing view.

This is our jet boat, we toured out of Talkeetna Alaska, it was such a beautiful way to see the sights.
This picture shows the ice lining the shores of the river. The ice broke up just a couple of weeks ago, it was thick this year. In Talkeetna, the breaking up of the ice sounded like thunder. It came through like a flash flood and flooded out the dock they normally use.
They used this makeshift trail, probably 80% of the people on our cruise were senior citizens, some had a hard time getting around. It made Brian and I grateful we can travel now when we still have a little more mobility.

We hiked to a replica trappers camp, it was fun to feel the furs and see how they would have lived.
I had to take this picture to show how tall and amazing the ice flow really is, it was unbelievable so much ice could just come off the river.

My handsome travel companion!!!
We had lunch at the Talkeetna Lodge, it was so nice, I would like to go back there and stay one day. The view from the balcony of the mountains was breathtaking. The pictures really don't do it justice.

A last look at Mt McKinly.

Our next stop was one of the Iditarod training camps, I was excited to see the huskies and where they trained for the race.

These dogs have actually ran the race, but they are not huskies, all different breeds of dogs are used. They put booties over their feet to protect them. The dogs certainly had a lot of energy and loved to run. I was disappointed that our ride looked more like a buggy, but it was kind of fun anyway.
So that ends our first day in Alaska, hopefully you won't all be sick of looking at our pics, but be grateful, we took over 1000. Although I confess I have already deleted quite a few, you have to take a lot to get the good shots. Speaking of good shots, the above is not, the girl told us she always got good pics, pretty good of the dogs, not the people. lol