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Fedoras afield

Fed in a Fedora

Practically Family
Messages
739
Location
Dixie, USA
I agree. The trip was a celebration of our 30th anniversary (though a month early), and we were joined by my wife's sister and her husband who were married 35 days after us. They contracted Norovirus and were each ill for a day, but otherwise the trip was absolutely wonderful. Much wildlife was spotted during the 11-day trip, but from a safe distance. I would advise anyone and everyone to visit Alaska if they ever have the opportunity--the people who live there are among the nicest, friendliest, most down-to-earth you'll ever meet, and the scenery is gorgeous.

Congrats on your anniversary! What a millstone, I mean milestone. ;-)

Seriously, I am very happy for ya'll.

And I like Alaska a lot. Wonderful place. Fresh salmon, great sights and interesting people.

Fed
 
Well, my wife and I went to a convention in Alton this past weekend....and I forgot to take pictures.....went accross the river to St.Louis and visited Levine Hat Company (no pictures but came away with a bound edge Opimo Straw, and ordered a pair of awesome stadium shoes).......then stopped at Hannibal and took this picture along the great Mississippi.......Yes, we had FUN!!!
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Messages
11,912
Location
Southern California
Congrats on your anniversary! What a millstone, I mean milestone. ;-)

Seriously, I am very happy for ya'll...
Thank you! I wish I had some sort of wise insights into how to make a relationship--marriage or otherwise--last so long, but I jokingly attribute it to equal parts stubbornness and stupidity. :cool:

...And I like Alaska a lot. Wonderful place. Fresh salmon, great sights and interesting people.
Neither my wife nor I care for salmon, but otherwise I agree 100%. The big cities like Anchorage don't appear to be much different from any other, but once you get into the smaller towns and communities (and can get away from the businesses that are owned by the cruise lines) the people are indeed wonderful. My wife and I have a knack for talking to people and getting them to drop that "business owner" veneer because we're interested in them as people (i.e., beyond what they can offer us professionally in that moment), and we've heard countless interesting and fascinating stories.

As for the sights, Alaska is unbelievably beautiful. The guides would take us somewhere and I'd think, "It can't possibly get any more beautiful than this." And then they'd show us something else, and I'd think, "Okay, now it can't get any more beautiful than this." And then they'd show us something else. It was as if the state was constantly trying to top itself.

Zombie, I was expecting your obligatory picture with hat taken from atop Mt. Denali. Camera must have malfunctioned in the cold?
I wish. The closest we got to Mt. Denali was the view from the resort. But while we were there, the cloud cover that normally obscures the view of the top of Mt. Denali cleared, and we were able to see it's peak. I don't know how true it is, but we were told this was a rare opportunity. In fact, everywhere we went people told us we couldn't have chosen a better time to visit as far as the weather was concerned. We encountered some light rain on the day that "horseback" photo was taken, and a brief downpour on another day as the ship cruised south down the coast, but otherwise it was very nice with highs in the low-70s (°F) during the day and lows in the mid-50s (°F) at night (Alaska's version of night, that is).

I sincerely hope we have an opportunity to visit Alaska again some day.
 

FedOregon

I'll Lock Up
Messages
5,134
Location
Oregon
This is the only picture I have from Alaska when I was wearing a hat... a camo ball cap from Fairly Honest Don's Machine Gun Parlor.

I do love salmon, and fishing for them. These are the smaller Coho, or silver, salmon. The limit on the Deshka river (behind me) was 3 coho per day. I caught that limit in about 20 minutes. Then we cleaned those fish (9 total, between me, Ric and his friend), and sent them off on a boat to my buddy's Dad who was parked in his RV about 14 miles away from our camp/fishing spot.

Then we ate some lunch and fished, catch and release only, for Chinook (King) salmon. They had closed the river for Chinook the day before I got there.... but I hooked and fought 10 king salmon that afternoon/evening... on our light gear we had for the silvers. Those 10 weighed between 15 and 60 pounds. The 60 pounder being the only one that finally broke my line, after I chased him downstream about 200 yards (over and under logs, up on the bank and down in the river again) to a big, deep hole at a bend in the river. What a hog! All I wanted to do was to get him to surface so I could snap a quick picture with my disposable camera... no doing.

Like Z61 alluded to, it doesn't get dark there in the summer. I got back to camp about 11:00 p.m. No wonder I was tired!

The thing that impressed me about Alaska, besides the friendly people, was how absolutely HUGE everything was. I have never felt so small out in the "sticks" as I did when I went to Alaska. We also fished in Seward, out in Resurrection Bay. I caught my 6 coho limit and kept about 4 "dog" salmon to smoke/grill immediately upon my return to Oregon.

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Messages
11,912
Location
Southern California
...The thing that impressed me about Alaska, besides the friendly people, was how absolutely HUGE everything was. I have never felt so small out in the "sticks" as I did when I went to Alaska...
That's another thing about Alaska. The majority of it is wilderness that's deemed uninhabitable, so it's sparsely populated. You don't really notice it until you get away from the big cities, but we were told Alaska averages one person per square mile. During the "land" portion of our trip they bused us from one hotel to the next, and we often wouldn't see another car on the highway for half an hour or more. So, yeah, being surrounded by nothing but nature as far as you can see can make a person feel pretty insignificant.
 
Messages
12,384
Location
Albany Oregon
Congrats on your anniversary! What a millstone, I mean milestone. ;-)

Seriously, I am very happy for ya'll.

And I like Alaska a lot. Wonderful place. Fresh salmon, great sights and interesting people.

Fed
Next summer the whole family is doing the Denali/cruise vacation. Trying now to decide what hats to bring. I lived in Alaska in the early 80s when the mountain was still called Mt. McKinley!
 

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