Alaska: Our 50th State!

July 18, 2018

By Rachel

Hi! Rachel here. Taylor and I are in Alaska and there have been some requests from family members for us to blog about Alaska. Since it is just Taylor, my mom and me, you will only be hearing from Taylor and me.

For those of you who don’t know, going to Alaska is a really big deal because it means that now Taylor and I have been to all 50 states in the U.S. We don’t count airports or flying over states, just driving or physically being there counts. So as of Tuesday, my mom, Taylor and I have all been to all 50 states!

We arrived here late Tuesday, and I am not going to talk about Tuesday because no one wants to hear an account of someone else sitting on a plane being bored for 6 hours. So skipping to Wednesday. We picked up our rental car and drove to meet our relatives. The drive was absolutely gorgeous. There were huge snowy mountains right on an inlet of the ocean. What wasn’t snowy was either vibrant green or dark rock. There were waterfalls everywhere from the melting snow.

On the drive from Anchorage to Whittier

Once we met up with our cousins, we waited to go through a tunnel because that’s the only way to get to Whittier. The tunnel was very long and only one-way. You could only get through it once every hour. While waiting for the tunnel to open up, we looked around and I was amazed by how many glaciers I could see. You can tell glaciers from other snow patches because the ice looks blue. Glaciers also are very large.

Just outside the Whittier tunnel. (Taylor always wants to do the T pose)

After the tunnel, we got on a five-hour glacier cruise. The cruise took us out on Prince William Sound—and it was absolutely beautiful. They guarantee no seasickness since it is in protected water and it was pretty calm the whole way. The guide told us that there were over 10,000 glaciers in the national park that are all currently retreating (meaning that they shrink in size). Only two glaciers in the park are advancing (meaning that they are growing in size). The cruise took us to see two glaciers up close. They are massive! They both had huge waterfalls near the glaciers from the melting snow in the glacier. I alternated my time from out on top of the boat soaking in the view and going downstairs to our table by a window and playing my cousins in euchre (a card game). We also saw some sea otters on the cruise.

On the boat to see the glaciers with my aunt and cousin

Here's the first glacier we stopped at

Here's the second, even larger glacier. We watched it calve - which means we saw big pieces fall off

we stopped at this waterfall on the way back

beautiful scenery we saw from the boat

After the cruise, we headed back through the tunnel and drove to our cabin after a brief stop in Moose Pass which is a few miles from Seward. It was a good first day.