The Trip of Our Lives 2023

This is an outline of Road Trip: Part 1, Pre-cruise: Vancouver, Princess Cruise: Sea, Princess Cruise: Land, Road Trip: Part 2. Enjoy!

Teddy Roosevelt is forever linked with national parks and we just spent six weeks in some of North America's most beautiful ones!

The Prince of Wales Hotel was the perfect ending to a perfect road trip with a great vantage point for panoramic views, and lots of history.

Today was a very relaxing day in the Rockies with stunning mountain peaks, gorgeous glacial lakes and waterfalls. What more could we ask for?

Today we finished off GTSR from the eastern entrance at St. Mary back to Logan Pass. This was definitely another wonderful day!

We turned the two-hour drive from West Glacier to St. Mary Village into a six-hour day, with a LOT of beautiful distractions.

In this post we'll drive the lower elevations of GTSR to see fabulous waterfalls, amazing bridges, and take a peaceful walk in a forest.

Words cannot describe the beauty of Glacier National Park – from its lovely rivers at the lower elevations to Logan Pass at 6,646 feet.

On arrival day in West Glacier we traveled to McDonald's Creek Bridge, McGee's Meadow, and an old wildfire burn site which was amazing!

We were busy in Fairbanks! We experienced history first-hand with trains, gold, sled dogs, a pipeline, a native village and a salmon bake!

This post includes a great tour of Denali National Park with a view of Denali! We learned about the Iditarod and held a Husky puppy!

With only one night at Mt. McKinley Wilderness Lodge, our time may have been better spent relaxing by the fireplace learning about Denali.

The land portion of our CruiseTour is underway, and an eleven-mile float trip down the Kenai River was one of our favorite excursions so far.

The last two days of our cruise were spent at sea, providing very different emotional responses to the icy waters of Alaska and its glaciers.

In Skagway we learned about the gold rush, had a dapper storyteller/tour guide on a streetcar, and the float down the Chilkat was fantastic.

In Juneau we saw the awe-inspiring Mendenhall Glacier and its falls, and breathed in the purist air on the planet near some old man’s beard.

This post covers an at-sea day, 17 bald eagles, squirrels in a canoe, a former red-light district, and awesome views of the Alaskan waters.

Today we glimpsed Stanley Park, had a fabulous afternoon on Granville Island, and explored the rain forest at Capilano Suspension Bridge Park.

We officially begin the cruise portion of our trip on Vancouver Island with an all-day excursion to Victoria and Butchart Gardens.

Our stay in Whistler was a short one, but we strolled, nibbled, and sipped our way around a loop which started right outside our hotel.

We love thundering waterfalls, and today's itinerary put the finishing touches on the Icefields Parkway, offering some of the best yet!

We love traveling off-season to avoid the throngs of people, but booking excursions in Jasper NP can be problematic with such a short season.

Our move from Canmore to Jasper along the Icefields Parkway was a pretty sweet route. As moving days go, this was definitely one of our best!

Along the Minnewanka Scenic Drive, wildlife sightings ramped up, we enjoyed a boat cruise, and Jim stepped out of his comfort zone for a bit.

Our stay in Canmore continues in soggy conditions, but a drive along the parkway from Banff to Lake Louise made for an extraordinary day!

This post picks up where the last one left off – with the second half of a loop to see some sites in Kootenay and Yoho National Parks in BC.

We've been looking forward to visiting the Canadian Rockies for years, so I don't think we'll be getting much relaxation on this "vacation".

A trip out west requires three hard (and boring) days of driving and a whole lot of distractions. We found some good ones in ND, SK, and AB.

This post is an introduction to our trip in May of 2023, and explains our thinking to just DO IT ALL! It was truly the Trip of our Lives!