A Little Background

My parents instilled the love of nature and National Parks in me with our trips out west to see family. As a young adult Jim moved to Oregon for college (and nature), and the beautiful clear rivers became an obsession. Although Jim’s idea of loving rivers involved navigating big rapids and mine was watching the babbling blue water meander along the curves of the mountains – a true love of nature was in both of our souls.

Jim had been to Anchorage for work, but even though he was working most of the time and not out exploring – he saw a sunset on Denali without a cloud in the sky. Alaska had always been on my bucket list and he was always willing to go back. We started planning in 2018 and finally pulled the plug in 2019 for a cruisetour (sea and land) to Fairbanks in May of 2020 – yep, the years of Covid.

Inspiration for an Add-on

A long time ago, we saw a documentary about the Rocky Mountaineer traveling through the Canadian Rockies and that episode stayed on our DVD for years as inspiration for a future vacation. With two years to prepare for our rescheduled cruise in 2023, we decided to add a little road trip to the itinerary.

We could drive to Vancouver (via Banff, Jasper, Whistler) and grab the Grand Princess in Vancouver to Whittier, where we’d travel by coach, ferry, boat, van, or train to get us on all of our excursions and tours all the way to Fairbanks. From there we’d fly back to Vancouver to pick up our car so we could continue to all three areas of Glacier National Park and then back home.

Are We Crazy? Only a Little!

Sound confusing? YOU’RE GODDAMN RIGHT IT WAS! Hopefully Jack Nicolson come to mind there! With so many working parts that could go wrong at any given time, I was a little nervous as we hopped in the car for our six-week roadtrip/cruise/land/national park extravaganza. But it all went off without a hitch!

Over the years, Jim and I have been on some great trips together. We’ve crossed off quite a few bucket-list items along the way, but this trip really touched us. Several times I was moved to tears by the beauty of the nature we experienced and after a long discussion after our return, we dubbed this adventure “The Trip of Our Lives.”

Next up: The Trip of Our Lives 2023

Happy trails,
Barb