The Land of the Midnight Sun

I took a trip this summer to Alaska. Now Alaska would not have been my first choice of trips, but this was my granddaughter's choice and since it was her High School graduation present, I thought she should do the picking.
The trip was wonderful. I do have to tell you that we hoped to see a lot of large wildlife such as bear, Caribou, etc. If the truth be known, the largest animal we saw that was not behind a fence was a prairie dog! They were cute!

The mountains were great especially when you are from a state with nothing bigger then tall sand dunes. (okay, I know several people will fight me on this and they would be right.)

My two favorite things were gold panning in Fairbanks and visiting the Botanical gardens at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks. (See picture of 50 lb cabbages and my granddaughter attached.)

Outstanding beauty and absolutely no litter anywhere on the highway. We traveled over 1500 miles by car in the ten days we were there and did not even see a cigarette butt.

Took a river trip and our guide was great as well as hot! (per my granddaughter).

We were also lucky enough to see Mt. McKinley (The tallest peak in North America). We had one and one-half days when it was visible. We heard this is very special because it is only visible about 20% of the time. (it makes its own weather system).

It never did get dark enough out for us to see any stars. Just a twilight type light all night.

The flowers and vegetables sure like those long hours of sunlight. We saw so many beautiful flowers everywhere. Not sure why I was so surprised at that, but I guess I never thought about it. Lots of sunlight equals lots of great flowers. I put two flower pictures in this post.