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One more week of work and we're off!!

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A week from today....

A week from today will be our last workday before we leave! Woo-hoo!!

This makes me think of when Cori and I were waiting to leave for our trip to England. Cori was in San Diego and I was here at home in San Jose. One day I had a voicemail from Cori and all she did was whisper: "10 more days until we leave!" We were so excited. And it was a terrific trip. Hope our Alaska trip is just as great.

Can I blog with my iPad? This is the question.

I'm trying to see if I'd be able to blog about our trip using my iPad. I've got a new keyboard case for it and I'm trying it out. I'll need to practice uploading some photos, too. It's pretty scary to think of trying to do without my laptop.

We'll see.

Trip Map

Here's a link to our trip plans marked on a map. We start and end in Anchorage. You have to scroll around to see it. It was too big to put directly into the blog.

Ferry booked

I just booked the ferry for Valdez to Whittier. I met a woman at work yesterday who just moved from Alaska. When I told her about this trip she wasn't sure if it would be possible to take a ferry from Valdez to Whittier. That kind of worried me so I looked it up and called. Turns out that was a good thing; there is not always room for vehicles. So, we should be all set, I hope.

The reservation agent asked if I'd been on the ferry before and I told her I was, in 5th grade. She needed my birthdate and after giving it to her I said she could see now that 5th grade was a long time ago.

Eight Stars of Gold on a Field of Blue...

I just made a bunch of reservations and requests, to complete the hotel reserving part of the planning. I have to call for several where I sent in email requests. It should be a great trip! I'll post info about the rest of the places & plans once I've got confirmations for everything.

When I lived in Alaska, we sang the Alaska flag song every morning as part of our pledge of allegiance time, in addition to the Start Spangled Banner. Here are the words, and a cute video of some 4th graders singing it. I imagine that we sounded like them.

Eight stars of gold on a field of blue,
Alaska's flag, may it mean to you,
The blue of the sea, the evening sky,
The mountain lakes and the flowers nearby,
The gold of the early sourdough's dreams,
The precious gold of the hills and streams,
The brilliant stars in the northern sky,
The "Bear," the "Dipper," and shining high,
The great North Star with its steady light,
O'er land and sea a beacon bright,
Alaska's flag to Alaskans dear,
The simple flag of a last frontier.

River's Edge

Today I went to a worship conference and a woman there, Margaret Feinberg, talked about meeting her husband in Sitka, Alaska, while at a B&B there. While buying some of her books, I told her husband that my husband and I were going on a trip to Alaska this summer and I'd have to look for a good B&B in Sitka. He looked something up on his iphone and told me to go to Ocean View. However, after looking at the map it doesn't look like we'll be making it there. Looks too far down for us.

I booked a place that looks great for Fairbanks. It's called River's Edge Resort and I booked a cottage by the river. It's fun finding places by rivers. Their website says you can fish for grayling in the river. I had never heard of grayling before but I guess they're a type of salmon. I love salmon - to eat. I wonder if we'll actually eat fish Randy catches or if he'll catch & release -- or if he won't catch any. Since we're staying in hotels I'm not so sure how this will work.

One thing I hope to do in Fairbanks is go to the University of Alaska Museum of the North. My dad said he (we??) went there back when we lived there.