Back from Family Vacation

Usually, when I don’t update my blog for a couple of weeks, I come back with something like “I didn’t mean to be gone so long.”  This time, I really did mean to be gone this long.

See, I just got back from a family vacation.  I was gone just almost two weeks.  We went on an Alaska cruise followed by a few days into the interior of the state, through Denali National Park and ending in Fairbanks.

We didn’t have the best weather.  We had sun and the beginning and end of the trip, but the rest of the time it was overcast, foggy, and threatened rain if not actually raining.  Fortunately, we didn’t get much real rain – at least when we wanted to be outside.  The last couple of days did clear up and we got some sun.  In fact, it was almost 80 my last full day there.

This was my first cruise, and that part was great.  We didn’t have to worry about much, and it was fun to tour a location and then be someplace new the next morning.  All of life should be like that, with the boring parts happening while you sleep.

Plus I got to spend almost two weeks with my family.  My parents and my brother and his family were all there, so I got to be Uncle Mark for two weeks.  That’s always lots of fun.  We flew home on my niece’s birthday, so I got to see her on her birthday for the first time in years (if ever).

We got to see lots of animals.  We saw Orcas and Humpback whales on our whale watching trip.  We saw bald eagles, foxes, grizzle bears, moose, and caribou.

Of course, now I’m back in the real world.  I’ve got up on blog promotional stuff for my reviews and am working on next week’s posts.  And I got back in time for our next month end at work, so I had to hit the ground running.  But it was completely worth it.