Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Follow Me At Sea

When I learned that I was one of only nine people in the entire Twitterverse invited by Princess Cruises to participate in a Twitter Press trip to Alaska, I felt like the kid in the Willie Wonka movie when he unwrapped his candy bar and discovered the “golden ticket.”

Over my next few blog entries, I’ll chronicle my adventure, mainly with pictures, because a picture is worth 1000 words and I’m having so much fun, I’ll let the pictures do the talking so I can get back to having more fun.

I saw my first Polar bear at the Fairbanks airport!






Princess Cruises had a bag of swag and a goodie tray waiting for us in our room. (Thank you very much!!)



Our first adventure was a riverboat tour of the Chena and Tanana Rivers, where the captain let me pilot the riverboat for about a mile!! Sooo Much fun!




 
We we saw an Athabascan fish camp and a pretty cool fur fashion show. We even got to take eat some smoked salmon!


A kennel that trains future Iditarod champions gave us a demonstration as we watched from the boat.








 One out of 58 Alaskans own a plane. It was so cool watching bush planes take off and land on the river.














I saw my first reindeer. Fortunately, this one wasn't flying so I could snap his picture... or her picture. Interesting fact: both male and female caribou have antlers.












Some interesting homes can be seen along the river. Some decorate with antlers...











...others decorate their roofs with tires.

 










...others are prepared for floods! Yep, that's a paddle-wheel on the back of that house:

Finally, my favorite!  I hope to one day own a house boat like this...I can dream can't I?