Part One - By Land
On Saturday, September 19, 2026, Todd and I celebrated forty-five years of marriage. It’s hard to believe, but the math adds up. I had just turned 20 back in 1981, a few weeks before the actual day we said “I do”, and I just turned 65 this past August. I must say, 45 years have flown by... fast.
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So, it was almost a year ago, when Todd
and I started brainstorming about how we might celebrate the big anniversary. Back
in ’81, our honeymoon had been simple – four nights in Wisconsin’s beautiful Door
County. Neither of us had ever been there, so it seemed like an adventurous
destination. Our funds were such that we could barely afford that, but we did
splurge and did enjoy it. Present day, money is no longer so tight. He and I,
as I imagine many couples do, created a list of places where we’ve always
wanted to travel. During the course of our marriage, we often had limits as to
where we could go and for how long. Before retirement, Todd couldn't go
anywhere for more than a week; sometimes, even that was a stretch. Now that
he’s retired, those prior limits have been lifted. Places like Hawaii and
Europe are now doable. After carefully weighing out our possibilities, the “bucket
list” locale that made the most sense to us at this time was… Alaska.
Alaska … we’d heard it's a place of great
beauty – a type of beauty neither of us had ever really seen before. We had traveled
to Colorado Springs once, and even took a train ride up Pike’s Peak, but that experience
was over within a few hours. As much as we enjoy warm weather, we get a good
dose of that type of climate every summer on our boat. At our ages, we thought
that a cooler temperature would work well. That said, we had still wanted to
cash in on as much summer in Wisconsin as possible. Our winters are long, so we
hoped for fall dates. As we dug for information, we were told that if we
traveled to Alaska in early September, we could still catch the last tour of
the season. As hoped, we’d be able to see our 49th state by land and
by sea, all within a two-week time frame, while still experiencing acceptable
weather. SOLD!
We often travel with my sister,
Cheryl, and her husband, Jack. When we explained to them what we wanted to do
and where we wanted to go, they were quick to want to come along. They had been
to Alaska (cruise only) about 25 years ago but seemed excited to experience it
again. By Halloween of last year, our trip was planned and a good chunk of it
paid for. It felt both good and weird to be so ahead of the trip-planning game.
Vacations we’d taken in the past were usually booked a month or two in advance.
Ten months seemed excessive, yet it gave us all a good amount of time to decide
on excursions and get organized with what we’d need to bring.
Fairbanks is three hours behind us,
so we’d gained time on our trip. After a beer (or two) and some dinner, we got
a decent night’s sleep, and were ready to tour the area the next morning. The
guide showed us the Alaskan Pipeline and an area where we panned for gold as
miners used to. We took a river cruise which showcased an old fishing village,
as well as Iditarod (sled dog) demonstrations. Some people commented that the
sled dog practice seemed inhumane. The guide shook her head and said, “The dogs
are bred and trained to run. It’s all they want to do.” I don’t know… the dogs
looked happy to me. (shrugs). Our next big stop was the Denali National Park
area. Because we were traveling in September, which is late in the season, we’d
been cautioned that no wildlife sightings were guaranteed. However, on the day of our park tour, imagine
our delight when the bus driver was able to point out: a moose 
which was lying
down with its baby, a Grizzly bear, several caribou (reindeer), Dall sheep,
lots of magpies (Alaska’s state bird), and a number of golden eagles. Many have
told me that they’d prefer to explore a grand park like this on their own – not
take a tour – but our bus was able to travel 40 miles further into the park
than a personal vehicle could have. The National Park is very big, and full of
wildlife. I actually felt good about having a guide – at least for our first
time.
On the morning of September 3rd,
Jack and Cheryl picked us up at 4:00 a.m. It was early, but we were all feeling
terrific to be heading out on our two-week Alaska adventure. Our 7:00 flight
was on time, so we boarded the plane with confidence and vigor. When we landed
in Seattle for a layover, we decided to get some lunch, and all scarfed down our
sandwiches like we hadn’t eaten in a long while, which was actually true. As we flew into
Fairbanks to begin the land portion of our trip, it was in the 40’s and
raining. We’d been advised to be ready for rain, so we zipped up our slickers
and made our way through the puddles to our bus. We had decided that it would
be nice to end our trip with the cruise portion, once we were tired from sightseeing
by land.
Everything to that point had been
going well, but I’m afraid that by our third land stop, I was beginning to come
down with something I thought was a cold. The coughing, off-and-on fever, and
slight runny nose was making me so tired. In fact, we had noticed that a lot of
the people on our tour bus were coughing as well; sort of a symphony of “cough
– cough cough – cough cough" - you get the idea. Cheryl was feeling the symptoms
too. Todd and Jack had both developed slight coughs, but nothing like mine. Not
that it was a competition, but I definitely felt the worst of our foursome. Of
course, our hope was that whatever it was would pass quickly, and we’d be okay
to continue on with all of our many plans. Half of that last statement turned
out to be true. We did continue on with our activities, but we really weren’t
“okay”. While I never did get a formal diagnosis, it is my belief that my
illness was not an ordinary cold. Everything I wanted to do took longer and was
more of an effort than a joy – not the way one hopes to feel on a beautiful
vacation. Yet… onward we pushed. I mean, seriously, being that far from home, what
else could we do? We wanted to see all of the sights we’d booked and (had so
dearly) paid for.
The mountains in that area turned
out to be somewhat elusive. There were times that the sky simply looked foggy, when
in reality, there were mountains all around us that we just couldn’t see. I’m
sure it’s hard to believe we couldn’t find Mt. McKinley, the highest mountain
in North America. Even though it measures 20,310 feet, it can be difficult to
find. They say that only about 30 percent of people actually get to see it, since
it often plays hide-and-seek. Our group was lucky though, and did get to catch
sight of it twice – both times from far distances, but we saw it none-the-less.
Along the way, our tour guides
shared interesting stories about Alaska such as what happens if someone hits a
moose with their car; or what happens when there’s an accident on the one and
only main road. With mountains and waterways around most corners, quite a
bottleneck can occur. Thankfully, we didn’t have to witness any of that
firsthand.
We’d been on our bus for a couple of hours, making our way to Whittier, where our cruise ship was waiting. Everyone’s attention peaked when our bus driver followed a curve in the road, which suddenly revealed mountain glaciers surrounding us on all sides. If you looked closely, best with binoculars, you could also see waterfalls flowing freely from the ice and snow. Our guide announced we could get out and take photos. Bravely, I straightened up, blew my nose, and dragged myself down out of the bus. I was glad I did because we were all “wowed” by the beautiful sights. Afterall, a day like this was why we’d traveled to Alaska in the first place.
End of Part one. To read about our Alaskan excursions, please watch for Part Two of this blog entry to be posted soon. As always, thanks for reading.
Katie Kolberg Memmel is the author of three books: "Five Fingers, Ten Toes - A Mother's Story of Raising a Child Born with a Limb Difference"; "From This Day Forward"; and "Silly Stories and Sentimental Stuff". For more information about her writing and life, please visit her website at: www.katiekolbergmemmel.com
