The vastness of the wilderness is just beyond comprehension for this midwestern girl who is used to being surrounded by cornfields.  Literally MILLIONS AND MILLIONS of unspoiled acres, and I dare say man has never walked on many of them.

Texas claims to be big.  But, as one of our guides enjoys telling Texans, if you cut Alaska in half Texas would be the THIRD biggest state.  That's how massive Alaska is!

Hard to believe that such unspoiled beauty is part of the United States of America....

Cruising the Inside Passage, it rains...a lot. A typical summer day in Juneau includes lots of clouds and rain. Not the deluge of rain that pours from the skies in bucketfulls, but the annoying constant drizzly kind of rain

I wasn't prepared to have to wear my raincoat nearly every single day, but I did. We never had a rain that ruined our plans, but it was definitely an annoyance...especially since I did not want my nice camera to get wet...

But because of all the rain, the flowers are spectacular!

The combination of much-longer daylight hours, the constant drizzle, and the moderate temperatures make it the perfect growing climate...at least for 3 months of the year! 

We found Alaskans to be very patriotic folks.  They are proud to be part of the good ole' USA, and flags fly everywhere as well as being inside about every restaurant and shop...

Alaska eats more ice cream per capita than any other state.  I found that a bit odd, since it's also the coldest state...and I'd think ice cream consumption would go down in the winter.

We found that inland they especially love wild blueberry ice cream...which, I might add, is SCRUMPTIOUS!  We even had some blueberry ice cream pie in Fairbanks.  Wow!

Wild blueberries are abundant, and the bears love them too!

Let me just say that I was totally OVER salmon by the time we left!  Every restaurant featured salmon this and salmon that...if I never see another salmon dish the rest of this year, that'll be soon enough!

Three signs you definitely won't see in Indiana....

Having our children and grandchildren (most of them!) along made the whole trip even more fun! So I must throw in a few grandkid photos before I sign off...

Great memories, wonderful trip...ending my Alaska travelogue now with these...

...random Alaska tidbits.