Alaska has so much wilderness, over 3 million acres, to be exact. Wildlife abounds around every corner in the form of bear, moose, caribou, mountain goat, whales, puffins, eagles, otters, porcupine, and many other wonderful animals. There is so much opportunity to connect to wildlife and the rugged wilderness unlike many other areas in the lower 48. Everyone we have encountered have thoroughly enjoyed their visit and will return again to explore more wilderness. If you are a camper, you can stake out your tent anywhere you wish or park your RV along a bubbling brook or river and watch the world go by. If you enjoy water activities and boats, you can take a variety of cruises to view glaciers up close and personal and wildlife as it appears along the way. Bush pilots will take you to see bears and to remote fishing camps. Many bus trips are offered as well as train rides to various parts of the largest state in the USA. The State of Alaska is often shown as a very small area on weather maps and more often than not in the wrong area of the world. I had one person ask me how I liked living on a postage size piece of land and after I explained to her how big the state actually is she was shocked. Alaska is 1/5 the size of the USA. Certain glaciers are bigger than the State of Delaware. Millions of acres are preserved by the state and federal governments as park land. In fact, Denali offers hikers and backpackers the whole park to explore. There are NO trails and NO fences and they encourage you to explore anywhere in the park. What a great way to explore nature.

Have you ever thought about visiting Alaska? Seen videos or photos of the last frontier and wish you were there? Well, I just moved up to Alaska in April 2007 followed by my husband in Sept of 2007 and we are thoroughly enjoying our new home state. We live with our son and his wife and her 12 year old son in their rec room right now until our in-law quarters are completed. I work for DHL in Anchorage and hubby is semi-retired working as a manager of a campground 5 days a week in the summer and for the Anchorage school district as a substitute teacher's assistant during the school year. We just recently visited Denali National Park and enjoyed the trip so much we intend to make it a yearly event taking friends from the lower 48 with us. We both highly recommend the 90 mile bus trip and the flight seeing tour of Mt McKinley and the flight out to the Denali Natl Park airstrip. What a glorious flight we had and were able to capture the beauty of the mountain and surrounding peaks, the braided rivers and some wildlife during this trip. Look for the slideshow on this blog and take a look at what we saw.