Actually it has been more like six weeks since I've felt no pressure or been out of town.
First there were preparations for having Nanae & Yoshi visit.
Then there was their eight days here.
A week off, sort of, we had to get things packed & make final arrangements for our Alaskan tour besides seeing that everything was set for the time we would be gone.
Then it was two weeks of travel to amazing Alaska!
And the last two weeks have been filled with getting back into the swing of a routine. As much fun as we had, it was so good to be back in our own home...like Dorothy said in the Wizard of Oz, "There's no place like home!"
When we first started planning on our trip way back in July of 2011 (We actually booked it back then!) it seemed so far off. Now it's history. And it's a glorious memory. We were first scheduled to leave on Labor Day, then we got word that the tour had been canceled. They offered us the same tour, same rate only a week earlier. At first we were a little disappointed, we'd miss Janessa's birthday, but we'd be here for Indian Summer Days. (That's a whole other story though.) As it turned out (God's timing!) we were there during the peak season for color; the days were cool, but not cold; the sunshine was abundant; and even though a lot of the wildlife had migrated already, we did see a lot of critters & birds. Moose season opened while we were there, but we did finally see one in the wild. She passed right in front of the tour bus on the last full day of our tour. They say that less than 30% of the people who go to Alaska on vacation get to see Denali (or Mt. McKinley) -- we were fortunate enough to see it on three different days. First on our train ride to Denali National Park; then while we were touring the park the next day; and again on our last day in Anchorage it was visible if you got up high enough in the hotel.
Here's the moose we saw:
And here's our first sight of Denali:
I'm getting ready to put my best shots up on Flickr if you want to see more.
I still get goosebumps when I think of the splendor of the mountains. Sunday morning when we went to church after we returned, the first hymn was How Great Thou Art. When we got to the verse that talks about the "lofty mountain grandeur" I was blown away at how God orchestrated every little detail of our trip, even down to singing this hymn on our return home. We truly do have an awesome God who is in control of every minute of every day.
