"Far From the Madding Crowd" Book Review

I'm a little behind in posting this, but here's the book I read on airplane rides to and from Alaska!   And if you're interested to see the rest of the books I've read in 2017, click here!

6/20/17-

"Far from the Madding Crowd" by Thomas Hardy

Main characters:  Gabriel Oaks, Bathsheba Everdene, William Boldwood, Fanny Robin, Sergeant Francis Troy

I had the funny experience of starting to read this classic book and THEN realizing a couple of chapters in that I'd already seen the movie!  So the main character of the book, Bathsheba Everdene, is lovable, but frustrating as a character.   She's beautiful, capable, and intelligent, but constantly doing impetuous things that hurt herself and those around her.  She's completely blind to the steady and faithful Gabriel Oaks, while she pines after the philandering Francis Troy and the wealthy, but stuffy William Boldwood.   There were several times I wanted to give her a good slap and tell her to wake up, but don't we all know people in real life that are determined to take their own winding path, despite it being obvious to everyone else that it may not be the best one for them?    Over all the story is well-written and I can see why it's a classic.    And I hope I'm not giving anything away here, but in my romanticized mind....all's well that ends well!

Definitely worth a read!  4 stars.

Alaska: Part 2 (Day Cruise to Kenai Fjords National Park )

June 15, 2017

One of the favorite things we did while we were in Alaska, was to take a 9-hour cruise with Kenai Fjord Day Cruise Tours.   

It was freezing cold on the boat, but worth every bit of discomfort to have had the opportunity to see the raw beauty of Alaska from the perspective of the water!  

 

Through the course of the day we meandered through Kenai Fjords National Park for over 150 miles.   The turnaround point of the cruise is this gorgeous bluish glacier that's part of the Harding Ice Field, Northwestern Glacier (named after Northwestern University).  

We stayed there for over 30 minutes just to watch the glacier.   That might sound a little boring, but it was actually quite interesting to watch the glacier calf (that's what they call it when pieces of ice fall off the glacier into the water).  It happens pretty frequently and it was a cool way to see how light waves travel faster than sound waves.   We could see a piece falling, then a few seconds later hear the roar of it.  

The beauty we encountered through the day was absolutely stunning! 

 

Additionally, we saw abundant wildlife, a fact which absolutely delighted everyone in our family!  

The mammals we saw were sea otters (shown in picture above), harbor seals (shown in picture below), orcas (part of the AD8 pod), humpback whales, Dall's porpoises, coastal mountain goat, and Steller sea lions (shown sitting on the rock on a picture below). 

We also saw some awesome birds, including puffins, bald eagles, gulls,  and a variety of species,  that attracted some serious birders onto the cruise who'd come just to see these specific types of bird which live in these isolated waters away from land (the ancient murrelet, rhinoceros auklet, common murre, white winged scoter, red faced cormorant, marbled murrelet, parakeet auklet, northwestern crow, black legged kittiwake, double breasted cormorant, pelagic cormorant, black oystercatcher, pigeon guillemot, Kittlitz's murrelet)! 

The cruise was one of the highlights of our trip  and I highly recommend it to anyone planning a trip to Alaska anytime soon!   

And this concludes the record of our family trip to Alaska!  

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