"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!  

***********************

Alaska: Part 3 (Ice Cream, Bear Spray, Hike, Ziplining, and the Temple)

 This post will be a random assortment of happenings while we were in Alaska!  

If you haven't noticed by now, we have a thing for ice cream when we are on vacation.   We actually eat very little ice cream at home, but when we're on vacation, it is our mission to find the best ice cream around.  No Coldstone or DQ for us...we want the little specialty shops!  I can't remember where exactly we were in this picture and why exactly Emma looks like she's lying down in the background, but here is some real deal Alaskan ice cream.   Actually I think this was sorbet, because I was trying to be "good".  

This can of bear spray accompanied us on all of our hikes in Alaska.  We got the  lowdown from locals that we needed to be super cautious about not surprising bears, so we also used "bear bells", which basically were just super annoying large jingle bells that we rung as we hiked. Thankfully the bear bells seemed to do their job and the bear spray never had to be used!  

Our favorite hike in Alaska  was also one of the toughest ones we've ever been on.  

It was Mount Marathon (near Seward).

We hiked through snow and ice...

 

  

and eventually had to traverse this up this "billy goat trail" which was steeper and longer than it looks...

and even at the top of the billy goat trail we still had a ways to go to the summit.    Some of my peeps were not happy about this. 

But the view at the top was amazing....

and the satisfaction of doing it was worth every step (to me at least). 

Here are a few more pictures for your enjoyment...

 

Another day we went on a zip lining adventure....  

Our family loves physical activities like this and we thoroughly enjoyed the experience! 

Aren't we cute? 

And last but not least, we stopped by the Anchorage temple on our way out of town!

Stay tuned.  I think I have one more Alaska blogpost left before I will be satisfied that it is documented properly!