riding the alaska marine highway

My escape is just to get in a boat and disappear on the water. Carl Hiaasen

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We are a military family and that means we move. A lot. Thankfully we don’t mind it so much (well, the getting to explore new places. Moving an entire household is never fun) so when my husband was presented the opportunity to come to Alaska he jumped on it (with my blessing). We began the journey up to Fairbanks almost a year ago, arriving in mid-March. In most of the places we have lived March means spring has either arrived or is coming soon. We’ve discoveredAlaska is not one of them, so the farther we traveled north the colder and snowier it got. We took the Alaska Marine Highway system (or, ferry) from Bellingham, WA to Haines, AK and it ended up being our favorite part of the trip.jaxharmon_ferryWe watched as the beautiful green of the Pacific Northwest gave way to snow capped mountains and glaciers, braving the icy cold wind to snap some pictures.jaxharmon_alaskamarinehighway 003 jaxharmon_alaskamarinehighway 004 jaxharmon_alaskamarinehighway 005The only sad part of it was not being able to explore the places we saw as much as we would have liked. As soon as we disembarked in Haines we needed to get straight on the road for the last leg up to Fairbanks, so no sightseeing. I’m hoping we’ll make it back to this part of Alaska at some point, the coast is very different from the interior.
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Most of the kids were too wary of the cold to head on deck, but this wild thing was up for anything. I think he’d fit right in on the open sea!

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