Welcome to our new blog!

Well, here we are...after 10 long years of trying to get to Alaska, we're finally going to do it.  Our trip begins on Saturday, August 10th and ends on Sunday, September 1st.  Our itinerary is deceptively simple:  3 days in Anchorage, 3 days on the Kenai Peninsula, 3 days in Denali, 3 days in Fairbanks, and then 8 days on a Lindblad/National Geographic expedition through Alaska's Inside Passage starting in Juneau and ending in Sitka.

Other than the expedition, we only have 2 things that we've committed to:  a helicopter flight to Mount McKinley on our 3rd day and a 12 hour bus trip in Denali....which strangely enough will also go to Mount McKinley.  We were told that these 2 things were MUST DO's, and we take that kind of advice.  Other than these 2 events, though, we plan to do whatever the heck we feel like doing in each location.  For those of you who know me, specifically, this is a highly unusual approach for us.

We have no reason to dress in anything but jeans and a sweatshirt, and the weather should be in the high 60's during the day and in the high 50's at night.  However, it was 80 in Fairbanks last week and we've been told that they've been having an exceptional summer, so who knows?  August is moving towards Alaska's fall though, so temps should start decreasing soon along with the days equalizing to a 12 hour day and 12 hour night about the time we get there.  No land of the midnight sun for us because we want to see the northern lights, dang it!

We'd love to share our adventure with our friends and family, so if you'd like to join our blog, just put your email in the notify box and Blogger will send you an email each time we post.  We'll try to post every day or two, and we'll include some representative pictures from our day.  We won't have a computer with us, so we won't be able to load the pictures from our cameras, but we'll make sure to take some pictures on our phones and send those which will give you a good idea of our day.

Have a great August everyone, and we'll see you after Labor Day!  This is Shaun, but you can just call me Julie, your travel guide on Shaun and Shannon's Awesome Alaskan Adventure!