Thanksgiving Holiday travel

As is our tradition, we met with family for a feast earlier in November. On our long holiday weekend we took a trip to Alexandria. We visited George Washington’s Mount Vernon. We took a walk through the wetlands of Huntley Meadows. We visited the Marine Corps Museum.

 Mount Vernon

Nice view of the Potomac from the Piazza out back

This was a truly impressive museum. A strong reminder that war is awful, but also what incredible sacrifices people have made for our country. 

Hanging out with the Washingtons

Beautiful day for a walk in the park. 

Halloween- Day of the Dead Style

Camp and hike Old Rag

We got up super early to see the sunrise. We climbed up to the peak in the dark. There was so much fog that the sunrise was just a change from black to gray. 

Alaskan Fishing Adventures

Grandpa van der Horst invited me and all the boys on a once in a lifetime fishing excursion to southeast Alaska.

We got up at 3 AM to catch our early morning flight out of Dulles. The craziest part of that is that 3 AM in Virginia is still only 11 PM in Alaska. We stopped first in Detroit, then in Seattle, we met up with Grandpa and the rest of the family. We eventually made it on to Ketchikan.

On the flights over we watched the entire BBC miniseries "Wild Alaska". It was pretty cool to arrive and see Alaska in person. This is the lobby of the hotel we stayed in the first night, in Ketchikan.

Native Alaskan inspired art.

Totem poles were all over the place

Ketchikan often has a cruise ship in dock with plenty of tourists to go around. 

Creek St. is a popular destination.

We got to wander around and tour Ketchikan

The next morning we were scheduled to take a sea plane to Noyes Island and start fishing. However, we were fogged in, and instead had to take a boat to Prince of Wales Island, a bus over land and another boat to get to Noyes.

We got suited up and underway for some Alaskan fishing

Our guide, "T-Shirt" Tom was helpful with every step.

Delicious food served back at the lodge

We saw whales, sea otters, sea lions and puffin- seen here.

A lingcod - 34 pounder.

Look how much fish we caught in one day.  We maxed out the state fishing limits for a daily catch for every kind of fish on the list. 24 silver salmon, 4 halibut, 4 lingcod, and 20 sea bass
We came home with 143 lbs of cleaned fish.

This was the collective haul from all 4 boats in one day.

We made the return trip by sea plane.

We had some extra time and took a beautiful hike into the Tongass Rain Forest

And we took in the Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show in town.

Watch out for bananas. An odd superstition that bananas bring bad luck.