Good Example Of Essay On Simply The Best Vacation I Ever Had

The sign read “Grizzly Bear Scene: June 15”. It was June 16th. The sign was posted to the billboard at the head of Flattop Mountain Trail. Hikers are required by law to post to the trailhead when they see a bear. A bear had been sighted at this trail the day before. This was a typical day hiking in Alaska. This was a typical day on the best vacation I ever had. Alaska is a place full of adventure and life. Its exciting wild areas and vast expanses of unexplored territory truly make it the Last Frontier. Yet, it is also a place where few people choose as a vacation destination. Few people decide to make Alaska their goal. Most tend to opt for beaches or theme parks or islands. People are mistaken to avoid such a beautiful, complex, and wondrous place and instead go to cliché vacation spots.
Why Alaska? That is the question I repeatedly asked my parents when they announced we would be vacationing there for an entire month. In June 2009, my family and I boarded a plane to Alaska, where we would stay for a full month. The first thing I noticed is that it only gets dark at night for about two hours. The sun stays in the sky well past midnight and it reappears shortly after it sets. This feature alone is enough to give Alaska a strange and surreal feeling. The whole state has a kind of surreal, otherworldly feeling. As soon as the place touches down, you notice that something is different about this place. It simply doesn’t feel like the rest of the western world. It is surely one of the few places where a trip to Walmart can find you trampled by a moose.
The trip started with an exploration of the city of Anchorage. Anchorage is not that capital of Alaska, but it is the largest and most populated city. Anchorage is a city of about 500,000 people. Alaska has a population a bit larger than one million and half of that population lives in Anchorage. It is an odd city. It is small and yet it still retains the particular feeling and life of a city. It certainly has particulars that set it apart and give it a true Alaska feeling. We went to museum and hunting stores and Walmart (just to see what Walmart is like in Alaska). The city was our base camp, but it was only the beginning. The next few weeks would take us far beyond the contours of civilization.
One interesting thing about the city is that since the sun stays high in the sky far past midnight, the city tends to stay awake with it. Going to a late night movie in broad daylight is truly a surreal experience, especially when the sky is still bright when you leave the movie. Most of the younger people tend to stay out late into the night. They say that this is because darkness is what tells our brains that it is time to sleep. We were told that Anchorage is the most sleepless city in America, although no official studies were produced. We enjoyed hanging out in to the city late into the night and found that the businesses had adapted to the upside down schedules and most of them stayed open all night.
One day in the city, we went to a bowling alley. Other than the fact that we went at three in the morning because the place was twenty-four hours, it was pretty much a standard bowling alley, except for the fact that the interior was covered in bears. It was like the interior decorating committee decided to use only bears in their decorated and when they finished, they got even more bears and stuffed them in too. It was bizarre. There were bears at the entrance, in the bathrooms, at the bar. They even had stuffed bears sitting in the seats (taking up space) so that you were literally sitting next to a bear that used to be alive. Apparently, the state of Alaska had an abundance of bear carcasses and the downtown bowling alley volunteered to take care of literally every single one of them.
After a few days in the city, we made our way North toward the wilder part of the state. We drove amongst beautiful, gigantic mountains that dwarfed any landscape I had ever seen. I realized that I had never actually seen a mountain before Alaska. The difference between a mountain and hill is quite grand. We drove past wild places, mountain lodges, and even bear/moose crossing signs. We even had to stop our car for a while to let a moose cross the road. There was one section of road where we past a section that claimed simply to be called “The Marshes.” The signs said that this was one of the most dangerous parts of the state. While the marshes looked like a wet, sandy beach, they were actually extremely dangerous. Tourists often went walking on them and sunk in the sand or got stuck and drowned in the tide. Once someone ends up in The Marshes, it is nearly impossible to get them back out, especially racing against time as every night the tide rolls in and covers them in many feet of water.
One day, while we camped out in the woods, we met another family from Florida who seemed to simply be copies of us from another state. We stayed at the sight for two days and hung out with our newfound friends. They took us down to the river to go fishing for king salmon. We did not catch a single fish that day, but we had a great time in our failure. They swore repeatedly that king salmon fishing was easy and we were bound to catch many fish. Then, when we caught none, they swore that this was simply an odd day for fishing. We fished again the next day to the same result. No one caught a single fish. Once again, they swore this was not typical. In the end, we decided the family was cursed and simply was not meant to be king fishermen.
Another day, we made our way up Flattop Peak and at the top we found a bunch of white stones had been arranged into the words, “Will You Marry Me?” It was a lovely gesture and we figured that some couple must have had a special moment at some point. A few minutes into our stay at the top a man and woman showed up walking hand in hand. They walked right up to the stones and it seemed like we might not have missed the engagement at all. Sure enough, the man dropped to one knee and the couple were engaged right there in front of us. It was a lovely moment in front of a breathtaking view. They even asked us to take their picture for them. Some things simply cannot be planned, yet these moments can be the most memorable and meaningful ones.
At Juneau, we boarded a train that took us on a scenic tour of the wilderness. This was a comfortable yet fascinating way to view a wild and new place. The train was made for tourists and ran for the singular purpose of showing off the gorgeous Alaskan wilderness. For this reason, it did not run directly to its destination. Instead, the tracks were built through some of the most beautiful areas in the state, winding through seemingly endless mountains and valleys. The train had a second floor made only of glass windows that showed the gorgeous landscapes in all their glory. We ended up in a small tourist town that used to be a bustling mine. The mine was now abandoned and used as a tourist attraction. It made for an interesting afternoon of exploring deep caves. We ate all kinds of strange and adventurous foods, like moose and bear and other exotic meats. However, none of this excitement matched the most interesting and memorable part of our trip.
Of course, the longer you spend in Alaska, the more you read about people who have been eaten or mauled in bear attacks. You start to notice the news stories about people who went hiking and never came back, only to have their remains found on some nearby trail. I still wonder why we actually chose to go hiking in those places where people actually did die in bear attacks, yet that is what we did. We were greatly rewarded for it. Fortunately, not one of us was eaten by a bear.
Those hikes remain as some of my fondest memories of a truly amazing experience. We found places throughout that month that were unlike anything we had ever seen. From breathtaking views to hidden waterfalls, we saw things we will likely never seen again. For that, hiking will always stand out as the high point in a truly wonderful trip. Often times, it is the simple things that are the most meaningful. One does not have to spend tons of money to make great memories.
Alaska has been called the Last Frontier for its vast, unsearched spaces. It has been called the North Star, for its presence above the United States as a beacon to the north. Less positively, it has been called Seward’s Folly, demonstrating the true lack of foresight that some had regarding the land. I do not know what I would call it, but for me, Alaska will always feel like a small piece of home. The places we walked and talked and laughed and the feelings I had in those places are something that cannot be repeated or replicated. They live in my nostalgia and memory like simmering coals. They are delicate. To blow on them in hopes of relighting their fire would only quench their glow. What is it that makes Alaska so special? Why Alaska? I still cannot answer, but I suppose that is why they call it a personal experience. I suppose that is why it was the best vacation I ever had.