When we tried to take our first family ski trip last winter, our efforts were thwarted by an ill-timed case of the flu. I stayed home with my sick youngest son and my husband and oldest son headed out on a day trip to Appalachian Ski Mountain in Blowing Rock, NC. RB totally loved it and has been dying to go skiing again ever since. We decided to tempt fate again this year and plan a weekend ski trip for the whole family. With two beginners, we wanted a mountain that would be a good place to learn. App was …

The day after Thanksgiving always seems to call for a good walk. We spent the holiday weekend with family in Ocean City, MD, and on Friday we all made the quick trip into Delaware to walk off our Thanksgiving meal at Gordons Pond in Cape Henlopen State Park. Gordons Pond Trail is a hiking and biking path made of packed crushed gravel with a half-mile section of elevated boardwalk. It is wide and easily accommodates both bikers and walkers, although walkers should always be alert to bikers coming up behind them. The trail offers pond, forest, wetland, and dune views …

Like all of our tours, our guide gave us the option of being dropped off in town or taken back to the port. Again, our larger family group split up, with some going back to the ship and some exploring the town. We definitely wanted to see Creek Street so we opted to be dropped off in town. Ketchikan is the southernmost city in Alaska’s Inside Passage. The town has its roots in fishing. First Native Americans used it as a fishing settlement, and later a salmon cannery was built to provide supplies to miners during the 1890s gold rush. …

The final stop on our Ketchikan excursion was Totem Bight State Park. Situated on 11 acres of rainforest just north of Ketchikan, this park displays restored and replicated totem poles and a representative clan house. In the early 1900s, Native Americans were forced to migrate away from their villages, leaving behind totem poles and clan houses to be swallowed up by the woods. In 1938, the US Forest Service began a program to save as many of these native artifacts as they could and to hire Natives to recreate the ones that could not be salvaged. Totem Bight State Park …

The second stop on our private Ketchikan tour was a hike in the Tongass National Forest. We walked the Ward Creek Trail, which our guide billed as a “locals” trail. Indeed, we saw a handful of people out walking their dogs but not a single other tourist. The start of the trail is an old gravel road. The trail is wide and primarily flat, with just a few easy sloping hills. It passes through lush rainforest as it follows along the creek. We had barely gotten into the rainforest when our guide Natalie spotted a black slug on the trail. …

We booked a private tour with Wild Wolf Tours to take us to Herring Cove, on a rainforest hike, and to Totem Bight State Park. Our tour guide Natalie met us at the end of the dock and we loaded up into the van and headed to our first stop, Herring Cove. We were really hoping to see bears in Ketchikan (although we had already gotten lucky and seen one in Skagway so it took some of the pressure off). We knew that a floatplane to a remote area was the best chance to spot bears but had decided against …