Lodging: We stayed at a 3 very different type places. The first night was an Airbnb RV Trailer. We weren't at the trailer very long. We flew in late, slept, and then got up early to get our adventure on.
The last two nights, we stayed in Anchorage in a hotel, where we went swimming and enjoyed delicious breakfast.
Chugach State Park: Our first adventure was at Chugach State Park. We went to the visitors center, where the kids got to see all sorts of animal print molds. We went on a little hike. Zaylee was asleep, so it was good that the trail was stroller accessible. We saw one single red salmon by itself. We were still pretty excited to see it. One trail was blocked off because of high bear activity. Funny that we never saw any wild bears this whole trip.
Hatcher Pass: It is Fall in Alaska, so the colors were just beautiful. My favorite scenery was the red mountain side as we drove through Hatcher Pass to get to the gold mine. I couldn't stop taking pictures of the beauty hoping the camera would catch a least a little of it. The camera does not do it justice. (This goes for all the scenery pictures I took for the whole trip. Alaska is beautiful, but the camera can only capture so much).
Independence Mine: This was one of the coolest mines/historic parks I have every been to. Everything was just left to be destroyed as Nature saw fit. The park service didn't clean any of it up, but they did put a sign up saying don't touch in order to preserve the history of it. It was so cool because we could hike right up to the mine shaft. We saw old mine carts and train tracks. It was just like the movies and video games.
Denali National Park: We drove 4 extra hours round trip to go to Denali. Was it worth the extra gas and driving time??? Not really, but it was pretty! We were really hoping to see more wildlife, but we only saw one moose and some squirrels in all of Denali. The hike we went on was pretty, but didn't compare to Hatcher Pass in beauty. The visitors center was nice. We got lots of comments everywhere we went with our four kids mostly from "older" people telling us to "enjoy our kids while they are young," or "they grow up too fast," or "you have your hands full," or even" let me know if you want me to hold the baby." I had at least three ladies say that last one to me. There really wasn't many children around anywhere we went, and it seemed like every place we ate at, we had a water spill. (I can think of that happening at least 3 times).
Church: My younger cousin, Elder Carter Bosen, is serving in the Anchorage, AK Mission right now. We went to his ward for church, and that was cool. He is about 15 years younger than me, so I have never hung out with him growing up, but it was still fun to talk to him and his companion and get a picture.
Potter Marsh: It was windy, so this was a super fast stop where the kids stayed in the car. (Two of them were sleeping). Josh and I just took a quick look and picture of the marsh.
Alaska Berry Store (Or whatever it is called): This store has a lot of Alaskan food products.They also have a HUGE chocolate fountain. I wanted to stick my tongue in it. Too bad there was a sign that said not to touch it. We bought little jars of honey, had samples of chocolate, and ate Fireweed and Honey ice cream. There was also a giant rock man outside of the store. The ancient people use to build huge rock structures for hunting to tell direction.
Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center: Since we didn't see much wildlife in the wild, we decided to go to the Conservation Center, which is sort of like a zoo, but the enclosures are much more wild and bigger. It actually reminded me of the Pocatello Zoo, except the enclosures in Pocatello zoo are much smaller than the Conservation Center. It has a lot of the same animals as the Pocatello Zoo, however. It was pretty rainy, but that didn't stop us from getting out and looking at the animals.
Salmon Run: We stopped at the perfect place along the river to see the salmon swimming up-stream and laying their eggs.
Portage Glacier: This was only one of many glaciers we saw. The glaciers were all over, and they were so cool looking with blue ice. Portage Glacier was above the water and so beautiful. There was a cool visitors center for the area ran by the National Forest Department.
Whittier Tunnel: This is the longest tunnel in North America. It is 2.5 miles, and took us 7.5 minutes one way to get through it. It is only one lane, so it runs one way on the hour and the other way on the half hour. You have to time it right, or else you can be waiting a long time to go through the tunnel.
Whittier/Emerald Cove: Talk about more Alaskan beauty. We are so glad we paid the toll to drive into Whittier. The Emerald Cove Glacier overlooking the ocean was just breathtaking. Not to mention the yummy halibut we ate in the town. The town was built as a military town back in the 50s. Everyone lived in the same building. The building has not been preserved, but is still standing, and a new residence hall has been built where most of the residence live now. At the end of the road, there was a pretty hike. We hiked some of it, but had to turn around before too long to catch the next tunnel opening.
1 comment:
Looks like such a fun trip!! Are you rested back to normal yet?
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