Family Adventures: Part 1

Where to begin, where to begin…so many fun things have been happening we don’t know where to start. Maybe the beginning would be best. After traveling all over the state with Nicole and Kelsey we decided to take it easy this weekend and get things done around the cabin. Ashley has been helping out at the nature center by teaching some craft classes on top of her normal desk duties. This week she taught a birch bark canoe class and a crafting with plarn (plastic yarn made out of recycled plastic grocery bags) class. So much of her weekend was spent practicing crocheting and peeling birch bark while Adam got down to his lumberjack roots and decided to do some woodworking projects using only a hand saw to cut all the pieces he needed. While Adam was sawing away off the patio of our cabin a black bear and a cub popped up roughly 10 yards from him. He stopped and started talking to the bear but the bear seemed disinterested and continued on their walk through the woods. He quickly ran into the cabin to grab the camera and get Ashley. We carefully ran out the door and sure enough we spotted the black bear and cub not far up the driveway trying to cross. We snapped a few pictures, gave them their space and they sauntered back into the woods. What a fun surprise! It got our heart racing a bit faster than any hike we have ever done.

On the last day of our weekend we celebrated Ashley’s 24^th birthday seeing as we had to work on her actual birthday. It was a rainy, dreary day so we headed into town and visited the Anchorage Museum. Now we could say that the various art galleries, displays and history moved us in a deep and intellectual manor…. but let’s be real, it was boring. We started on the top floor and made our way down three very dull and dis-interesting floors before we discovered the gold mine, the Discovery Center. Now you may be thinking that is the kid’s area and you may be right BUT we are just giant children who like to learn so we didn’t care that we were two 20-year old’s playing with things meant for children ages 2-10. They had all kinds of cool interactive displays like an infrared camera that you could see yourself in, an air canon, a lift-able lounge chair, a giant aquarium with lots of small sea creatures, tons of Legos to play/build with and a bubble area where you could literally stand inside a bubble. It was literally the coolest place in all of Anchorage. We felt silly for wasting so much time in the stuffy museum part when we could have spent more time playing in the Discovery Center. We even caught a movie about the Aurora in the museum's Planetarium! All in all it was a great time and we ended the day with some of Ashley’s favorite ice cream-Glacial Silt (ginger ice cream with cinnamon). On Wednesday, her actual birthday the Nature Center was so kind and got her flowers and a cake to celebrate, her parents gave us a gift card to celebrate at Red Robin and she received a few birthday cards in the mail which was a very sweet surprise. She had a great birthday even though it was so far away from home.

Lift-able lounge chair.

Teeny, tiny sea creatures! 

STANDING INSIDE A BUBBLE!

Our Lego creations.

THIS WAS THE COOLEST THING EVER!

Infrared camera party time!

Ashley's Birthday Flowers

Now is where the real fun begins, Adams parents and Aunt JoAnn and Uncle Dennis flew up and arrived on Friday afternoon to visit us and tour around Alaska. They picked up their RV, got some groceries and headed to their campground where Adam and Ashley met them with pizza after work. There are no words to express on how excited we were to see them! That night we sat around for hours just catching up on everything that happened the past few months and they even surprised Ashley with a birthday cake which was so nice of them. They brought us honey, candy, and some beeswax candles Adam’s parents had made which was an awesome gift! And here we thought their presence was gift enough!  The next day we had to work while the family went into Anchorage to tour around and explore the farmers market. In the afternoon they came out for Adam’s nature walk and caught the tail end of Ashley’s crafting with plarn class. Our boss even let us go early so we could show them our cabin and hit the road early! We seriously work with the most amazing people. Soon we hit the road heading south and took time to take in the sights along the way. We stopped along the Turnagain Arm to soak in the mountains and sea and also at Bird Creek to watch fisherman attempt to catch salmon (they were not having much luck). Soon we got hunger and stopped in Girdwood at a restaurant called Chair 5. This was a cool restaurant with great burgers and pizza. Once we had our fill we headed off to the fancy hotel in town, The Hotel Alyeska. You may remember this name as we have mentioned it in a previous blog. We stayed there the night before we started work at the Nature Center and it was hands down the fanciest hotel we have ever stayed in. Well this fancy hotel has a tram that will take you 2,000 feet up the mountain in 5 minutes. So we all got our tram tickets and headed up the mountains to soak up the incredible views. At the top you could look out and see multiple glaciers, rivers, mountains, and the Turnagain Arm. After taking our photos and exploring we headed back down the tram to see two moose from up above. Of course at that height and distance they were little brown dots but they were moose none the less. Afterwards we made our way to Portage for the night to camp. 

Teresa and JoAnn at the top of the tram! 

The next morning, we got an early start and headed through the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel to Whittier. You must take this tunnel to get to Whittier and you also share the tunnel with the train because it’s a single lane tunnel and the cars must drive over the train tracks to get through it. So to get to Whittier you can only go on the half hour and to leave Whittier you can only drive through on the hour. It is crazy cool and takes about 7 minutes to get through. It is the world's longest highway tunnel at 2.5 miles. Driving through the tunnel, it was darker than it is outside at night which was pretty wild to realize. Once through the tunnel we explored the small town of Whittier before our glacier cruise. Once we boarded the boat we got a table all to ourselves and feasted on a lunch of prime rib, salmon, sourdough bread, rice pilaf, and salad. Once full we ventured outside to see some wildlife. First, we saw the black footed kittiwake birds which were pretty neat as they floated all together as a group on the water. Then came the humpback whale which popped up a few times showing us its fluke (the whale’s tail) and blowing sprays of water out its blow-hole. Then came the glaciers, and boy were there glaciers! Ashley might as well have been in heaven because she was so happy surrounded by all these beautiful valley and tidewater glaciers. We honestly saw too many to count. They even took the boat right up to a glacier and we floated in past chucks of ice bobbing in the water right up to the face of a tidewater glacier where we got to hear what they call (white thunder) the sounds of the glacier cracking off and breaking into the water. They shut off the engine and everyone was real quiet and we waited and waited and finally a large chunk broke off the face and plunged into the water bringing a large wave our way which sent the boat a rockin’. The staff on the boat actually hauled up a few ice chunks from the water and brought them on board for people to touch and feel. The really neat part was that they took an ice chunk from the water and offered Glacier Margaritas. It was tequila, orange juice, lime juice, margarita mix and blue curacao all poured over a glass of glacier ice. HOW COULD YOU NOT GET THAT?! We all got one to share and boy was it tasty! Shortly after we continued on our way to what’s known as Esther Pass, a narrow channel between islands where we saw eagles flying, and JoAnn and Dennis spotted a black bear off in a meadow.  As we came out of Esther Pass we came across what’s called Egg Rock, a flat rock out off shore that Stellar sea lions like to hang out on, and sure enough as we pull up we got to see them sleeping on the rock. A few of them were waddling around while others snoozed blissfully on the cool rock. This was especially special because not only are these creatures endangered but they only come out onto this rock every once in a while, so we were incredibly lucky to see them. Then they brought us out to a salmon hatchery were we got to see a salmon in the water along with sea lions popping their heads in and out of the water! Also, during the entire cruise every few hundred feet or so you would see sea otters lounging on their backs bobbing up and down on the water. Sometimes we would even come across a “raft” of them, which is just a large cluster of sea otters. They looked so cute and cuddly out there! This glacier cruise was a once in a lifetime experience that we enjoyed so much and it was all made possible courtesy of Grandma Judy and Grandpa Fred Behling.

Black footed Kittiwake birds

A Whale!!

A Humpback Whale!

Sea Otter

Surprise Glacier

Rafts of Sea Otters

Stellar Sea Lions

Harbor Seal

 After the cruise we headed south to Seward to continue on the adventure. To our surprise, in the campground we saw a unique Jeep pull in and JoAnn and Dennis went to talk to them. It turns out it was a couple from Brazil who had driven their Jeep all the way to Alaska! Let that sink it, all the way through the countries in South America, through Mexico, up through California, Oregon, Washington, and Canada to finally make it to Alaska. Their goal was to make it to the Arctic Ocean. The wife was the only one who could speak English and they had their tent pop out of the top of their Jeep. We asked if they had any problems getting here and she said that the Jeep goes slow, like 45mph at top speed…they got some horns honked at them on the drive up. They planned to stay in Alaska until they saw the northern lights then depending on their visa they would attempt to see all of the lower 48 states. If their visa wouldn’t come through they would drive through Canada, ship the Jeep over to Europe, explore, then drive down through Africa then up through Asia and drop down finally to Australia. They planned two years for this trip and to financially support the adventure they would sell the photographs they would take from all over their adventures. Ashley bought a few of their photographs to help support their cause. They were two really interesting people and were soon the hit of the campground as people would come over and take pictures of the Jeep and look through their photos. It was an honor to meet these people. Eventually, we left them to finish setting up and headed back for some sleep.

The next morning, we decided to go on another cruise this time but in Seward since we loved the one yesterday so much! We were limited on time we took the short 3.5 hour one around Resurrection Bay. It was a cold, rainy, foggy morning ride but man was it worth it. We saw so much wildlife! As soon as we pull away from the docks we saw sea otters and about 20 minutes into the boat ride we found a breaching humpback whale! We watched it for easily 20 minutes as it would come up to the surface and feed, showing off its tail. Soon another humpback whale came and we got lots of pictures of that one too. After we made our way between islands and got a chance to see puffins, black footed kittiwakes, moon jellyfish, lion's mane jellyfish, stellar sea lions, harbor porpoises, mountain goats and bald eagles. It was a wet but very fun 3.5 hours to say the least. Unfortunately, due to the fog we couldn’t see any glaciers but we made up for it when we went to the Kenai Fjords National Park Nature Center and hiked to Exit Glacier. It was 2.5 miles roundtrip but we got to see a glacier up close and personal. Well worth the hike. After that we headed to the RV to continue the journey to Homer, AK. 

A Humpback whale coming up to feed

Puffin!

Stellar Sea Lions

Eagle

Beautiful Homer

 Stay Classy, Planet Earth.

-The A-Team