Jraff

Tio Chris gave Sam this neat giraffe for Christmas last year.



Most of the time he just moves it around his room or the house so that it's watching whatever he's doing. But every now and then "jraff" comes out to really play which generally goes something like this...




Boys.

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Alaska - Thunderbird and the Abandoned Mine

The morning after we got back from Denali we were sort of at a loss for what to do. The train was the big draw and we hadn't thought much beyond that. Anchorage has some museums and things but Sam was pretty excited about mountains and hiking so we opted for more of that. We live next to the museum district in Houston, but we most certainly live nowhere near mountains so for me it wasn't much of a decision. The big problem was where to go. Uncle Eric took the day off to hang with us and while driving us around told us a lot about the surrounding areas. In some book or mag David saw something about Thunderbird Waterfall so we decided to hunt it down. Totally worth it. Iguazu it is not, but it was a beautiful hike and the waterfall itself was lovely too.

I actually look pregnant in this picture...but my belly isn't as large as it looks. I had on a tank top, long sleeve shirt,  a North Face fleecy jacket, a North Face shell, pajama pants under my jeans and Ugg's on. Pretty standard dress for me while we were there. (Which earned much eye-rolling in my general direction by my sweet, male family members.) ;)

David wanted to see a ghost town so after lunch at McDonald's we headed up into the Talkeetna mountains a bit more and tried to find the old independence mine. What we hadn't really expected was to find it still blocked by 1.5+ feet of snow.

A pretty, rocky stream on the way up the mountain that I just fell in love with. I suppose I should mention David took quite a few thorns in his hand on his way back to the car after getting a good picture of it for me. The things we do for love :)

On the way in before we realized just how deep the snow still was.

The teeny snowman we managed to scrape together before Sam was so cold he wanted to get back in  "silver car."

Ominous clouds. Nearly every day we were there we could see snow falling on the higher peaks. When we started seeing those clouds Sam and I turned back towards the car and David went on towards the mine. We were NOT dressed for snow, much less a snow storm!

I had questioned all of my layers after the Thunderbird hike but didn't regret it at all  by the end of the day. Especially after Sam and I got back to the car soaking wet since I was able to lose a few layers and not have to sit in wet stuff.

I think we might have been trudging at about .25 mph...

The mine as seen from as far as David got before the drifts were so deep it just ceased to be worth it.

As usual we headed back for the house and Grandma Audrey had yet another fantastic meal waiting for us. We were SO spoiled!

Alaska - Part Three, Denali

The big thing we absolutely HAD to do while in Alaska was ride the train from Anchorage to Denali. It is supposed to be a beautiful ride and it really was. David didn't care what all we did up there so long as this was on the list. The line actually opened only the day before so it was still very uncrowded on board. We had plenty of room to stretch out and spent as much time as we pleased in the viewing car (it has an upper story that you can see better panoramas out of.) Here are some pictures of the ride:

Excited to ride!

The water was a pretty, clear green - the color comes from all the copper in the rocks.

At the one stop the train made at Talkeetna the conductor offered his hat for Sam to put on. He wouldn't do it. Even now when he sees this picture he'll say, "I didn't like that hat!"

Lunch in the dining car was actually pretty good.

Hurricane Gulch

The train as seen from the viewing car

Sam lounging in the viewing car...this might be my new favorite picture of him.

After we got to Denali we checked into the hotel and explored a bit before finding dinner and going to bed early. Our bus into Denali National Park left at 6:15 the next morning ((shudder)), and we really scrambled to try and get a little breakfast before getting onto the bus. The tour bus is the only way in/out of the park. We had a fantastic tour guide, it was his 30th summer working at Denali and he knew absolutely everything...and then some.

This mountain is called Polychrome because of the many colors in its rock.

Ladies and Gents the State Bird of Alaska...the Willow Ptarmigan. [My guess would have been the Golden or Bald Eagles we saw on the way up and at the park.]

Snow storm blowing in, it even started snowing on us a bit!

You don't really get off the bus except for a couple potty breaks but there are a few scenic overlooks where you can get off as well. (By "potty" I mean pit toilets with 40 degree wind blowing...places. Those were very common at parks/trails up there. It's hard to run sewer lines in the permafrosted, extremely protected, middle of nowhere! Especially when its at or below freezing above ground much of the year.) If you take the park service tour bus it goes faster and they let you off for hikes and you can pick up another on the way back. The private tours are slower because they stop more frequently for animals/pretty pictures and there's more explanation of what you're looking at. They also use close up video to let you see animals that are too distant to see very clearly.

Our turnaround that day was at the Toklat River rest stop. The road the rest of the way into the park still hadn't been cleared/checked/dried. The road is two-way...note: this is NOT the same as two-lane. When you've got two buses passing each other on Polychrome Pass this becomes rather evident.

Visitor's center at the Toklat River

Toklat River

A very sunny. windy, cold family photo at Toklat

The very, very, sheer drop off at Polychrome

If you click on this picture to see it larger there is a Dall Sheep on the outcropping looking out over the valley.

Close up Dall Sheep

We saw 5 bears on our trip, they were visible from the windows as blondish bumps moving, but the cameras were the best way to see them "up close" :)

Porcupine. The people sitting behind us asked Sam if he had a name...Sam said yes, it was "Porky-pine". He's not so much into naming stuff yet.

The second night we were there we had dinner at the dinner theater at the hotel. Called "Cabin Nite" the show was really fun, and Sam always gets a big kick out of shows. As a table you had to wave your napkins and yell your waiter/waitresses name to get service. It took some practice but Sam got the napkin waving down.

The next morning, after a more leisurely breakfast, we rode the train home again. We spent a long time in the viewing car on the ride home. We were hoping we might get to see Mt. McKinley on the way back since it was clearer but there was still snow up in the mountains :(

Sam hadn't had "chicken" (i.e. chicken nuggets) in days and ate these tenders with great relish (and ketchup.)

Sam loves to put his face against mine and push/nuzzle...aww!