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!

20 Weeks Today!

Wow, the halfway point sure came quickly! Or slowly, depending on how I look at it. No doubt by October I'll be wondering where all the time has gone. We had the anatomy scan this morning to 'mark' the occasion. I always love getting the ultrasounds, it's so nice to put an image with the knocking around in your tummy. Baby looked perfect (yay!) and so did the placenta (double yay since there was some trouble early on and a concern it might be too low, etc.).

No, I'm not going to spill the gender, David wants it to be a surprise. So everyone just gets to wait with bated breath until October (or however long I manage to keep my trap shut.)

Right now we're just enjoying being a family of three. Sometimes Sam will say or do something that makes my heart ache a little, but at the same time I'm excited to see our family grow and I know Sam will be a fantastic big brother. One thing is for sure, his sibling(s) won't get away with anything! He's very quick to point out when other kids or people are making "bad 'cision's". He also loves to put his hand on my tummy to feel the baby kick...so sweet.

This was particularly fun to watch...baby was playing with his/her toes!

Alaska - Part Two

Day Two: We wake up bright and early around 7, and after taking my Uncle to work we decided to take the scenic ~2 hour drive to Seward. The Seward Highway (a National Scenic Byway and All-American Road) goes through Chugach State Park and even if we had just turned around and driven back when we got there, it would have been worth it. That drive was gorgeous! So much of the water in Alaska is bright blue or green. We stopped for a couple pictures, made it to Seward, and decided to head to the Alaska SeaLife Center before finding a good place to eat.

"Mama I cold!!!" It was very windy that day.

Did I mention it was cold?

The Center sits at the end of town on Resurrection Bay (also beautiful) and is a public aquarium, rescue center, and research facility. They got their start after the Exxon Valdez spill and settlement funds were used to create the research and rehabilitation portions of the center. They have a lot of information and many creatures to look at. One of the best things in my opinion were tide pools where you could touch anything in them. They also had sea lions, jellyfish, puffins and King Crabs. While we were there they had a photographer come and take pictures of some kids making "fish prints" and Sam was one of the kids so he got to paint two rubber fish, blue of course, then press paper on top to make a stamp. His favorite part of it though was a boat with a steering wheel, he couldn't get enough of it.

For lunch we headed to the Smoke Shack. It was the top pick by the guidebook we took, plus it's located in a refurbished train car. For my two train-obsessed boys what could be better? The food was indeed smokey, but it was very, very good. According to David, the best thing there was their pie, which that day was some sort of rum sweet potato with pecans on top. Sam was especially excited about the wheels on the train car, silly boy.

Enjoying pie and (Dad's) coffee

Sam was especially keen on the wheels of the train so I promised to get them into the picture with him :)

After lunch we headed up to Exit Glacier in Kenai Fjords National Park. Alaska apparently has hundreds, if not thousands of glaciers, but I'd never seen one and wow is it impressive. Heading towards the glacier and up the trail are markers with years on them showing how far the glacier extended in the past. It is retreating, like so many others, and has left a massive outwash plain. The glacial silt (a fancy term for the grey dust of rocks chewed up by the glacier) covers the plain. The hike up wasn't too bad, and though we couldn't touch it we got quite close. Enough that we could hear the glacier groaning and moaning and the runoff rushing beside it.

Once we got back down we decided we'd had enough (Sam was zonked) and headed back to Anchorage. On our way back in we took to exit for Whittier and stopped to see the Portage Glacier on Portage Lake.

 

When we got back to Anchorage Grandma Audrey (who had just gotten in town the night before) had made dinner for everyone and so we had a lovely, delicious supper waiting for us when we got back. She's such a neat lady and it was fun getting to finally meet her and enjoy her abundant hospitality. No trouble sleeping for anybody that night! :)

Alaska - Part One

We got home a week ago today from Alaska..."The Last Frontier". We were terribly fortunate that David had just enough frequent flyer miles to get us all to and from Alaska, that my sweet Uncle lives in Anchorage and let us stay with him, that he happens to rent from one of his best friends, "Grandma Audrey," who had her road trip cut short and happened to get into town the day after we did, and that tourist season had started but wasn't yet in full swing.

We landed around midnight (3 am to us) and jolt #1: it was just dusk, not night, jolt #2: it was COLD! Not below freezing or anything, but lower 50s headed down through the 40s. It ranged from just above freezing at night to upper-50s, mid-60s during the day depending on wind, cloud cover, etc. David and Uncle Eric thought I was funny with all of my layers, but for a Texas girl that's cold!

We got to bed post-haste and didn't wake up nearly late enough. We were also blessed to have the use of my Uncle's swank SUV, affectionately named "silver car" by Sam. The first day we used it to hike around Flattop Mountain. We stuck to the Blueberry Loop Trail instead of the rough 5 mile hike to the top of the mountain. I fell I don't know how many times just on the loop, but there were plenty of people with appropriate footwear, poles, skis, and one dog headed for the top! It's known for the views it provides and it was breathtaking, what a way to start the trip.

The (often slippery) Ascent

Flattop Mountain

The "Blueberry Loop Trail" is called that because the area is covered with blueberry plants and in a few weeks there will be blueberries everywhere!

The Descent - We saw a fellow do this by accident on his way down/our way up. When it was our turn to go that way we figured out that sliding is the only way you can get down!

After the hike we got back to the car and headed back into Anchorage for lunch. We ended up at a local place called Snow City Cafe and it was fantastic. Nice warm comfort food after hiking, sliding and falling though snow all morning. Sam was totally beat though considering he thought we were eating lunch at 4 pm so we went back to Eric's to rest up and dry off.

Dinner that night was at another local eatery called the Moose's Tooth. This place makes their own beer (the Hefeweizen was judged to be the best by Uncle Eric and David) and pizzas similar to California Pizza Kitchen but there are a great many more options than at CPK. Yummo and a great way to end the day!

First Post-school read...

This was a fantastic book I had been wanting to read since last fall.




Next up:



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Things I Won't Miss...

Commencement is Friday...I can't believe it. It only took me a decade to get it done! But all good things must come to an end (yay!) and so I'll walk across the stage and try really hard not to let pregnancy hormones get the best of me.

Everyone always talks about the things they'll miss about college. My experience being atypical, there are more things I WON'T miss than otherwise. I was studying late one night for finals last week and the list just started forming in my head. It was Thursday, the third day of the library being open for 24-hours. Some places can be open for 24-hours and not seem the worse for wear. The M.D. Anderson library at UH is not one of them. And thus the list was born:

I will NOT miss:

-Not having toilet paper in the restrooms; added to this would be dirty restrooms.
-Heaps of discarded fast food in trash cans every few feet and the smell that goes with it.
-Microwaves caked in exploded food (yes my microwave at home has splatters but not huge messes. Plus I can't reach mine to clean it!)
-The smokers that are EVERYWHERE on campus.
-Having to stay up 4 hours after everyone in my house goes to bed to get my studying done.
-Having to walk out the door when David walks in so I can go to class.
-Sam telling me he wants me to stay home
-Having to miss meals or pay for bad ones because I didn't have time to make dinner before I left.
-That nauseating feeling in the pit of my stomach while I'm waiting for grades.
-That condescending look I get from the people in my classes a decade younger than me. At least until they find out my grades are better than theirs and then they're my new best friends...
-The crazy wait lines for everything that are not conducive for people who work/have kids.
-The hand cramp I get when writing essay exams.
-Writer's block

Things I will miss:
-The joy that comes with getting good grades
-Dr. Vardy, Dr. Hallmark and Professor Wall
-The handful of good friends I've made in my classes

I'm sure the list will grow as things get closer to wrapping up and reality sets in :)