This is the 1st video of arriving in Alaska!

Last Day in Alaska

Yesterday, we went on a real sternwater riverboat down the Chena. On the way, we got to see the home of Susan Butcher. She won the Iditarod many times and died of leukemia a few years back. Her husband and daughters still take care of the dogs and put on a show for the riverboaters. They tied the dogs to an old 4 wheeler with no engine and had them pull it around a big loop while we watched from the riverboat.

We also stopped at a native village on the cruise and saw how the native people used to live. One lady made native clothing and beadwork and also fileted a salmon in under a minute. It was very neat!

We leave tonight for Minneapolis at 9:40 and arrive in Fargo around 10am tomorrow morning. Hope we get some sleep on the plane!

We will see all of you soon! Thanks for reading!

Last Day in Denali

We brought the computer up to the coffee place today so we could have Internet access. We arrived in Denali on the evening of July 4th. The train ride was really neat from Anchorage to Denali. We ate at the hotel restaurant when we arrived in Denali and had a very delicious salmon pizza and cobb salad.

July 5th we went on an ATV tour of an area just outside of Denali Park. It was a lot of fun! We got to cross streams, drive down streams, climb up hills, and cover a lot of terrain. We ended up a little wet and quite dusty. We were told you either end up dusty or muddy, depending on what the weather has been like. After the ATV tour we took a shuttle to Denali Park. We stopped at the Wilderness Access Center to find a place to take a small hike. We ended up taking the Savage River shuttle to, interestingly enough, Savage River. They had a nice 2 mile hike and we saw a Marmot, a ground squirrel, and a bunch of Ptarmigan. Then we took the shuttle back to the hotel and ate at Salmon Bake, one of the only locally owned Denali Restaurants (the main part of Denali is quite touristy).

July 6th We awoke early and went on a horseback riding tour through the tundra (WET!) and through some other areas. It lasted about 2 hours and, by the end, our knees and legs were very sore. Our horses were named River and Yukon and both were great horses. River (Josh's horse) did not like the tundra and would not listen to any of his requests. Yukon kept his nose to the butt of the horse ahead and followed wherever that horse went. He really liked munching on whatever he could find along the way. After the horseback tour we needed a rest. After the rest we went to the Denali Park visitor center and Kelsey bought two plant books (nerd!) Then we went to a dogsled demo in Denali Park (Lisa, the puppies were SOOO cute!) and it started to rain at the end so we hurried back to the bus. That evening we went to the Cabin Night Dinner Theater and had a "family style" meal of ribs, fresh salmon, potatoes, corn, salad, and blueberry cobbler. They also put on a musical depicting the lives of the first Alaskans.

July 7th (today) We dropped off our bags to be shipped to Fairbanks and will probably walk around the shops because we are so stiff and sore from all of our adventures. We will then get on the train at 4pm and take a 4 hour ride to Fairbanks.

Back in Anchorage

Kelsey's updating!
We are back in Anchorage after spending all day in Seward and then taking the train. It was a bit colder today and rainy, but it was still pretty nice. They don't have the same kind of wind that's back in Fargo. We went to the Sealife Center and saw a Sea Lion, Seals, and sea birds up close. We even got to touch some Sea Anemones and Star Fish. It was pretty cool. We wandered around town the rest of the day and then hopped on the train to Anchorage. We didn't get back till 10:30pm and we head out tomorrow from the hotel at 7:15am! So it will be a short night, and a 8-hour train ride after that!
I better get to bed!

Glacier Cruise in Seward

First of all, it's "soo-word". Like "sewer" with a "d" at the end. Kelsey and I keep messing that up. Windsong Lodge is a really neat place. There are a bunch of cabins spread throughout the forest with a few rooms in each. The problem is their Internet upload speeds might be just slightly faster than dialup. So, the pics will have to wait until tonight when we're back in Anchorage, if it's not too late. We'll tell what we did and add the pictures later...which, if a picture is worth 1,000 words, will add many millions of words to what we have already written. If you enjoyed some of the previous pics, you ain't seen nothing yet!

Well, we woke up Wednesday morning at 5am...which, in Central time is 8am, but it felt like 5 am because we went to bed at 11pm, which in Central time is 2 am. We waited in the hotel lobby for the shuttle to the "Alaskan Rail Road" and were greeted at the station by a very elegant looking blue and yellow train. We got our tickets, hopped on, and waited to roll. To travel the 114 miles from Anchorage to Seward it took nearly 4 hours! In many places there are giant glacial lakes and glaciers within a few hundred yards of the tracks and mountains within inches! It was absolutely beautiful! We saw a couple of moose and random birds.

Seeing a glacier is marvelous. There were a couple of them on the train ride and we couldn't believe how HUGE and BLUE they are. They are so dense they don't allow any light to escape except for the blues, and that's why they look blue. AMAZING!

Anyway, once in Seward we jumped straight onto the cruise ship (can't remember it's name...it's in a picture). It was a rather small cruise ship, not a "real" cruise ship...I think she said 100 feet long??? A little bigger than the riverboat in Bismarck. This glacier cruise was amazing. First of all, there are mountains EVERYWHERE in Alaska. It's not like the US where there are some here and there, but they are EVERYWHERE! And glaciers too...some are smaller glaciers, some are bigger, but they are all over.

Aside from the scenery of mountains and trees, we came across many Humpback Whales, Dahl's (spelling?) Porpoises, Puffins (a bird that is on Kelsey's cereal she eats), and at the very end of the trip a couple of Orcas. I don't even know how to describe how neat it was to see them...aside from saying to wait for the pictures. We have HUNDREDS from today.

We also got very close to a MASSIVE glacier. We were within about a quarter mile of it's face and it was HUMONGOUS! We can't remember how tall, but from the sea to the top it was about halfway up a mountain that was probably 3,000 feet tall, or more. It was ridiculous. Then big chunks were falling off all the time and they'd hit the water and sound like a gunshot. It was awesome to see! The guide said that some glaciers are retreating and others advanced as much as 3 or 4 miles last year. This is because they had about 1,200 inches of snow instead of the normal 700 in this particular area. We have both video (thanks Bryce! It worked out awesome...I wasn't sure until viewing it on my laptop) and Kelsey (and I...but mostly Kelsey) took way too many pictures of these events!

We then made our way back, looked at a couple smaller glaciers, saw the Orcas and then docked again in Seward. We ate at a restaurant operated by Windsong Lodge and had the BEST salmon we have ever eaten. Seriously, way better than the stuff in Anchorage and FRESH from a mile away! Amazing. We also ordered coconut fried shrimp and those were delicious as well. The shrimp were about the size of prawns (maybe bigger) and were covered in sweet coconut and fried...then they had a "cinnaminny" and spicy mango dip to dip them in. It was delicious!

Until later, this is all. We'll edit and add pics when we have faster Internet...I'm guessing no Internet in Denali for sure...so it may be awhile!

Anchorage Day Two

We went for a 22 mile bike ride today along the coast. It was pretty exciting. It was under the flight path of all of the float planes and jets. They have one of the busiest airports because of Anchorage's "worldly" location.






Then we went back to downtown and did some shopping. Oh, and we ate a Reindeer sausage from a street vendor. It was delicious. Then for supper Elk burger and salmon salad. MMM!

Arrival in Anchorage

Hello! Kelsey is still snoozing so I'm writing the blog post. Anchorage is AWESOME! We flew down with seats next to a man who is retired. While retired he's been a park ranger and a bunch of other things to "experience" life. Really cool guy. He gave us the inside scoop on Anchorage because he's been living here for the last 16 years. Because it was so late when we got in last night (9pm local 12am central) we just hopped across the street for a quick bite. We went to the Glacier Brewhouse and had fresh pan seared Alaskan Sockeye Salmon and a Mediterranean pizza. I took pictures so they'll be posted. WOW! Both were DELICIOUS! MMM!!!






There are flowers all over downtown in hanging baskets and along the sidewalks. There are also some pictures of those. We took a quick walk around our block before eating. Today our plan is to investigate all of the very different and unique shops. Anchorage supposedly has about 300,000 people...1/2 of the population of Alaska and 1,300 moose inside the city limits. It was funny driving in because the world's busiest float plane airport had float planes coming in and there are metal fences everywhere to keep the moose out of yards. Didn't see any though. If I do I am totally jumping on one and riding it like a wild stallion! (My mom just said..."oh no...don't!" because she doesn't get that it was a joke...haha!)

While flying in there were giant mountains with snow/glaciers melting into giant rivers. Kelsey took some pics from the plane of that so that's what those are. Our Anchorage expert (I won't post his name for privacy concerns) sitting next to us on the plane said that Anchorage is surrounded by mountains and the ocean...the mountains keep the cold out and the ocean keeps the warm in during winter and in the summer the opposite is true. He also said that there is really fine mud along the ocean from the retreating glaciers and people try to walk on it and sink in and die. Not from drowning when the tide comes in but from hypothermia because the water is so cold! I plan on taking the wild moose stallion for a ride to the mud flats when I find a wild moose.





Anyway, that was a lot of info...now for the pics...