Saturday, June 27: Day 15

Matthias and I went on an amazing hike today on Turnagain Arm trail. The Turnagain Arm is the body of water that branches off of the Cook Inlet south of Anchorage. So this trail gave some great views of the coastline. My favorite viewpoint is the one below where there is a bench that is right on the edge of the cliff. The bench is so tall that my feet could swing in the air like they used to when I was 5. Thy's feet are swinging, but the picture doesn't show it all that well. But check out the view, eh?

This is also at the same viewpoint, looking further south.

I am in love with waterfalls. When I picture heaven, there are always waterfalls everywhere. So I have to include some of the waterfall shots I got:

I forgot to mention that I also picture my husband with the waterfalls. Could it get any better? Maybe if there were peaches growing on that nearby tree...

On the way back, we came across a moose. It was nearly on the trail, so we hung back for a few minutes and then peeked out from the corner and saw him walking further in to munch on some leaves. He was probably about 30-40 feet away.

I had to take a picture of this tree. I've only seen holes like that in Winnie the Pooh movies or kids books. It's so classic. How does a hole like that even happen?At the bottom of the trail, the water collects in this gorgeous little pond.

I know nature pictures aren't as much fun as pictures with people in them, but I just can't help but indulge myself. I figure that's the beauty of having your own blog. Post what interests you!

Anyway, we're convinced this is a trail we need to come back to in the fall when all the leaves change color. It's got to be phenomenal!

Friday, June 26: Day 14

There is a viewpoint in downtown Anchorage where you can look out at Cook Inlet and on clear days see Mt. McKinley. Supposedly whales can be seen from this place but I haven't been so lucky. I did take a picture of one of the displays there that shares some interesting information about Anchorage's location on the globe. For your reading pleasure:
P.S. There are some flights that go right over the North Pole, even moreso than with the flight to London. For example, if I want to fly home to Utah, it takes 5.5 hours. If I want to fly to Frankfurt, Germany, it takes 7.5 hours. If I want to fly to Russia...a couple of hours. Yikes.

Thursday, June 25: Day 13

Moose pictures! We saw these at a place just a few minutes outside of Anchorage called Potter Creek. I looked like a little family of moose because there was a male, female, and baby all together. When we spot a moose, we usually see only one all by itself, so seeing three was pretty exciting. By the way, the photos are a bit fuzzy because I hadn't quite figured out the settings on my camera at that point.

Wednesday, June 24: Day 12

Today the three of us had our first Alaskan fishing experience. We went down to Ship Creek (the one downtown mentioned this past Sunday). Some super nice friends of ours let us use their gear which included of course the poles, flies, a net, and some really stylish waders. I think wading through the water was my favorite part.

As mentioned a few days ago, there weren't many fish in the river and seeing as we aren't really great fishers anyway, no fish were caught. For me, it's better that way because I don't like salmon at all. So it was just fine by me!

Later on, we went to the Alaska Botanical Gardens. There are "over 1100 varieties of hardy perennials, herbs, alpine plants, and showy annual flowers." We went on a 1 mile trail that comes up next to Campbell creek, where salmon spawn. Here are some highlights:

When I first moved here I thought it was so crazy to see moose instead of a deer on these signs. Especially in residential areas and major streets in town. They're there for good reason, I've found. There have been several times when I've had to slam on my breaks because the car(s) in front of me have stopped suddenly, only to find out there's a moose on the road.

Sadly, this last picture was taken just a few hours before Sariah's flight out of Anchorage. Thanks for coming to visit, Sariah! We really had a blast. It's too bad that good things have to come to an end.

Tuesday, June 23: Day 11

So I found out today on a bus tour in Denali Nat'l Park that bears with blonde fur exist. They're in the family of brown bears, but with really light fur:

A bus tour is the only way to get a significant distance into the park. The park itself is about 6 million acres and if you explored 1,000 acres a day it would take 17 years to see the whole thing. Another way to think of it is that 6 Yellowstone Nat'l Parks would fit inside Denali Nat'l Park. So it's a big place. Alaska is home to 7 of the 10 largest national parks in the country. See for yourself:

1. Wrangell-St. Elias National Park & Preserve, Alaska - 13,175,901 acres
2. Gates of the Arctic National Park & Preserve, Alaska - 8,472,506 acres
3. Adirondack Park, New York - 6,100,000 acres
4. Denali National Park & Preserve, Alaska - 6,075,030 acres
5. Katmai National Park & Preserve, Alaska - 4,093,229 acres
6. Lake Clark National Park & Preserve, Alaska - 4,030,025 acres
7. Death Valley National Park, California & Nevada - 3,372,402 acres
8. Glacier Bay National Park & Preserve, Alaska - 3,283,246 acres
9. Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, Montana & Idaho - 2,219,791 acres
10. Kobuk Valley National Park, Alaska - 1,750,717 acres

In total we saw 7 bears, probably about 2-3 dozen caribou, a red fox, a million snowshoe hare, and a billion+ squirrels. There were some German tourists on our bus that really enjoyed the squirrels. They wanted the bus driver to stop every time a squirrel was on the side of the road.
FYI caribou and reindeer are the same animal. The only difference is that caribou are wild, and reindeer are tamed.

Monday, June 22: Day 10

Today we left for Denali Nat'l Park. It's about a 5 hour drive north of Anchorage. Once we got there, we hiked to Horseshoe Lake and saw some pretty cool stuff. Here's a view of Horseshoe Lake from above:

We also saw a beaver collecting things for his damn:

Here's Sariah trying to be the beaver.

A swan: Sariah mentioned this open field reminded her of Twilight. We found it after going through some thicker bushes and then kind of tumbled out into this open area. If you've read Twilight you understand...we were looking around for sparkling skin (we were in Denali, after all). But no such luck.
I thought these leaves were so cool:

Here's a snowshoe hare. You can see how his feet are still white (they turn brown in the summer for camouflaging purposes):

The Alaska Railroad crosses the trail and we happened to see it go by. Blue and gold are the state colors. (Go Tigers!)
After hiking, we shopped in a few of the souvenier shops and the mercantile store by our campsite. I thought this bear looked kind of funny. Does any bear really hold his paws like that?

My favorite part, though, was this bug jacket they were selling. Just take look at the bug jacket model. Try to think of a situation where wearing that bug jacket would be something you would be glad you had it for.

I mean, really? I double dare someone to post a comment about where they might where one of those things.

Sunday, June 21: Day 9

Today after church, we tried to go salmon spotting in Ship Creek, a river that is in downtown Anchorage and usually has a ton of salmon spawning at this time of year. Unfortunately, they're unusually low in number this year and we only saw 1. So then we went to Lake Hood to watch the sea planes land on the lake and walk around there. It's one of my favorite places in Anchorage, I think. It's the largest place (with the most air traffic) where sea planes land and take off. Someday I'll highlight this place more with pictures and things because we didn't see a lot of action there, either. We still had fun, though, swinging on the swings that are right on the edge of the lake.

After grilling some delicious chicken with my favorite new marinade (1 tbsp honey, 1 tbsp soy sauce, 2 cloves minced garlic, 2 tbsp olive oil, salt, pepper) we went up to show Sariah our favorite look-out point. You may recall this spot from a post not too long ago...