The Great Alaskan Frontier

---

Farhad and I decided to make the most of our summer by spending a week in the chilly air of Alaska. I'm posting this entry 6 years after the trip (it was the summer of 2003 - I didn't have a blog then) so I don't remember many of the specifics but I wanted to add this to my blog for posterity :D. The one grand moment that I do remember was seeing a reindeer for the first time! :) I thought they only existed in stories involving Santa Claus but there they were - in the flesh - antlers and all :D

We were driving down the highway from Anchorage to Denali National Park and from the corner of my eye I saw a big brown creature with antlers. Could that be? Was it? It was! A reindeer! I made Farhad turn the car around - and we met Twosoc :) He was huge but he was too busy grazing to even look at us. We had to pay someone a dollar to have our pictures taken with him which I would normally never do - it's such a tourist trap. But this was a reindeer - and when were we going to ever see a reindeer again?!?

We were there in July, which is summer in Alaska and the sun doesn't set. It was a bizarre feeling - it never gets dark! And the vegetables and flowers are HUGE perhaps because of all the extra sunlight.

We took a plane ride over a glacier outside of Anchorage, which we couldn't really enjoy because we were both a little quesy from being in such a tiny plane. After spending 2 days in the quaint little town of Anchorage, we rented a car and drove to Denali National Park. From what I remember, Denali was a bit of a disappointment. We didn't see anything but trees and hills. The drive was more scenic than the park. On our last day, we jumped aboard a cruise ship to Portage Glacier. It was the first time I had seen a glacier -it was exhilirating :)

---