Blogs from Alaska, United States, North America - page 231

We got up early and hit the road, with a quick stop at Fred Meyer (everything store) for motion sickness bracelets and medicine. We were off to Seward for a wildlife cruise. Well, we were barely out of downtown before we had our first wildlife sighting. A mama and baby moose crossed the Seward highway in front of us as we were leaving town (right near Potter’s Marsh). The sun was shining and it was shaping up to be a beautiful day (at least in Anchorage). As we drove south, we were once again awed by the beautiful views of the Chugach Mountains, Turnagain Arm, Kenai Mountains, and countless glaciers. As we worked our way south on the Kenai Peninsula, the clouds rolled in until we really couldn’t see much with the amount of fog that ... read more

September 13, 2007 We were pleasantly surprised with TRNP. We didn’t want to take a long time, but we did go about 15 miles on the loop road to view the scenery first thing in the morning. Since we started early we had the road to ourselves. It was cloudy, cold and very windy (later we found out wind gusts were up to 35 mph). Frank enjoyed the geology and I liked the earth colors. The trees were turning, but not quite in peak color. It was an interesting place, pretty in its starkness. We would go back again and spend more time if we were in the area. We enjoyed it more than the SD Badlands. There is a large herd of bison (we only saw a few) and wild horses roam the park. We ... read more

On Monday, the girls had a quiet morning and met me for lunch at the “Moose’s tooth” for pizza. Then they ran some errands, including an exciting trip to the recycling center. Gabbi has been incredibly into speaking different languages. She’s obsessed with German (gee, I wonder why Petra and family). She goes around saying things that sound Germanish, but is still gibberish. For example, “Ich de klein”. It’s cute, but a little annoying after a while. After work we drove about a half hour north of Anchorage to Thunderbird Falls. Our friends, Bernadette, Kara, and James met us at the trailhead and we started off. The kids ran most of the mile to the lookout at the falls. It is absolutely incredible how the maximum speed of our children increases with the number of other ... read more

Tuesday September 11, 2007 There are some advantages to walking the dogs in the morning; you see things! I was excited to get the glow on the mountain peaks as the sun came over the mountains in the glacier parking lot. We made one other stop on the Parkway to see Peyto Lake. When we were there in June it was cloudy and the color was drab. This time the sun was out and it didn’t disappoint. We traveled through Banff and Calgary (glad to get out of that traffic) by early afternoon. South of Calgary is prairie with lots of ranches and livestock. You don’t see many barns anymore, just metal warehouses. The fields are shades of golden yellow; creamy yellow, brownish yellow and the granaries stand tall in the landscape. We were happy to ... read more

Monday, September 10, 2007 We were on the road early. There was fog in the valleys and river bottoms which made the farmland picturesque. The fall colors were just barely starting to turn. We suffered some “reentry” getting used to a seeing a number of cars on the highway rather than one or 2 every few hours which was the case in the Yukon and northern B. C. The weather was good, the scenery was pleasant and the driving wasn’t difficult. We got to Jasper National Park around 4:00 and it was warm. We were amazed to see the number of RV’s and cars. The area is so pretty. We had forgotten in only 2 months! We decided to proceed down the Icefield Parkway, the route that connects Jasper to Banff even though it was another ... read more