My parents and Dawn flew out to Alaska to visit me on Friday, August 2nd. The best flights available got them here pretty late and it felt even later to them with the 4 hour time change. We all piled into my apartment that night and just hoped for some restful sleep to begin this adventure!
Saturday, we left early and got a start on the long, but scenic road to Glenallen which then turns west over to Anchorage. This is the same drive that I did a few weeks earlier and I was excited to share the views with my parents and Dawn. It took the whole day just to do the drive especially since we were stopping to take pictures of everything. I am sure everyone else was as happy as I was that we had nothing to do super early the next day.
We woke up leisurely and went to see the Anchorage museum. The best part was the kid's section. :) We spent more time in there than anywhere else in the museum. We played with the bubble maker, the earthquake simulator, the slow motion jump camera, the tidal wave simulation, the heat tracking camera, and the amazing ball maze. Aren't we so cultured? ;-)
Later that day we went to Palmer, AK where we toured a farm where they raised reindeer. During the tour we learned that both female and male reindeer grow antlers which they shed every year. The males lose them by the end of fall (late November) whereas the females will retain them till after they give birth in the spring. So it stands to reason that all of Santa's reindeer had to be female. Now it makes sense why Santa is so efficient and never gets lost.
We also learned that when their antlers are new they have nerve endings and huge blood vessels in them. They can actually feel with their antlers. It can hurt the reindeer to have their antlers touched with too much force so we had to be gentle if we wanted to feel the velvety fur. Eventually, the nerve endings and blood vessels will all die before they shed the antlers, otherwise they would bleed to death.
On the tour we got to feed the reindeer a little cup of food and they all knew it! They came running out of their pen toward us as soon as we walked out. They crowded around us like they had never been fed before, nudging us with their noses, and nibbling at anything they saw. For how sensitive their antlers supposedly were they were not very careful with them. I was dodging and weaving to get out of the way as they ran past me to the people who still had food left after mine was gone. There was an easy trick to get them to leave you alone. Even if you still had food left, you could put the little cup under your arm and hold up your empty hands and they would all walk away thinking you were out of food. It was pretty cute actually. I know we all enjoyed our experience with the reindeer!
On Monday, we made our way south and stopped at the Wildlife Conservation Center which was a quick drive through where you could see bison, black bear, a bald eagle, and supposedly, a lynx, but he was being shy. However, our main goal that day was a glacier cruise out of Whitter. We were heading for Surprise Glacier. We saw many other glaciers along the way and some cool sea life, but Surprise was the best. It was huge and we had to do some of our own ice breaking to get to it. The sound of the ice against the side of the ship was very eery and a little concerning, but we made it. My parents had a Glacier ice Margarita on the way back.
On our way back we spotted some porpoises that were playing in the wake of the ship!
Before getting back to Anchorage we made our final stop for the day at Mt. Alyeska where we rode a tram up the mountain to make our reservations at the Seven Glaciers restaurant for a fine dining experience surrounded by glaciers and scenic mountains. The food was TO DIE FOR! I had the best salmon bisque with a seasoned scallop and caviar. Oh my goodness! Unfortunately, this soup is not on the permanent menu so I may never have the opportunity to taste it again. I will remember it fondly. :)
Tuesday morning we ran through the Aviation museum in Anchorage where we
played with a flight simulator. Thankfully, our real flight over Mt.
McKinley later that day did not end like the flight we tried to land on
that simulator. Dave was the very competent pilot with Talkeetna Aero
Services that showed us the awe inspiring sights of the Alaska range
from the air. He narrated the whole trip for us so we knew all the names
of the mountains and glaciers and even little landmarks for climbers or
pilots trying to land on the mountains. Since we were flying over the
top of Mt. McKinley at 23,000 ft we had to use supplemental oxygen in
this little unpressurized plane. This was a first for all of us and it
was totally cool! I was so giddy about this flight before hand, and then
just in utter amazement afterward at what I had just experienced. If
any of you ever come to Alaska this must be on the "to do" list!
The next day we got to see Mt. McKinley from the ground when we took the bus into Denali NP. The wildlife viewings were abundant again and some were much closer this time around with a caribou trotting right in front of the bus for a while and dall sheep walking along the roadside. Dall sheep rarely come down from the highest points on the mountain side so we got very lucky with this rare sighting.
We finished our day with a dinner theater at one of the hotels in the area. The cast were the waiters and the actors, everything was served family style and was all you could eat, but since your server had to get up on stage eventually, you better eat fast! They cleared those dishes like there was no tomorrow and began the show. The show gave a little detail about the life of Fannie Quigley who was one of the first women staking gold mining claims in Alaska, but she became better known for her impressive outdoor skills and her cooking.
On Thursday, our last day in Denali we went for a couple little hikes that were very pleasant and then went on an ATV tour in the afternoon. Since there are no ATVs allowed in most of Denali they have a little loop hole. If you look at a map of Denali NP, on the north east corner there is a little cut out that the government did not protect since it was private land with coal mines on it, so that is where the ATV tours are able to go. Being in this area also held a little significance since it was as close as I will probably ever get to where the true story of the movie "Into the Wild" took place. We were only about 40 miles away from the bus and, in Alaska terms, that's close. Especially since it takes about 3 days and 2 river crossings to hike there.
Finally, we made it back to Fairbanks. Now we were able to relax a bit more. We did a tour of a gold dredge where we learned how to pan for gold, a tour on the Riverboat Discovery, visited Pioneer Park, and made a trip to North Pole, Alaska, which seemed fitting with our reindeer experience earlier in the trip. Other then that, we had a nice evening with local music at a coffee shop, checked out downtown a little, and hung out on my couch a lot for some solid relaxation.
The Riverboat Discovery has been voted the best boat tour in North America, and I can see why. It is a family owned business and the tradition of captaining the boat has been passed down to the grandson who captained our ship. We passed by some interesting sights and got to explore a replicated historical native village at our one stop, but the best was passing Susan Butcher's house where she used to train her sled dogs before she passed away in 2006, and hearing the story of her life. Now, her husband and family continue the tradition and showed off the dogs skills. Susan won the Iditarod 4 times and ran it 17 times. She was dedicated and so were her dogs. She had one special dog named Granite who was the runt of the litter and who everyone thought should be given away since he would be no good as a sled dog. Susan had a special bond with Granite and in the end he led the sled team to 3 victories in the most famous dog sled race in the world.
From the amazing scenery, the sights and sounds of Alaska from both land and air, to the remarkable stories of the people who make Alaska great, I can only say that this was truly and inspiring trip.
