Anchorage Vacation

It is hard to believe we have already been home in Kodiak 3weeks. We had an amazing time in Anchorage waiting on Caitlyn to make an appearance. Scott followed us up about a week after the girls and I had been there, so we were able to get a feel for the area before he arrived and get some of the shopping out of the way that he wasn't thrilled about going to. After he arrived our weeks were filled with adventures our favorites included hiking and enjoying warmer weather and sunshine.

While exploring we found this wonderful waterfall that rain under the road and the opportunity for some hiking and cooling off in the water, which was VERY cold!!

We also discovered how much fun it was to pan for gold. This mine was a blast to explore and supposedly had quite a bit of gold in the river, although we didn't find any we once again enjoyed playing in the water.

These were the original building for the gold panning. The area was beautiful.

This wasn't at the same area, it was more of a tourist trap but the girls had a blast playing in the water and it sparked our interest in panning.

Panning provided ample opportunities to play in water. Generally it is too cold on Kodiak to enjoy playing with water. In Anchorage however we had several very sunny days in the 70's and at least one day almost hit 80. I think that was the day we were here at the river. Alisha and I got home with a little more sun than I had intended.

Brianna has an odd attraction to the water. Everytime she gets near it she ends up falling in which is generally a little traumatic for her. I don't think I had even finished putting our things down when Scott walked up with a very distraught and wet little girl. She spent the rest of the day on Jaime's back bundled up.

Aside from playing in water we also say a ton of wild life as can be expected in Alaska. This eagle was practicing being the flag pole topper for the Alaska zoo, I'm pretty sure he sat like that for over an hour.

I was very impressed with how active the animals were at the zoo. This polar bear paced infront of us for several minutes then would go to the gate and roll his head. There was also a badger that was running laps in his cage for a good 20mins. The bear cubs played in the pools and threw balls at the fence and wolf pack chased each other in their cage wrestling and howling. It was the best visit I think I've had to a zoo.

Aside from caged animals we also saw a wide range of wild animals. AFter arriving in Homer at midnight Jaime offered to drive to Anchorage for me, she wasn't driving 5mins before I hear this quite, "Oh my goodness, That's a moose!!", I opened my eyes to see a moose's very large rearend pass by my window. At one park we didn't even get out of sight of the car before running in to another moose resting on the path. I also learned that Moose are more dangerous than bears as more people are killed by moose each year than bears, although that is most caused by people hitting them with their cars. Moose with calves however are very dangerous and generally avoided by all.

Other than hiking and animal viewing we also went glacier viewing, hiking and jumping.

While I couldn't do much glacier hiking I enjoyed the view will Scott and Jaime explored. They also taught Alisha how to properly jump over cracks and water.

She had a blast coping Jaime

We also got to experience fresh from the glacier water, which was slightly warm by the time they brought it back to the car to me. I was told it was amazing though.

Yes the black "dirt" is actually ice and very slippery. Scott and Jaime also had a blast jumping.

To end our vacation we treated Jaime to her first King crab dinner. She was then attacked by her crab. However she beat it and from my understanding loved it.

We had too much fun and too many adventures to put into one post but at least these were the hightlights. The best adventure of the trip however came from the little bundle that we got to bring home.