Alaska!

 Day 1: Flew into Anchorage and landed at about 9:30 pm. Had a bit of a wait for the rental car. Found the nearby hotel. Slept.

Day 2: Breakfast at hotel. Drive to Seward. Even though it was cloudy & drizzly, the views of roadside waterfalls, glaciers, and mountains was awe inspiring. 

After a stop in at the Kenai Fjords Visitor Center in town, we found lunch at Ray's Waterfront and then hopped on our wildlife cruise. It was windy & chilly, but we were prepared in our rain jackets, hats, and mittens. Got some glimpses of a humpback whale, some otters, sea lions, puffins, and eagles. It was a four hour cruise, so it got a little long on the ups and downs of the sea, but again the scenery was awe inspiring even if the views of animals weren't as close as we'd liked.

After the cruise we found in ice cream shop & then a supply store for fishing licenses & bear spray. We grabbed groceries for pizza at our lodge & breakfast in the morn. Our lodge had a nice room with four queen beds and our own private bath, then a shared kitchen for all the guests.

We ventured out for a hike at Kenai Fjords that evening. Crazy to see how far the glacier has receded since the boys were born - they had markers for 2005 & 2010. The clouds were clearing off, so views of mountains were even better that evening.

Day 3: Boys went deep sea fishing. I tried to drop them off at the wrong spot & so they got going 10  minutes late, luckily the boat waited for them and they all caught their limit, so missing the 10 minutes didn't matter in the end. They did have a great time out on the water. Gavin said it didn't feel like 5 hours that they were out there, so that was a rave review from Gavin. 

While boys were fishing, I packed up a the lodge & then went and did a ranger walk at Kenai Fjords & learned lots.

Sent 50 pounds of salmon home and took the King Salmon Gavin caught with us to try to find someone to make it for us for lunch, but the place in town only did that for dinner service. Grabbed lunch from a food truck on the way out of town and made our way to Whittier for the evening.

Stopped at the Wildlife Conservation Center to see bear, moose, musk ox, elk, bison, porcupine, lynx, and more. Then a quick stop at a fish viewing platform to see the salmon spawning in the river. Then we hit the one-way tunnel into Whittier on the half-hour and found our hotel. The lady that checked us in offered to take our salmon home and make it for us after her shift, since she didn't know of a restaurant that would do it, but we declined that offer.

We found the Whittier Inn would make our salmon for us, so we brought it there and had supper with a LOT of salmon and some sad vegetables and a couple rounds of dessert. The views at Whittier in were beautiful - it was another clear day and you could see the waterfalls across the water coming down the mountains. And we got to watch an otter floating around while we waited for our food.

Day 4: We had a perfect morning for our jet skiing adventure. Sunny and calm. We got suited up in our dry suits and neoprene gloves and helmets and we were off with our 2 guides and 2 other riders. Wyatt had to ride with someone as he wasn't old enough to drive his own, so he was with me on the way out and Jacob on the way back in. We saw beautiful scenery, many waterfalls, and glaciers in Prince William Sound & Blackstone Bay. On the way back we did some cutting in & out and I was glad Wyatt was with Jacob & not still on my ski for that! 

After jet skiing, we found pizza and ice cream in town before hitting the tunnel on the hour to get out of Whittier and head back towards Anchorage. We hit Beluga point at the wrong time (you want to be there at high tide to see belugas), hiked (5 minutes) to a waterfall and found a bride taking pictures in front of it, so we couldn't really see it, and then tried another hike that we decided had too much elevation for us and quit that half way up. So we were really on a roll when we tried to check into our hotel only to find out they'd given our room away since my card didn't work when they tried to use the card I used to make the reservation - I had fraud on my card after that and had to get a new one. So, we were temporarily homeless. Booked a room in Palmer for the night instead, which was 40 minutes away. Wanted to grab supper at F Street Station as I had intel that they had good French onion soup, but it was a place where you had to be 21 to go in, so we ended up eating reindeer sausages from a street vendor next to homeless people in downtown Anchorage. Kind of seemed fitting at that point. One homeless person threw a rock at Jacob (missed terribly) and told him he was ugly - as that person only had 2 teeth, I'm guessing Jacob was too toothy for her ;)

We continued onto Palmer for the night, making a pit stop at Thunderbird Falls on the way. We had a nice motel room in Palmer for the evening.

Day 5: I got up early and went to the laundromat to get some laundry done before heading out for the day. Grabbed McDonald's breakfast on the way out of town on the way to Wrangell-St Elias NP. It was another clear and mild day, so the views were awesome again - especially as we neared the NP and got to see the tall mountains in all their glory. We did make a pit stop at Matanuska Glacier State Park for a hike to the viewing points and a couple other scenic pull-outs for views. Made it to Wrangell-St Elias in time to check out the visitor center, do a little hiking around their, and watch a movie about the park - its bigger than Vermont & New Hampshire put together, but only has 2 rough roads to access the park. 

Went and checked into our AirBnB / double wide trailer. The trailer itself was alright, it might have been the rest of the property that really made our jaws drop - "Room 7" was a truck bed camper on blocks. But we had plenty of space & beds at our place. We went to the tiny grocery store and didn't find too much besides cereal and milk, so we made our way into "town" (Copper Center) to Nummy's for burgers for supper. Then back to the trailer for movie night - Bladerunner 2049. We did take a break half way through to try to go find moose as we hadn't seen one yet, but no luck.

Day 6: Drove down to Chitina to drive into the NP at least a little ways (even though the car rental place said the car was not to be driven on that road). The waiter/owner at Nummy's told us we had to at least drive down and go over the bridge into the park. We made a stop at Liberty Falls and walked around the falls there. We had lunch at a food shack in that "town" and had really good food. Made a stop at an even smaller grocery store than in Copper Center. Road into the park wasn't bad, but we didn't push it and go much further than the bridge into the park.

We went white water rafting that afternoon. We geared up at the Princess Wilderness Lodge (yes, there was nice accommodations in the area - just not that I'd booked). We put on dry suits and wet socks and old shoes - a backwoods version of the gear we'd worn for jet skiing. Then piled into a van and rode over an hour down a bumpy, windy road while we were in our gear and the A/C didn't work. Oof, it was a long ride! We just had to sit and enjoy the ride down the river, Lucas our guide did all the paddling. It wasn't as cold as I thought it might be. Wyatt "rode the bull" most of the time, but the other boys gave it a try too. We saw a few eagles and a couple goats up on the cliffs. When we took off our dry suits - some of us weren't dry - there was a crew that looked liked the potty pants club and then we were grateful for our hot van.

We went to Grizzly's pizza that evening and enjoyed stories from MaryAnn about all the animals her and her husband had mounted in her bar/restaurant. We ran into Heller's from Melrose there too - crazy small world!

Day 6: Drove to Fairbanks, it was cloudy and rainy and I was sad to be missing all the scenery! We did stop at the rainbow mountains for the view. Then ate lunch at the Buffalo Center Drive-In. Spotted a moose & baby!!! Made it to Fairbanks in time to make a stop at North Pole at Santa Claus House for hot chocolate, pictures, and browsing.

Riverboat Discovery cruise. Small plane take-off and landing demo, sled-dog demo, stop at Chena Village to learn about the Ahtna people and how they survived in Alaska long ago. Got blueberry donuts and smoked salmon samples.

Checked out Pioneer Park after the cruise - seemed a bit deserted, we may have been there too late in the day. Walked through the gold rush museum and then went to find supper. Found a Chinese place where the waitress seemed to expect us to speak Chinese. Jacob got full enough to shoot rice from his nose & fart while doing so - dinner and a show!

Made our way to our lodge. We had 2 rooms with a private/shared bathroom for our rooms. Again, a shared kitchen. This place had a great big yard and I had some mini-frisbee things that the boys enjoyed tossing around for a while. There were wild fires in the area last month and you could see that they came right up to the edge of this property. Crazy to see!

Day 7: Light breakfast at the lodge before heading towards Denali. Spotted a set of 3 moose on the drive. Got into Healy and ate at Rose's Cafe for a hearty brunch before heading into the park. It was rainy/drizzly, so we checked out the visitor center and its 2 movies. Then made our way further into the park - you can drive in 15 miles. Usually there is over 90 miles of road, but you have to take a bus after mile 15 and there was a landslide a few years ago, so now the road stops at mile 43 (until 2027). Was still drizzly when we got out to mile 15 where there were some trails, so we headed back to find the sled dogs and by then it had quit raining. Visited with the dogs & pups, got to give some pets. Grabbed ice cream after the park and shopped some souvenir shops. Jacob & Wyatt got sweatshirts, Gavin couldn't find anything he liked or was appropriate.

We checked into our VRBO, nicer than Uncle Nicolia's by far, but not much yard. Grabbed groceries from town. Had brats, meat, cheese and crackers for supper. Played some games at the VRBO that evening.

Day 8: Bus ride into Denali. We saw moose, caribou, dall sheep, ground squirrels and ptarmigans (birds). A few of us caught a glimpse of a bear, I did NOT. We hiked around on the river bed plain at mile 43. Another cloudy day with no view of Denali, but decent weather for hiking, just limiting on the views. Boys had plenty of room to toss the mini-frisbee while hiking the river bed and I found some cool rocks. Got closer looks at the ptarmigans and ground squirrels on our hike. We then hopped back on the bus and made one more hike stop at another river bed, but that one didn't have any wildlife that we saw - though we did see evidence that they come thru there - bear and moose scat! Then road the rest of the way back on the bus. It was Sunday and the ice cream shop we wanted to try was closed, sad.

Made a charcuterie supper at the VRBO and Fred & I took an evening drive back to the park to see if we could find a bear. We did not, but we did see a couple large moose with big racks! And then another moose out of the park and in the ditch on our way home.

Day 9: Drive to Anchorage. Once we got south of Denali NP, it pretty quickly cleared up and we could finally see Denali! Made a couple stops along the way for good pics. 

Drove to Palmer, where boys dropped me off at the State Fair and they went to golf. Then joined me at the fair. While they were golfing I checked out all the food offerings then watched a tractor pull, a horse costume show, and a singer while snacking on spinach bread.  Once the boys joined me we had crab fritters, piroschki, cheese curds, deep fried peaches, shakes, churro, & cream puff. My favorite was the fried peaches.

We then made our way to our last hotel in Anchorage. Fred and I walked around and down to the water while the boys chilled.

Day 10: Tried to use the coupons we found in our room for the downstairs coffee shop, but was told those were for us. Then tried to get breakfast at a place that wasn't open on Tuesdays, so we gave up and headed to the airport. Found some folks at the car rental place to hand our bear spray off to and got lunch at 49th State Brewing before flying home. Pretty sunset as we were landing back in MN.