We're Home - sort of!

We're not actually home yet but we are in the state of Washington again. Our 12:35 am flight was cancelled so we had to wait at the airport for the 1:50 am flight out of Anchorage. Not a bad wait. Anchorage has a pretty airport and it was incredibly busy so there was lots to watch. However, waiting for 5 hours at any airport gets a bit old. Especially in the wee hours of the morning! The kids both slept on the flight but Steve and I had trouble getting comfortable. So..we decided to stay on at Robyn's until tomorrow morning. Steve crashed immediately and I snoozed a bit later. The kids only took catnaps! We had a wonderful dinner at the Tamarind Tree, a Vietnamese restaurant in the oriental district. Yummy!

But let's get back to Alaska! On Friday we met Loi, a friend we met through a friend in Omak (Thanks for the intro. Cathy!)for lunch. It was fun catching up and getting her advice on our trip into Denali.

Friday afternoon we drove north to Denali National Park. This park has only about 90 miles of one road that goes into the park, If you want to go further, you have to hike or be flown in. I can't tell you how big the whole park is but it's HUGE! Mt. McKinley, the tallest mountain in North America, is located in the park. We checked into our hotel, which was on a pretty little creek called Carlo Creek, and bought tickets for the Tundra Wilderness Tour for the following morning. Sleeping that night was a challenge as we were all 4 in one room and we really noticed the light nights. It didn't get dark until well after midnight.

We got up bright and early to take our tour into the park. You have to take a tour bus if you want to go further that 13 miles into the park. The tour we took went about 60 miles in. Steve stayed behind but the kids and I rode our bus for about 8 hours. Sounds long but we weren't disappointed! We saw lots of caribou, ptarmigan, snowshoe hares, mew gulls, a gyr falcon, Dall sheep, Artic Ground Squirrels, a hoary marmot and best of all, grizzlies! We thought we were going to leave Alaska without seeing a single bear!

Our first sighting was of a mother and her cub walking along the river's edge. The cub was splashing in and out of the water as the mama lumbered along. We then saw a young grizzly that was a bit to far away but still exciting to catch a glimpse of! Our final bear was so close to us that, had we not been in a bus, I could have taken about 5 steps forward and cuddled with him! He was like a huge teddy bear! OUr bus driver stopped the bus so that the kids and I were right along side him. He was completely uncaring about the huge schoolbus next to him as he ate berries. Then he did a most amazing thing. He stretched out and fell asleep! The starting of the engine startled him as we left but then he lay back down and fell fast asleep again! What an amazing experience for the kids (and for me!).

I've been telling you about the wildlife we encountered but we were also some of the lucky 25% of visitors to the park who get to see Mt. McKinley. Usually the mountain is in a shroud of clouds. On the day we were there, it was visible to about 2/3 of the way up. We were given hot cocoa to enjoy as we took in the beauty of Denali.

While we were out, Steve had some adventures of his own. He came across several moose cows and cubs as he was exploring the park. Saturday afternoon was spent in the visitor's center and hiking around the area.

I've talked about the wonderful weather and let me tell you, we were lucky! Yesterday it poured and I am so thankful we hit the typical Alaska rains as we were leaving and not as we were hiking and sightseeing. I say typical but we found the weather to be extremely unpredictable. Skies could be clear and sunny one minute and blustery the next with sprinkles following.

We are all looking forward to going home tomorrow. Lyndsi is dying to see Ruth and Dylan can't wait to play with Karina and Max! Steve and I are a bit more realistic about what the next few days hold - deck building, laundry, grocery shopping.... all in 100 plus temperatures! But we also are eager to be in our own bed in our home. We are truly thankful to Steve's dad and Teresa for providing us with the opportunity to make Alaska our vacation destination this year. And we are thankful to Robyn for providing our resting place in between legs of our journey. We thank our wonderful friends Amy and Julia and their families for taking care of our plants and animals and Lisa for keeping an eye on our house for us. I feel like I am making an acceptance speech for an Oscar!