We thoroughly enjoyed the Palmer/Wasilla area. It was exactly the combination of being close enough to the stores we need and being far enough from the rush of the city that we like.

One of the things I’ve been looking forward to doing is learning more about the Iditarod Sled Dog Race. We were able to go to the Headquarters in Wasilla for a few hours.

The Iditarod Trail started out as a mail and supply route from the coastal towns of Seward and Knik to the interior mining camps. Mail and supplies went in and gold came out all by sled dog. The Iditarod Sled Dog Race is a commemoration of the years mushers spent running desperately needed supplies to the mining camps.

You really can’t compare any other competitive event to the Iditarod. The Mushers and their dog teams have to go through a thousand miles of the roughest terrain Mother Nature has to offer. Jagged mountain ranges, frozen rivers, desolate tundras, and dense forest…lets add in the weather now…temps far below zero, winds that cause complete loss of visibility, and the long hours of darkness that make up the Alaskan winters. Sound fun? Yeah, you couldn’t pay me enough to do this race. Maybe that’s what makes me so curious about it. Why would anyone willingly do this?

The race starts the first Saturday in March when the racers line up in Anchorage and race all the way to Nome. Every year, people come from all over the world to participate in this historic race. It takes a lot of people to make this race possible, from the veterinarians that come to check each dog to the volunteers that help man the outposts that dot the raceway. It’s been called the “Last Great Race On Earth” and it’s easy to see why.

While we were in the main office of the Iditarod Wasilla Headquarters, we were told that we should go play with the puppies. That, in fact, playing with the puppies is a vital part of their training because it helps them get used to being around a lot of different people.

Well, OK…twist our arms…we’ll go play with your adorable puppies! I mean, look at that sweet little face…how could we turn down the opportunity to cuddle…I mean…help train Iditarod Sled Dogs?

We tried our best to wake them up. We passed them around, jiggled them, pet them, talked to them…and they slept and grunted through the whole thing. The boys hated every minute of it…can’t you tell by the looks on their faces?

After we got our fill of puppy lovin’ we headed over for our turn on the sled. Meet our dog team. Here we are on the…er…sled/buggy. The owner actually asks if you want her to take pictures. We didn’t have to ask, we didn’t have to pay… We thought that was a really great touch. The owners genuinely seemed pleased that people were coming to see their dogs and help them train them.

Our team was quick and nimble. One kept trying to lick all of the bushes and another one kept trying to jump over the dog in front of it. Hey, we did tell you they were in training. Nicholas and Alex spent the entire ride giggling and laughing while Charlie had a huge grin plastered on his face! All three boys talked about it for days. We had to do a little more Sled Dog lovin’ after our ride. They really are awesome dogs. I had four boys (you can see them in the picture above) who were wanting to sneak a puppy home. I would have agreed if I’d thought we would actually get away with it. *wink*

In the picture above you can see one of the older sleds used in the race. It really amazes me to think of what that sled has been through. How many races did it see?

That same day we went to the Matanuska Valley Musk Ox Farm in Palmer. Musk Ox is a descendant from the last ice age which means they used to roam around with woolly mammoths and saber tooth tigers.  The musk ox is known to the Alaskan Natives as “Oomingmak”, which means “The Bearded One”.

There was a great little museum with all kinds of touch and feel itmes for the boys to look through while we waited for the tour to start. The farm had around eighty muskoxen. We got to see maybe thirty of them. Apparently, muskox are twitchy little beasties with horrible eyesight. They think kids or someone bending down to take a picture is a wolf and they act aggressively. We actually got to experience this right at the end of our tour when a momma beastie tried to protect her baby from the kiddies (and me) looking at them through the fence. We moved along quickly.

You can see the momma beastie in the left picture above…and if you look very closely you can see the hooves of the baby beastie she was protecting from the wolf/kiddies. Moms…whattya gonna do…we protect our beasties. In a different area of the farm, there were some juvenile muskox who were all too friendly. The boys got to feed them some tasty morsels. Nicholas wasn’t to sure about his hand getting so close to a muskox mouth, but he did it and then thought it was the coolest thing ever.

The muskox on this farm are pampered and fed nicely. Their whole purpose is to produce as much qiviut (qiv-ee-ute) as they possibly can. Qiviut is the underwool of the muskox. It’s eight times warmer than wool, softer than cashmere, and stronger than pretty much any other kind of fiber out there.

It also cost $95 an ounce. Nicholas was extremely dismayed at this. He had been really looking forward to buying some to crochet a scarf for himself. He had to settle for a $5 sample.

We stopped at a pull-off near the Muskox Farm to gawk at this view. No matter how many amazing views we see…it never gets old.

See y’all down the road!

#alaskabound

Anchorage is one of those towns I was really looking forward to seeing. I had grand visions of seeing moose right on the streets of the city…bears waddling around our RV park. I mean, it’s Anchorage, Alaska…it should be rugged and wild and embody everything that makes Alaska…Alaska.

When we were in Valdez we struck up a conversation with a couple who live in Anchorage and they started telling us how unsafe the city is. Now, to be honest, we’d heard a few disconcerting things about Anchorage before that, but chalked it up to people visiting the wrong parts. Every city has good and bad parts, but this couple actually lived there. So, we changed our plans and decided to stay in the Palmer area. We’re very pleased with our decision. The RV park we stayed in is really nice. It was close enough to grocery stores but far enough from a city that we felt like we weren’t right in the middle of town. We’ve really enjoyed the Palmer area! I’ve been trying to do a post for each area we stay in, but I’ll have to break this one up into three posts!

So! Anchorage! We got to spend two afternoons exploring Anchorage.

The first place we went was the Information Center. It was a log cabin! I was looking for rustic…it doesn’t get much more rustic than a log cabin. The rest of the city was, well, very city like. So, I was pleased to see at least some of my Anchorage vision was true. This part of Alaska is always boasting about it’s huge vegetables. They even have some cabbages planted right by the info center. I loved all of the flowers!

There was this fantastic mural! I wish I could have gotten a better picture of it, but it was right beside a busy street.

Every Saturday in the summer, Anchorage has Saturday Market. It’s a farmer’s market plus craft show plus vendor market. We saw some of those huge vegetables there! Squash and zucchini twice the size I’ve ever seen them!

Totem poles are big in Alaska. Every town we’ve been in has had them. This one is the best one I’ve seen so far.

We found a beach and had to skip some rocks. All of the beaches we’ve seen have been rock beaches. We’ve seen tons of sand here…just not at the beaches! There was quite a bit of graffiti at this beach, but  the views were stellar.

The second afternoon we spent in Anchorage, we went to the Alaska Zoo! We really enjoyed this zoo. It was laid out a bit weird and some of the exhibits were empty, but all of the animals were healthy and happy and the habitats were all huge! Oh! And, all of the animals were indigenous to the Alaskan climate! We really enjoyed getting to see some of Alaska’s wild animals up close.

Here are some of our favorite pictures from the zoo.

Leopard. *Picture taken by Charles. There was an entire wolf pack. The Dall Sheep seemed to be napping.

These two bear cubs are orphans. The zoo has an orphan center. We’ve seen tons of Trumpeter Swans in the wild, but we’re always driving down the road and I haven’t been able to get a picture of one.

Of course the Alaska zoo would have polar bears!! They’re getting ready to expand the polar bear habitat and it’s going to be huge! I’d love to be able to go back and see it when it’s done someday! Last but not least is the Bald Eagle! There were two of them in this exhibit and they were gorgeous!

Most of the animals at the Alaska Zoo are either orphaned or they were injured in some way and can’t be released back into the wild. We’re keeping a list of our top zoos. Houston still has the top slot, but Alaska is firmly in the number two slot!

Am I the only person who goes to the zoo and takes pictures of the flowers?

We ended our Anchorage adventure the only way any self-respecting tourist would…with chocolate. We went to the Alaska Wildberry Products store and got some chocolates made right there in the store! When you walk into the store all you smell is the chocolate from this huge chocolate fountain!

So, my overall thoughts on Anchorage…it’s the largest city in Alaska and just like any large city there will be good parts and bad parts. We saw both of these parts, but overall, we enjoyed our day trips there. You just have to be smart about where you go and when you go to some places. I wouldn’t want to stay there. We heard from several sources that there are a lot of shootings in Anchorage. We didn’t see any shootings…but, we did have a couple of people try to come up to us and sell us drugs (me and the boys) while Jerl was running back to the car. I gathered the boys close and gave them a look that told them that this momma dragon will eat you alive if you try to hand her baby dragons drugs. It’s best to not poke the dragon…or really any mother…when her babies are around.

My advise would be to stay in one of the surrounding cities (we love Palmer) and day trip into the city.

See y’all on the road!

#alaskabound

We spent a week in Valdez and thoroughly enjoyed it! Valdez is a pretty small town with only one grocery store, but it makes up for its lack of “town” with the sheer beauty of its surrounding landscape.

We knew we were in for something special as we drove through Keystone Canyon oooing and ahhhing over the many glaciers, waterfalls, and ice caves! Nicholas and Alex are standing in front of Bridal Veil Falls in the left photo. We had to chuckle about the name since we’d just seen a Bridal Veil Falls in Canada too. And then around the corner there was Horsetail Falls. Valdez should be known as the land of waterfalls! Everywhere you look you can see waterfalls cascading down the mountainside!

This was our breathtaking view for the week. Not bad, right? We weren’t mad about it.

There was a great marina not far from the RV park we stayed in. I just love all of those jagged mountains behind that calm beautiful water.

Did you know the town of Valdez moved in 1964? The entire town moved four miles down the coast to a more protected part of the coast after a tsunami generated by an earthquake destroyed the original town. You can drive down to the original town site. They have some interpretive signs explaining what happened with some old pictures of what once was. You can see some of the old roads and even a few of the old building foundations and what’s left of the dock in the top picture above. The tide was coming in or we would have gotten closer.

We were in Valdez over July 4th and our RV park had some celebrations! Ever wonder what it would be like to shoot fireworks in a place that never really gets dark? I think it was about 10:30pm-ish when we heard the pops and bangs start going off. We headed outside and enjoyed the show with everyone else in the park!

our favorite thing to do in Valdez was to drive down to the Solomon Gulch Fish Hatchery and try our hand at fishing! We hadn’t planned on salmon fishing while we were in Alaska, but so many people asked us if we were going to that we felt like maybe we should! We got permits, geared up and had such a good time! The boys all learned to really fish with Jerl and I got to take pics and watch for wildlife! It’s a great place to fish for salmon!

They each caught something and some amazing memories were made! I’m so glad all of those people asked if we were going to fish in Alaska…we would never have thought to do this with the boys and honestly, I think it’s a memory they’ll cherish for the rest of their lives.

When we went to clean the fish back at the marina, we found out that the eagles loved to sit on the fish guts shoot with the sea gulls. Jerl showed the boys how to fillet a fish (I think just Alex was actually interested in this).

We spent quite a lot of time at Solomon Gulch. We found ourselves going during high tide to watch the wildlife. The sea lions always put on a great show! They loved the high tide when they would come right up to the hatchery and feast. In the picture above…see the dark mass toward the bottom right? Those are salmon. Hundreds if not thousands of salmon.

All of those fish draw more than just birds and sea lions… We never actually saw a bear at the hatchery. I’m not sure what these rope barricades would do to protect us from an actual bear.

In the picture above, you can see the actual fish hatchery. Love those mountains!

Some smart birds. The birds let the sea lions do all the work for them during high tides. The sea lions would come in and eat their fill while leaving fish parts. When the tide when back out the birds would swoop in and fight over all the fish leftovers. The Bald Eagles even got in on the feasting. When the Eagles would swoop in all of the other birds would scatter. It was pretty funny to watch!

Solomon Gulch ended up being one of…maybe the…favorite memory of our time spent in Valdez. We spent a lot of time hanging out there.

There was a Ranger Station just down the road from our RV park that had a waterfall behind it. I didn’t get a great picture of it…but you could see where this waterfall started all the way up at the top of the mountain! Alex and Nicholas got to put on some bear skins and play at being bears. We got to see up close the differences between the grizzly and the black bear.

We drove to the edge of town to look at the Valdez Glacier. When we got to the dirt road that takes you back to it, we found the basting zone sign. It made us pause for a few minutes. Apparently, they warn you before they blow stuff up though…so we risked it. You can kind of see the glacier there in the center of the top photo above. We couldn’t get very close to it so we didn’t stay long. They were actually there working right next to where you have to stand to see the glacier so, I’m thinking it wasn’t really very safe to be there.

The last thing we did in Valdez was visit the Worthington Glacier! It’s definitely a must see if you’re ever in Valdez!

We walked the trail all the way to the glacier where we stood in awe before having to touch it. We ventured into the cave just far enough to snap some pictures and watch the waterfall. The blue was breathtaking!

Nicholas and Alex had to have their pictures taken while they were sitting on the glacier. It’s super cold. Go figure. Ha!

When we turned around to leave we saw how gorgeous the view was going the other way too! We’d been so intent on the glacier we hadn’t even noticed it. Valdez is going on our list of places we want to revisit someday. We loved everything about it.

And just so you know…bears use picnic tables too.

See y’all down the road!

#alaskabound

Since we had to leave Haines early, we decided to drive all the way to Tok. There are around 250-ish miles between Haines and Tok and it only took us six or seven hours to drive it on some of the worst roads we’ve seen yet!

So.

Bad.

The one good thing about these roads is getting to see all of the flowers on the side of the roads! Sorry about the shoddy camera work…I’m a newb.

In between the Canada border crossing and the US border crossing we found a nice pull off with the international boundary marker. The boys were in two different countries at the same time! They thought that was pretty cool!

Tok is the first and last town you’ll visit in Alaska Proper.

We stayed in Tok for two days and didn’t do anything since Jerl was catching up on work. It was really kind of nice to have some down time. The campground we stayed at was the Sourdough Campground. It was a nice little campground in the woods, but the sites were kind of hard to get into even though they’re pull-throughs.

What we did like was the pancake toss in the evenings. Now, what we didn’t know, and weren’t really prepared for is the camp circle sharing and the fact that the owner’s sense of humor was…well…a little on the offensive side. He was trying really hard to make it fun, but came off as being too much in your face for most people there. It was awkward.

Alex and Nicholas were drafted to pick up the pancakes after people missed the bucket. Jerl was one of the few to actually get the pancake in the bucket and win a free breakfast. He and the boys went the next morning before we pulled out and collected his free breakfast.

I hope next time we’re in Tok we can spend a little time exploring.

See y’all down the road!

#alaskabound

We started our Alaskan adventure off in the small Portage Cove town of Haines. We had an amazing place to stay that was right on the water where we spent most days watching the Bald Eagles playing in the breeze.

The only problem with Haines?

The cruise ships.

When they came in to port the internet would come to a screeching halt which made it pretty much impossible for the Jerl to work. He would get up really early and try to get some done before the ship would come in and then wait until it left late that night. All that free time during the day gave us ample opportunity to do some exploring!

Haines is known as The Valley of Eagles! And Guys, there were a ton of them there! This is the best shot I got. Eagles like to fly high and are dang fast. It was hard to get a decent shot!! We drove through the Bald Eagle Preserve which is on the way into town, but we didn’t see any there. I guess we might have gone at the wrong time? That’s ok though, because we saw plenty of them around town!

We spent a few hours one morning hiking through the rain forest. Did you know that Alaska has a rain forest? We had it on good authority that bears rarely visited this area because there wasn’t a food source for them, but I was still a little nervous. I kept looking behind me just to make sure there wasn’t a bear sneaking up on us. We made lots of noise and had a really enjoyable morning hiking through a forest that looked like it was made for a movie! Fun side note…We bought two bear bells before we started our trip because people kept telling us it was a good way to avoid bears. When we got to Banff we told one of the Rangers we had them and she kind of smiled and got this look on her face before she told us that the Rangers like to call bear bells…dinner bells. The bears hear them so much they ignore them so when you’re out on the trail thinking you’re alerting the bears to your presence so they won’t get startled…you’re not. The bears will sometimes even follow the noise of the bells in hopes of food. Needless to say…we haven’t been using them. The trail we were following was very spongy between all of the roots. It was kind of fun to bounce on and see some of the closer trees kind of move. Everything was sooo green.

We hiked down to the beach and took in the view for a bit before heading back to the car. The beach wasn’t sand…it was rocks. We’d been told about Love Rocks at the RV park and so we all started looking for them while we were on the beach. Love Rocks are a grey rock with a white stipe down the middle. We found a few! 

We also went to the local fish cannery. It wasn’t in operation the day we went, but we got to walk around the outside of it a little. You can see a it in the photo above. After we visited the Cannery, we went back into town and ate at a little fish shack owned by the Cannery.

It was your basic food truck set up. Between the five of us, I think we got everything they offered. I had the halibut and the rockfish. Jerl and I both liked the rockfish the most. It was so flakey and buttery…yum! 

This raven…he was so sure we were going to feed him. He watched and danced and even tried to sneak up under the table and grab a fry from Nicholas. There were just as many (if not more) ravens in Haines as Bald Eagles, and boy, let me tell you…those birds are so noisy! And big!! They have so many different sounds. One morning our cat, Magnus, was laying on the chair watching a great big raven out the door and I swear to you, it sounded like that raven was laughing at him. I got up and looked out the door expecting to see a person there, but it was one of the ravens sitting up on the electric pole look right at Magnus. I don’t think Magnus was amused.

One of our favorite things to do was visit Alaska Rod’s. We ended up going in there all but one of the days we were in Haines. Rod and Rhonda were a wealth of information on the area and became fast friends. It didn’t hurt that we always got free samples of the fudge Rod makes. It’s hands down the best fudge we’ve ever had. I think we ended up buying a couple of pounds of it! It didn’t last long…I’m seriously thinking about having him ship us some! If you’re ever in Haines, Alaska Rod’s is a must stop!

On our quest to find some bears (from the safety of our car) we drove up to this river where they have this contraption that goes all the way across the river so that the fish are funneled into this one small opening and this guy stands there all day counting fish. Sound like fun? No? The river was really pretty…but we didn’t see a single bear.

And…of course there were the flowers…so many pretty ones, but here are my favorites. The flowers in the bottom right photo above are called Fireweed. Yep, they’re weeds…and yep, they were everywhere! But, they’re so stinkn’ pretty no one minds. This beauty in the bottom left photo above is another weed. Go ahead…laugh at my infatuation with weeds. It’s ok. I often chuckle to myself about how many flower/weed pictures I take. So, this one… you don’t want to touch. We’ve heard it called a few different names now. Wild Celery and Cow Parsnip are a couple. The oils on this plant cause severe burns when you get it on your skin and then the sun hits it. This stuff is everywhere too. I don’t know what the name of the one in the top photo above is. It’s a type of rose and we saw them in quite a few places in town. They smelled heavenly!

Nicholas got an impromptu guitar lesson in front of our RV one afternoon by one of our fellow campers! Not a bad view for a lesson! I think Nicholas was thrilled to talk and play with someone and I think the Guy was just as thrilled that someone so young wanted to spend time with him playing guitars.

We got a chip in our windshield on our way to Haines. We had a guy come out and fix it and now you can’t really even tell it was there. Several of the other campers in Haines told us horror stories of their woes on the Alaskan/Canadian roads. Bolts being sheered right off…drawers bouncing out of the cabinets…doors coming off hinges… There was a long list or really bad things they listed off. All things considered…we’ll take the little chip and count our blessings. In fact, there were quite a few of the other campers (the guy who gave Nicholas his guitar lesson was one of them) here who were waiting on a spot on the ferry back down to the lower 48. They refused to drive it. They were just done with it.

We ended up leaving Haines early so Jerl could work. We’re glad we visited Haines, but can’t really see ourselves going back.

Unless it’s to get some more fudge…and hit that food truck again!!

See y’all down the road!

#alaskabound