Category: States

Valdez, AK

Valdez, AK

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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

Wrangell St. Elias National Park

Wrangell St. Elias National Park

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Welcome to America’s largest National Park! We were only able to spend a couple of hours here at the Park Visitor Center as we drove through to Valdez. A person could spend a lifetime exploring the mountains and ice fields of Wrangell St. Elias NP! We really wanted to go to the Kennicott National Landmark (which is inside the NP), but it would have taken about 6 hours of driving just to get there…so we’re putting it on our “next time” list. Plus, the road to get to it is an old railroad and has been known to damage tires…we’ll definitely need to plan ahead for that kind of excursion.

In the picture above you’re actually looking at a huge mountain range …you just can’t see it because of the clouds. Just to give you an idea of how big this park really is…six Yellowstones could fit inside Wrangell St. Elias! That’s huge! Most of it is still wild and without roads or trails which can make it a challenge to explore.

The visitor center at this NP was great! It had several hands on displays for kids to actually pick up and touch. The one in the left photo was my favorite. It was really something else to be able to experience what the fur on these animals feels like. The skulls were really cool too! They had some teeny tiny skulls of bats all the way up to bear and moose skulls!

Here’s a few fun facts about Alaska’s unofficial state bird. Any guesses as to what these two containers are filled with? It gave me the heeby jeebies looking at them even though they’re dead.

And then there was this plastic container laying out on the table. Yup, that really says scat. For those who don’t know what scat is…it’s poo. I, of course, had to open it. I’m glad to report it’s not real. It looked very real and I paused before reaching in and touching anything.

There was a short path near the visitor center that wound it’s way in and out of the forest to a few overlooks. I kept peering into the forest looking for bears. I’ve heard they can be so quiet that they can sneak right up behind you and you won’t know they’re there until you turn around and see them…or they kill you.

And then there were the flowers! I love how delicate these look. I can’t get enough of these purple flowers! They’re really everywhere. I would love to get my hands on some seeds. I know a yard in Missouri they would look great in.

This is a fish wheel! We’ve seen several of them in the rivers and streams so we enjoyed the chance to get an up-close look at one. The boys earned another Junior Ranger badge! I think they’re up to eight now with two from Canada. Their knowledge and collection are growing!

Well, that’s all the time we had for this amazing National Park. We would love the chance to come back and do more exploring!

See y’all down the road!

#alaskabound

Tok, AK

Tok, AK

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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

Haines, AK

Haines, AK

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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

Huckleberry Valley and the Hoodoos…

Huckleberry Valley and the Hoodoos…

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Today we drove from Three Forks, MT to Shelby, MT to stay overnight on our way to Alaska! The drive between Helena and Great Falls was absolutely gorgeous!

This road was cut right through the mountain range and it was really cool! In the picture above you can see a bridge we went over and how the road seems to go right through the mountains.

We crossed over the Missouri River several times. There were quite a few people out on the river enjoying the beautiful weather. This area is breathtakingly gorgeous!

I can’t remember where I found this place. It was during one of my many research stints…and really it was just a mere mention and a photo. It took us a couple of hours on the computer using Google Maps to actually find it and then figure out how to get there. So, today we got to Shelby early enough to make the 45 min drive out to the middle of nowhere to see if what we worked so hard to find was actually worth it. We drove for awhile on a dirt road that turned so narrow it looked more like someone’s driveway which made us a little nervous thinking maybe we were trespassing, but we kept going…turned a corner…and found this… And the Oooos and ahhhhs started. We had the whole place to ourselves, but there were signs of some heavy partying. Glass shards and tin cans were everywhere. It’s such a shame people go to these places and feel like they have to trash them.

The rock formations in the picture above are called hoodoos. These are some of the smaller ones. They were really fantastic! We could have spent several hours picking our way through them! In the left photo above you can see the boys in a small arch we found.

Yes, yes…I know…it’s a weed, but it’s so gosh darn pretty!! I couldn’t resist.

And this is Huckleberry Valley. I didn’t see any huckleberries…I don’t know why it’s called that…but it is beautiful!

We had a great time exploring on our last afternoon in the Lower 48 for a while. Tomorrow we head into Canada and to start our journey all the way up to Alaska!

See y’all down the road!

#alaskabound

Madison Buffalo Jump State Park

Madison Buffalo Jump State Park

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Madison Buffalo Jump was used by numerous Native American tribes for about 2000 years. Young men called ‘runners’ were trained in speed and endurance. The ‘runners’ would wear buffalo, antelope, or wolf skins and cause entire herds of buffalo to stampede off the cliff. By using logs, the tribes would funnel the buffalo to certain points on the cliff where other members of the tribe would be waiting to start the long process of utilizing all parts of the fallen animals. It’s pretty amazing to think they did all of this without the aid of horses or guns.

 We walked the quarter mile to the interpretive center where they had great signs explaining the whole process. In the picture above you can see the cliff where the buffalo would fall. There are still tons of bones at the base of the cliff where the women of the tribe would prepare the buffalo to be used as food, clothing, shelter and tools. They used everything they could.

There’s a mile hike that takes you to the top…so of course we did it! The path started off just fine until we got to the part where it took us right up the side of the cliff. That’s when we started huffing and puffing and I started slowing down to take pictures of all the pretty flowers…and to catch my breath…but really I was distracted by the flowers. No one complained when we stopped every few feet for me to snap another few pictures! The view from the top was amazing! We stood there catching our breath and appreciating the view…and the fact that the hard part was over. It’s always hard while we’re in the middle of it, but we’re always so glad we did it. Especially, this particular hike. The lease for the land that this state park sits on is up soon and there’s talk of not renewing it.


Once we got to the top of the cliff it was another quarter mile or so to the front of the cliff. The path was flat and no one complained…I’m not sure if that’s because we were all enjoying the views or because we were all still out of breath.

See that dot toward the center of the left photo above? That teeny tiny dot is the interpretive center we started at! We found a side path while we were on top that led over to a different view of the cliff.

Going down was so much easier!! Gravity really can be nice sometimes. You can see that for most of the hike we were surrounded by pretty tall grass.

We didn’t run into any of these guys…but I was constantly looking for one. We’ve been in rattlesnake country for a month now and haven’t seen or heard one. I’m not complaining.

See y’all down the road!

Lewis & Clark Caverns State Park

Lewis & Clark Caverns State Park

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This is the sign that greets you at the beginning of the hike to the entrance of the Lewis & Clark Caverns cave and let me tell you…it’s a doozy of a hike! You gain 300 vertical feet in less than a mile. Now, that might not sound like a big deal and to someone used to an altitude of close to 5,000 ft, it’s probably not a big deal at all, but we’re used to something a little closer to sea level. We huffed and we puffed our way up to the entrance and I think by half way there we all thought we were gonna die right there on the trail! It was a beautiful sunny Montana afternoon and I thought seriously about just laying down right there on the trail and telling the boys I’d meet them back at the visitor center…until I remembered we happened to be in rattlesnake country. So, I forged ahead and we finally dragged ourselves to the entrance of the cave. Believe it or not we weren’t even the last ones in our group to arrive so we got to appreciate the view and catch our breath once we got to the top.

And oh, what a view it was!

Once our entire group got there (we had to wait for a couple that decided to go at the last minute and who showed off by running up the entire path while the rest of us were still trying to recover) we started on our cave tour. It felt amazingly good in that dark cave! It was around 80ish degrees outside and a steady 50ish inside the cave! The cave entrance sits at about 1,400 ft above the Jefferson River. I don’t know why it’s called the Lewis & Clark cave, they didn’t even know it was there when they passed by this area back in 1805. Two guys from a nearby town found it. Tom Williams and Burt Pannel found it in 1882 and in 1911 it became Montana’s first state park.

 

We walked in and walked down a couple hundred stairs and then we started to see some of the formations the cave is known for. The stuff you can see in the right photo above is called cave popcorn. I don’t know… I think I would’ve called it cave cauliflower or something. It doesn’t look much like popcorn to me. I’ll apologize now for the shoddy camera work. I am by no means a professional and this cave was really dark and we weren’t allowed to use a flash, so I was working with the tiny bit of light that was available.

Do you see the rock formations running down the side of the wall in the picture above? That stuff is called bacon.

Yup, bacon.

You’ve got to wonder how they come up with the names they do. What about this looks like bacon?

We didn’t actually get to go into the room in the picture above, but I snuck a picture of it anyway. I love the formations in it! The tour guide said the name of this room is the Princess Room. There’s a separate tour you can take (at night) that allows you access to other parts of the cave and this room is part of that tour.

When that sign at the beginning of the trail warned of having to bend and stoop to get through the cave it forgot to mention you also have to slide down a rock slide too. Look at all of those lovely layers in that rock! We were smart here and went last on the slide so everyone else cleaned and dried it off for us! The boys…who am I kidding…we all had fun sliding down the rock slide in the cave!

And just like with all cave tours…the guides take great pleasure out of scaring the buh-jeez-us out of all of us by turning off the lights to show us just how dark it really is in the cave. All I could think of after this part was how glad I am we all have phones with flashlights on them now!

This room was called The Garden Of The Gods Room. Everything in this room was pink! The lights were still white. I looked. Not only was this room colorful it was also the room with the biggest formations in the cave. It was impressive!

When our tour was over, we were spit out of the mountain a half mile from the visitor center, we were all glad we huffed and puffed up that trail. The guided tour covers 2 miles, is 2 hours long and you travel 600 or so stairs in the cave. It was all worth it. The formations were amazing, the tour guide was entertaining, and the time spent learning something new with our boys was definitely an afternoon well spent!

If we ever get to go back for a second visit, we’ll try to go earlier in the day and do one of the several hikes that are available outside of the cave. The whole area is beautiful with postcard worthy views!

See y’all down the road!!

There’s Gold In Them Thar Hills!

There’s Gold In Them Thar Hills!

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There’s gold in them thar hills!!

That’s what we were told anyway.

One of the things I was looking forward to doing in Montana was visiting Virginia/Nevada City. Online it looks so…western! In the pamphlets it all looked like such a unique experience! Well, I was less than impressed with Virginia City or Nevada City. There were a few highlights of the day and I’m glad we went just so we can say we went, but I don’t imagine we’ll ever want to go back.

Virginia City was founded by William Fairweather back in 1862 when he and a group of his buddies found gold in Alder Gulch. Within a few months of the first person finding gold, over 10,000 gold miners flooded into the 14 mile stretch of land seeking their own claims. The town drew prospectors, but also drew merchants and outlaws. Every social and economic class was represented in Virginia City. While it all sounds exciting, human comforts were few and far between.

Here’s a picture of some original buildings along the main stretch in Virginia City. Most of them are kind of like a museum where you can walk into the doorway and stand to look at the display. The old buildings line a board sidewalk that is mostly original to the town. I’ll admit…it was kind of neat to imagine the cowboys and miners and their families all walking the board sidewalks, living their lives on this huge adventure they’d decided to go on.

Some of the displays, like the ones above, are nice and organized while quite a few of them were more like items shoved into an old building and forgotten. I was disappointed with the shops that were actually open for business. The merchant shops were just as rundown as the original buildings and the items they were trying to sell weren’t much better. Definitely a tourist trap type of thing.

Today, Virginia City is a National Historic Landmark. The buildings that have been preserved in large part due to Mr. Charles Bovey. I’m not going to go into the full details of it…he was an heir to the General Mills Corporation and had a love for history… I do appreciate that people with the means make an effort to preserve our history.

We drove around and found the exact location Mr. Fairweather found the first gold in the area. There was actually someone panning for gold in the creek!

There’s a little train that runs between Virginia City and Nevada City. It’s a 25 minute ride where they point out some rocks and tell you a few interesting facts. We rode it both ways and then drove our car to the little pond you see in the picture above to have a picnic lunch. I’m too cheap to pay $20 for a bison burger.

We somehow lucked out and actually found a shady spot with enough room for all five of us to sit and have lunch! The weather was fantastic!! After lunch we headed toward Nevada City.

I spotted these orange flowers while we were on the train. I love them! They’re so bright and vibrant!! Maybe one day when we have a yard I can plant some poppies in it!

We also stopped to pan for some gold! I mean, we were there to learn about the gold rush so we had to give it a try! They gave us a lesson first, then turned us loose to find our own treasure. I’m not the most patient person…panning for gold takes a lot of patience and hard work.

I rushed through mine (I found some very pretty and very small garnets and amethysts) and then took some pictures. We didn’t find gold, but we will always remember trying and we all walked away with a little vial of amethyst and garnet chips!

While Virginia City is an authentic town with the original restored buildings, Nevada City is a fictional historic town or a “living museum” where on weekends costumed interpreters bring the city to life. There’s a fee to get in and it’s not too bad. We got the Family Package that included the train, panning for gold, and entrance to Nevada City.

The buildings along the highway in Nevada are original, but the “living museum” is what you have to pay to see. The Star Bakery is one of the original buildings. The buildings in the museum part of Nevada City were all brought in from other parts of Montana and restored.

Some are less restored than others, but give the museum a feeling of authenticity.

We didn’t stay long in Nevada City. We got there kind of late in the day and were the only ones walking around and to be honest…it kind of creeped me out to see the interpreters walking around in costume. I kept thinking about those movies where the unsuspecting tourist goes to a town and gets trapped there. I’m a dork.

We ended our tour of the area with a trip up to Boot Hill Cemetery.

You can see the graves of five men who were hanged in Virginia City at Boot Hill Cemetery. You can also see the post where they were hanged in the Hangman’s Building.

All in all, it wasn’t a horrible day. The drive to get there was beautiful and the picnic lunch along with the panning for gold are all great memories!

See y’all down the road!

Helena, MT

Helena, MT

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Our first impressions of Helena is that it’s kind of small and the city is laid out weird.

We went to the Capitol Building…it was a lovely dome building! You can see a picture of the inside of the dome in the left photo above. There were several stained glass windows, which were very pretty! A dome and stained-glass…It’s such a great combination! It seems to be a very popular theme with the State Capitol Buildings.

After we got our State Capitol Building stamp, we headed over to the Cathedral of Saint Helena. It was worth the trip to Helena just to see this cathedral! It was absolutely stunning inside!

And the stained glass…it was amazing! We walked up and down each side looking at each window. I could have stayed a couple of hours just looking around, but there were people trying to pray so we made a quick tour and headed out.

While we were trying to decide on what to eat we found this fire tower and after several passes around the block figured out how to get to it! We couldn’t go up in it, but it was neat to look around it and the view of the city wasn’t anything to complain about.

Helena was a neat place to spend an afternoon. We moseyed through some of the shops and down a very cool (I’m bummed I didn’t get a picture of it) brick street!

See y’all down the road!

Alaska Bound

Alaska Bound

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Today we cross the Canadian border and head to Alaska where we will spend the summer! We have been planning and preparing for this portion of our RV trip for the past year. I’m not sure how often we’ll be able to keep y’all updated on our trip. We’ve heard from several people that wifi throughout Canada and Alaska can be a bit dodgy and sometimes it’s just not there at all. We’ll post as often as possible though and do our best to keep y’all up to date with our adventures! It’s easier to do quick posts to Instagram  so that will be the best place to keep up with us. If you’re not following us there, head on over and follow us!! You can follow the link in this post or go to our blog and there will be a button to follow us on the right hand side.

We each have our own must see list when it comes to Alaska. Personally, the things I’m looking forward to are the mountains, the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog stuff, and seeing glaciers.

Nicholas, of course, is looking for a pizza place, getting more Junior Ranger Badges, and seeing a bear…from a distance.

Alex is looking forward to fishing, looking for wildlife and getting another Junior Ranger badge.

Charlie is wanting to fish (so he can eat fresh salmon), trying reindeer sausage, and having Alaskan King Crab. Notice his are all about food. He’s fourteen. He’ll actually turn fifteen while we’re in Alaska!

Jerl is looking forward to the scenery, smoking some salmon, and the wildlife. We have a list of all of the wildlife we’ve seen.

Y’all know I’m a planner. I’ve been planning Alaska for over a year now. We’ve plotted our course to Alaska, in Alaska, and back from Alaska. Here’s what it looks like.

Our plan is to take one road up and take a different road back so we can see as many different areas of Canada as we can. The little blue squares indicate something to do or see, the tents indicate a place to stay, the fork and knife are places to eat we don’t want to miss, and the suns mean there’s a day trip there. While we have a list of what we want to do or see, it’s forever changing. We find new things or someone tells of a “must see” place and that’s awesome! We love insider’s tips so if y’all have one let us know!!

See y’all down the road!

#alaskabound