Portage Lake and Glacier

This past Sunday, we joined some of our friends and made the trek down to Portage Lake.  We hiked about six miles round-trip across the frozen lake to get to Portage Glacier.  This glacier used to be visible from the visitor center, but within the past 12 years, it has receded so much that visitors now have to take a boat in the summer or hike/bike/ski across the frozen lake in the winter to view this awesome glacier!  It was a gorgeous day to do this hike.  Not too cold (when you were moving), sunny, and no wind!  Absolutely breathtaking!  We are so glad that we finally got to make this hike.

Portage Glacier.  If you look at the bottom of the glacier towards the center right, you can see some people.  That's how big that glacier is!

There were quite a few cracks in the ice.  Claire is demonstrating how she would brace herself if the ice started to seperate! 

There is a "Four-Corners" in the lower 48, but we also have several "four-corners" of our own!  Pilot Mike is modeling this for us.

Some little snow bubbles underneath the ice!





This is the view from our starting point.  The glacier is located behind the mountain on the right. 



Aurora Borealis

This past week, we finally got to see the Aurora Borealis, or the Northern Lights. We have been waiting years to see these! A lot of people may think that they are out and visible all of the time. Not true. The lights go in phases and we happen to be in the low part of the phase. However, there has been a lot of activity happening these past couple of months! A lot of people we know have been driving to Talkeetna, a tiny town about two hours north of us, to see them. Well, we haven't really been able to do that since we have a sleeping baby when the lights appear. I know we could just throw Joey in the car and just deal with it, but there's no guarantee that the lights are going to make an appearance. I haven't wanted to deal with the consequences of a sleep deprived baby when there was no guarantee of the lights...plus we still had a little bit of time left to see them.

This Thursday, the lights appeared right over our house! How cool is that?!?! They were the most amazing thing I have ever seen. Michael was in Fairbanks this week, so I called him immediately and told him to go outside. The photos above and below were taken by him. Our camera does not do these lights any justice at all!

A few of you asked me if I took pictures. My response was no. I had our small "cheap" camera. I knew that it wouldn't even take great photos of this phenomenon. Michael had our super nice camera and it didn't even take the best of pictures. However, our friend, Tim, has an amazing camera and camera skills...

Photo taken by Tim Poulsen

this was the photo he took of the lights the same night! This is really what the lights looked like to me. It was absolutely breathtaking! Definitely a "must-see" during a person's lifetime. 

 

P.S.- Sorry I have been M.I.A. on this blog!  Don't worry, though, I will be updating this blog a little more frequently now since we are trying to get through our Alaska Bucket List this year!  :) 

Independence Mine

Joey and I took April and Michael up to Independence Mine a couple of weekends ago since neither of them had seen it in the summer. They, of course, loved it and were in awe of Hatcher's beauty! :) Here are some photos!

Valdez...again

We made a very spur of the moment camping trip to Valdez while Alex and Julia were here. We took two cars because we had so many people and stuff!

Only in Alaska do they have one of these signs! Haha!

Somewhere in the Alaskan wilderness.

Ahhh, brotherly love!

Alex and Julia at Worthington Glacier

April and me at Worthington Glacier.

Al and Julia

An otter playing around with a fish.

Poor little salmon

April trying to represent! Southside!!!

Sisters!! April, Joey, the dogs, and I all rode in one vehicle together. Michael, Alex, and Julia rode in the other.

We camped at the military campground in Valdez. I just want to point out that camping was Al's idea and he was the first one to go to bed...30 minutes after we got set up!

Unfortunately, the dogs didn't keep April too warm so she was a little chilled in the morning!

Even though the trip was very very quick, it was a lot of fun!

Alex and Julia-Anchorage Area

Michael's brother, Alex, and Al's girlfriend, Julia, came up to visit us this past weekend! We did lots of stuff around Anchorage the first two days they were in town. (Please excuse the lack of photos from Al's trip...I am still waiting on Al and Julia's photos).

While we waited for Michael to get off of work, Alex, Julia, and I went to Eklutna Lake. Luckily, their first day was gorgeous and sunny! Once Michael joined us, we hiked to Thunderbird Falls!

Michael had never been to the falls either, so it was a nice treat for Michael to be able to go, too!

After the Falls, we headed to the Eagle River Nature Center.

There were some salmon spawning. We also heard there was a bear in the area, but we were too slow and didn't get to see it! The boys were pretty disappointed, but I was glad we didn't run into a hungry bear!

Kayaking

April and I went kayaking with my Stroller Strides ladies a couple of weekends ago. We just went up the road to Eklutna Lake.

I HATE kayaking and canoeing with other people, so I paid a little extra and got a single kayak. I really believe that a lot of divorces start from riding in a kayak/canoe together! I know that I am somewhat of a control freak, so I told April that I needed my own kayak and she would have to share a kayak with a complete stranger. Haha!

The weather was somewhat crappy, but we still had a good time!

April had a GREAT time, even though her and her partner were all over the lake because they just couldn't seem to master paddling in a straight line!

We only kayaked for two hours, but almost everyone was soaked by the end! Unfortunately, it had started raining during the last 3o minutes of our trip, so by the end, we were all ready to be done!

Wildlife Cruisin'

The last day Becky was in town, we went on a three-hour wildlife cruise out of Seward. This was the perfect length cruise. We were able to see a lot of the animals that live in Resurrection Bay.

The Stellar Sea Lions were on full parade for us! These species are, unfortunately, endangered.


We saw two different species of puffins!

The best part of the cruise were the three different pods of Orca Whales! The boat captain was ecstatic that we saw any pods at all! He believed that the whales were mating because pods usually do not co-mingle.

The Orcas were pretty amazing. This is a photo of one of the Orcas swimming under our boat. This was kind of creepy to me. (I think this is due to the amount of scary movies I watch)!

Becky seemed pretty happy about the whale sightings. She was pretty peeved with the wild moose since they never made an appearance while she was here, so the whale sightings made up for this!