Sara and Michael's World: Labor Day Road Trip to Valdez

Over Labor Day weekend, Michael and I both had 3 days off! (Gasp!) So we took off on a road trip to Valdez, AK. It is about a 5 hour drive from Anchorage. This was by far one of the most beautiful drives we have ever taken in our lives and that says a lot seeing that we have driven cross country twice!

Michael in front of an ice cave at Worthington Glacier! We really wanted to go inside, but we were too scared that it might crack on us! :0

Me standing near the glacier with part of Thompson Pass in the background

Yum, glacier ice! (Don't worry, I really didn't lick it!)

Look at me, I am man! Rarrr!

Us!

We just slept in our Durango during this trip. Of course, the dogs were with us too, so all four of us cuddled up together at night! Something I learned about car camping is that you always need to crack the windows! Otherwise, you run out of oxygen...not good! (Note: Michael already knew this, just forgot about cracking the windows before we fell asleep...this could be due to the wine we were literally swigging out of the bottle right before we passed out!)

Is this not one of the most beautiful landscapes you've ever seen?

And photos don't even do it justice...

This is part of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. There are only two roads that go into the park. They highly recommend that you carry a good spare tire because you will most likely get a flat driving the 100-mile gravel road! We opted just to look at the park from the main road!

We went hiking in Keystone Canyon. It was about a 4 mile hike through a beautiful forest. This is Bridal Falls behind me.

As we were hiking, we came across a few piles of bear scat. One of the piles was still oozing! That freaked us out a little bit. Luckily, we had bells (to let the bears know that we were coming through) and bear spray. I think we both would have felt a little better if we had a gun, though. I'm not sure how much I trust that bear spray when it comes to a giant grizzly! No worries, though! We never "saw" the bear...that doesn't mean that the bear didn't see us, but we didn't see or meet him so that's all that matters! :)

Valdez Glacier

This is a salmon viewing area. As we were watching the salmon swim upstream, a small black bear came out! I freaked and started to look for mama! She never showed up...Michael thought this bear was too big to still be with its mom. It was pretty awesome to see this bear try to catch some salmon. As soon as the bear tried to get some food, the salmon swam the other way in a hurry! I would hate to be a salmon. What a tiring life!