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!

Becky and Winner Creek

There is a beautiful trail, Winner Creek, down in Girdwood.


This trail is about five miles long. We think we did about 4.6 miles because we did not start at the hotel, the official starting point. We started at a brand new trailhead and did a lot of un-needed loops because we were unsure of this trail.
This trail goes along a creek and through a rainforest! It was a super beautiful trail, but surprisingly tiring!

The coolest part of this trail was the handtram that goes across the rushing water of the creek.

You literally have to pull yourself across the gorge! We thought this was kind of easy, until...

we realized that nice people at either end may be helping out a bit! April was doing her part helping out the people ahead of us!

Becky and Echo Bend Hike

The Eagle River Nature Center has several hiking trails. We decided to take the Crow Pass Trail to the water, Echo Bend, and then return to the center on the Dew Mound trail. This route was about six miles.

It was a beautiful day, as were all the days Becky was here! We got a little turned around on the Dew Mound trail, but that was okay, because we were able to get this great photo op!

Joey really liked this hike, too!

Luckily, we didn't see any bears or moose, but we did get to see some salmon!

After completing the six mile loop, Becky and I realized that we were CRAZY for thinking we could do the 24-mile hike (Crow Pass) this year! We were sore and tired just from the measley little six miles! Thank you for a cranky baby! ;)

Becky and Hatcher Pass

About 30 minutes north of where we live, there is an incredible place called Hatcher Pass. I went cross-country skiing here a lot during the winter. The one thing I love about Alaska is how places can look completely different each season!

There is an old mine, Independence Mine, that is located in the pass. This place was pretty impressive.

We even tried to live a little on the dangerous side as we were exploring this mine!

Of course, we couldn't pass up the opportunity to take a ride!

Or pretend like we were miners!

We even pretended like we were cougars...cougars would walk on a bridge if they had a sore paw and their feet hurt from walking on the rocks! Hahaha!

Hatchers is definitely one of the prettiest places I've seen up here, so far. Winter and summer, it is truly magnificent!

Becky and the Highlights of the Anchorage Area

Even though Anchorage is a big city there is still a lot of excursions that can be made in and near the city. Becky, Joey, and I made sure to do as many of them as possible!

There are tons of trailheads! This is the Crow Pass trailhead out of Girdwood. This trail is a 24-mile trail between Girdwood and Eagle River. Becky and I thought we could do this trail while she was here, but my cranky baby decided otherwise! (Plus, Michael wasn't going to be able to make it back from his Portland trip in time to go with us. Since we would have been hiking 24 miles in the wilderness of Alaska we wanted to have someone with survival skills along for the hike...). Oh well, maybe next year!

Becky tried out several different types of toilets while she was here! This one may look nice from the outside, but it's really just a big hole in the ground on the inside!

We ate Rudolph.

Joey got some major Aunt Becky lovin'!

She looked for some Belugas at Beluga Point. (No whales at this spot!)

She drank several different types of Alaska-brewed beer! She enjoyed most of these beers with some sort of seafood, mainly crab legs!

Since we never saw a wild moose, Becky decided to become a moose!

Becky also found her and Kenny their honeymoon outfits!

She decided to become friends with the bear statue, hoping that he would let the real bears in the woods know that we didn't want to meet them on our hikes!

She became sheriff for a minute!

Becky also got to touch some glacier ice smack dab in downtown!


See, you don't have to go far from the city to still have an adventure! :)

Becky's Visit

One of my very best friends in the whole world came to visit us last week! She was our first non-parental visitor we've had since we've lived in Alaska. (My sister came up too, but she's living with us now, so she really doesn't count as a visitor!). Becky was only here for 5 short days, but we crammed as much of Alaska as we could into her visit! Among the three of us, we took about 500 pictures! I was trying to figure out how to compose this post without it getting way too long-winded since there's so many photos to show! I decided to break up Becky's stay into trips and places we visited. So, check out the next few posts to find out about Becky's crazy stay in the Last Frontier!

Eklutna Lake

Last weekend, April, Joey, the dogs, and I took a little trip to Eklutna Lake. I've posted several photos of Eklutna in previous posts. We go to this lake a lot because it's beautiful and it's not that far from our house!

Even though I've been to this lake a lot, we actually walked to our part of the area that I had never seen before. There is a little bridge that goes over a nice babbling brook!

April was truly amazed by this place!

Joey really enjoyed the view of the lake too...from the back of his eyelids!

M.I.A.

Unfortunately, we have super crappy weather this summer. A lot of people tried to tell me that Summer 2008 was so much worse than this summer, but I wasn't so sure. However, I found an article in the Anchorage Daily News that made me feel so much better.

http://www.adn.com/2010/08/12/1407352/yes-says-weather-service-its-been.html#ixzz0wR2PhFZ1

Besides the crappy weather, we haven't been able to do to much hiking or camping because of Michael's super long work hours and having our first baby! With Joey getting older, hopefully, we'll be able to start getting out more. Although, August and September are supposed to be the rainy months here! :/

We only have about a year left up here in Alaska, so we have to take full advantage of our time here!

Thunderbird Falls

Right up the road from our house is a place called, Thunderbird Falls. It's a pretty mellow hike to the falls themselves.

Eagle River Nature Center

The Eagle River Nature Center is not that far from our house and is a great start-off point for some pretty nice hikes/walks. Even though there are many bears in that area, I have felt relatively safe walking alone with the dogs.

Last year when Michael and I visited the nature center, it was just me and Michael in the tree, but this year, it was me and Joey!


Notice the dogs are wearing bear bells, or "dinner bells", to let the bears know we are in the area.

This is Devil's Club, which you want to completely avoid! If the little hairs on this plant come in contact with your skin, you can develop a rash! This plant reminds me of the plant, Queen's Ann Lace back in Ohio.