Glaciers, Dogs and Salmon

Hello, Family!

I can't believe it's not only August, but that we are into the LAST WEEK of August!!?

The month has been a blur...a positive blur, but a blur nonetheless.

Last entry, Frank and I visited West Virginia and Kentucky, on our quest for "visiting 50 states by age 50" (or therabouts). At the end of that trip, Frank was down to having 5 more states left to visit, and I was down to 9.

hiking in the sunshine (glacier behind us)

The 2nd week of August, we took a loooong weekend and visited Alaska for the 1st time!

Frank and I planned this trip, and the kids stayed at home and worked. Kara only had a few more days left in her internship, and David has been working outdoors with the Dept of Public Works for the last few weeks. He mows a lot. The city's ride mower is more fun than our little push mower, tho... :) :) :)

We flew to Seattle first, then into Anchorage. It's not a huge airport, but it's nicely decorated. Lots of fish and wildlife displayed.

A common sight for people who live here

ANCHORAGE. We landed in Anchorage at some ridiculously late time, like 1:00 in the morning or something. Next, we took a shuttle to our hotel near the airport.

Be my friend! :)

Off to see the sled dogs

so many birds!

the "4th of July" glacier
where the sled dogs spend the summer

think about getting up...NAH!

blurry photo but puffins have that
distinctive orange beak

Next day, took a shuttle back to the airport and picked up a car. Walked around Anchorage a little, had lunch at a yummy Crepe place: Alaska Crepery!

church building in Seward

Then we drove south. We ultimately went to a little port town a couple of hours south of Anchorage, called Seward. Stopped at a couple of picture-taking spots, next to the water with grand mountain backdrops.

SEWARD. We got to Seward and checked in to our motel. You know, the kind where you park right in front of the door to your room.

KAYAK MORNING. First outing of the day, we drove to the kayak rental place! It's on Kenai Fjords National Park, and we started out in a 2-person kayak to take in the views. It was a beautiful morning. We had sun and promises of temps in the 70s.

The guides had us park the boats and we hiked some. We saw eagles, and lots of salmon. Cool salmon observations at the end of the trip.

DOG SLEDDING AFTERNOON. That afternoon we took a helicopter up to the "4th of July Glacier," to meet the dogs! They train for the Iditarod race all summer up on the glacier (actually they train all year, but in the winter they come down from the glacier and train in the regular snow in town).

There were 22 dogs in this group, all of them mutts, and all owned/bred by the same family. I say "mutts" even tho to run in the Iditarod, they need to be mostly Siberian Husky or Malamute for keeping warm. Otherwise they could have some golden retriever for demeanor, greyhound for speed, or a variety of other dog species mixed in.

They were all so excited to be hooked up to the sleds! We drove the sleds, with first 4 dogs, then 1/2 way through they gave us another 2 dogs.

In the REAL race, they can start with 14 dogs. Then by the end of the grueling 2-week race, the minimum they can have is 5 dogs.

What an amazing world they all live in, that I did not even know existed. Glaciers, dogs, and more dogs.

CRUISE AROUND the FJORDS. We had a 5-hour cruise the next day, visiting more glaciers and looking for wildlife. We did see:

Sea Otters
various gulls
Sea Lions
Eagles

Otters really do float on their backs and eat

Jumping Fish
Puffins

Then the last day, Sunday, we went to the branch for Sacrament Meeting in the morning. Lots of visitors--they never know how many tourists there will be, coming to church :) Some people who live there, drive an hour one way for church.

HIKING TO THE SALMON. A highlight for me on Sunday afternoon was hiking to Russian River Falls. We caught the end of the salmon run season, and people said that was a good place to watch.

One of them made it!

It's kind of sad, because so many salmon try to jump the waterfall and they hit rocks and bounce back into the pool. They use the momentum of the falling water into the pool, to curve and JUMP up again! And sometimes they make it and you cheer for them.

Other times they actually swim upstream, UP the little waterfall.  They 'hop' up a few inches, and swim-and-wiggle-and turn-and-wag-back-and-forth SO wildly, they make progress upward and into the next pool.

3 puffins

I don't know how this species of fish has survived. Really. The process is exhausting, just to watch!

luck of the shutter: I caught TWO
in one picture!

All in all, it was a whirlwind but a very nice taste of Alaska. It was light most of the day, making it fun to still be out and about until 10:30 and the sun is just barely going down. One man at church said it is hard in the winter, not so much because of the cold but because it's so dark most of the time.

We also lucked out because we had sunshine every day. Usually it rains and they have a lot of clouds. We definitely want to return!

Have a great week, Kari