4 Months Down...

Denali

Wow! I cannot believe I haven't posted since August! I'm so sorry! I seriously think about my lil blog almost every day but I haven't dedicated any time to writing or getting ya'll caught up on things out/up here! Can you believe it's already OCTOBER?!!! For us, it most definitely feels like the fall...in fact we had a solid 2 weeks of seeing the gorgeous fall leaves before they fell off the trees (and are still falling!).  So I have a LOT of catching up to do and I feel the only way to do that is through pictures

Glacier Cruise from Whittier, AK

 So my last post our mom's were just about to arrive, and when they got here life was a whirlwind of activity! We had so much fun with them and the highlights were: the glacier cruise from Whittier, playing with the reindeer and Denali the moose in Palmer, the Alaska State Fair in Palmer, and of course eating at the beyond yummy Moose's Tooth in Anchorage! We bought stuff for our house, rearranged a bit, "hung pictures" (<-- meaning we directed Layne on where to hang pictures!) and enjoyed the outdoors. 

Mom, Taye, and I on a walk where I live

Eagle River- I pass this every single day! It's right by our house

log show at the fair

leaving after a LOONG day at the fair!

Rajah made it to Alaska!

After our mom's left, Layne and I headed out in a caravan of folks from both fighter squadrons up here to go on the annual trip to Valdez!  It was a long but pretty 5.5 hour drive...the rest of the weekend however was rain, rain, and more rain!  Saturday night all the ladies have a tradition of going off and having a "ladies only night" so we hopped from place to place in the tiny town of Valdez and danced and laughed.  I had a blast! The rain subsided on Sunday so we went fishing Layne caught his first silver salmon! I almost caught one but instead the silly fish snapped my line off! =/  

the caravan to Valdez!

 a beautiful waterfall we saw on our way to Valdez

some of the wives for ladies night

my stud and his fish!

a black bear at a FEAST with all the dead salmon on shore!

 <--- The top of Mt. Healy in Denali National Park

 

We made it to the top! Such an intense and awesome hike

us with Andrew and Lisa Webster

 We just recently went on a trip with our friends to Denali National Park!  Andrew "won the lottery" which is a BIG deal... I'll explain what that means in a moment. We drove up Thursday night and went on a hike up a local trail.  It was 2.25 miles up to the top and we increased in elevation over 2000 feet quite rapidly! It was a great workout and breathtaking at the top!  We came down and did another short hike of about 2 miles total.  Saturday was when we were able to use our lottery ticket to drive into the park.

<---We encountered our first grizzly about 30 miles into the park!

 Each year Alaskans pay $10 per person to enter a ticket into a raffle; if you are chosen then you and friends are able to drive the whole way into Denali Park (93 miles).  Usually, unless you have a special pass, you can only drive about 18 miles into the park.  It was a long day of searching and gazing at the beauty inside the mountain ranges.  The road we drove along was a narrow dirt road, so narrow in spots that I shut my eyes and held my breath as we rounded a bend along the mountain! We spotted several grizzly bears, a few black bears, a moose, a caribou, and a group of sheep! We had an encounter with one grizzly that I wish to never have again... -->  Cars were blocking the road and people were out taking pictures; some in their cars and some were outside of it.  We were a little ways down so naturally we got out and started walking towards the group, only to spot the grizzly 100 feet ahead on the left side of the road trying to cross. 

 We stayed back behind some cars and watched in amazement.  The grizzly then turned around and went away (so we thought)... we were looking for him assuming he ran off into the brush, only to turn our gaze to our left to see the grizzly was standing less than 20 feet away from us on the side of the road!!!! :O  So I started to run for the car yelling at the others to get to the vehicle asap! My heart was pounding.  I was NOT gonna be bear food!  Luckily for us and everyone else there, the grizzly ran to the other side and ran off! PHEW!

 We continued our slow winding journey farther into the park, saw animals here and there, stopped at the Eielson Visitor's Center to eat lunch and take in the glorious view as we got our very first glimpse at Mt. McKinely!! Our day started at 7am and we didn't get back to our campsite until after 7pm, so it was most definitely a long but amazing day!  Sunday morning before we left we saw the special sled dogs that Denali sponsors and takes care of for free.  They maintain the park over the winter the "old fashioned way" by fully utilizing these incredible dogs to cover the thousands of acres in Denali to fix things or maintain things.  The park does have snow mobiles (or snow machines is what they call them up here) and four wheelers, but they are machines that break down in the winter, the dogs don't.  =) We even got a mini presentation of the dogs hooked up to the sled and did a lap around the lot!  That was a fun weekend for sure.



We have been having a blast and the weather has gotten a lot more chilly, we even had a TINY bit of snow this past Saturday! The mountain peaks were covered and it was stunning. All of that has melted now, and the temps are averaging in the 30's at night and upper 40's to mid 50's during the day.  I'll be posting more soon, so stay with me! Gotta run to meet some ladies for lunch! Have a super duper weekend!

tah tah,
Jenni