Anchorage, Alaska

While Jenn's parents and Tanner stayed with the boys, Jenn and I spoiled ourselves and took off for another dream vacation by ourselves, this time to visit Shug and Paul in Anchorage, Alaska. The trip was exactly what we were looking for: incredible scenery, plenty of relaxing, some hiking, a little fishing, and most importantly, lots of time to catch up with some of our closest friends. Here's what it looked like:

Day 1: We drove up to Hatcher Pass (through famous Wasilla, AK!) and took a short hike to this incredible vista. I kept saying how it reminded me of backpacking with my dad, except that in Alaska you only have to drive for 45 minutes and hike for less than a mile to find this kind of pristine land.

On the way back down the canyon, we stopped to pick these fireweed blossoms to make jelly with.

Day 2: We drove to Girdwood (about 30-45 minutes away) and got some incredibly large and yummy sweet rolls to kick off the day. Then we took a short hike through a rain forest (really!) to get to this awesome hand tram:

It was a lot scarier than it looks! Imagine being suspended by a rope 200 feet above a rushing, icy river! Jenn was sure she was going to plummet to her death!

The view from the tram was incredible.

Shug and Paul thought it was incredible too.

This is the view looking straight down.

Shortly after the hand tram, we found the place where all fresh spring water commercials should be filmed.

After the hike, we tried salmon fishing on Bird Creek River. We saw a few swimming upstream, but didn't have any luck.

After fishing, it was time to make our fireweed blossom jelly! It turned out great, and Shug and Paul even let us take home three jars!

Day 3: We stayed home and slept a lot, played games, went to the beach and watched the airplanes take off right over our heads, and saw a bit of Anchorage. Sorry, no pictures!

Day 4: We drove down the Kenai Peninsula to the confluence of the Russian and Kenai Rivers to try fishing one more time. This is the only place where I've seen a reserved fishing spot for handicapped people! We also rode across on this crazy ferry, which is equipped with an air horn to warn fisherman if a bear is sighted. Unfortunately, we didn't see any bears. We did see some fish, but none happened to be attached to our hooks.

Some of us were fishing seriously...

And some were maybe not quite so serious.

After catching nothing at all, we took a short hike to Exit Glacier, which is part of the Harding Icefield near Seward. We could not get over four things: (1) How big glaciers are; (2) How blue the insides of glaciers are; (3) How far the glaciers have receded in recent years; (4) This ice has been there since the Ice Age!

Day 5: We had a great time at Shug and Paul's ward, and then in the afternoon we made buttons with Shug's button-maker. Well, mostly Jenn made buttons, while the rest of us slept. Here are the fruits of her labors:

Here's the spread of food we enjoyed on Sunday afternoon. Shug and Paul are AMAZING chefs, and we enjoyed all-the-stops-pulled-out meals every night. We didn't take nearly enough pictures of the great food we had, so this picture is going to have to be enough.

Day 6: We went up to Eklutna Lake to go kayaking. This was tons of fun! We had never used a serious kayak with a rudder and water skirts. We were glad to have the skirts because the waves were crashing over the bow and the water was freezing!

I have to put a picture of Settlers of Catan on here, because we played it every night. In the end, Paul won 3 games, Shug and Jenn each won 2, and Ben tried really hard.

A huge thanks to Shug and Paul for being the greatest hosts and best friends ever! We can't wait to go back for another visit someday, and really hope they'll come visit us soon (wink wink). In the meantime, Ben will be practicing his fishing and Catan skills...

For those of you still with me here at the end, I pestered Shug and Paul with questions about Alaska while we were there, so here are some bonus Alaska facts for you!

1. If you cut Alaska in half, it would make Texas the third largest state in the nation.

2. At its narrowest, Alaska is 50 miles from Russia across the Bering Strait, not counting some islands (which are closer).

3. The end of the Aleutian Islands is closer to Tokyo than Anchorage.

4. There are 300,000 people in Anchorage, and 600,000 total in Alaska.

5. You feel the pull of gravity more in Alaska (or anywhere far from the equator) due to a lack of centrifugal force.

6. 5% of Alaska is covered in glaciers.

7. At the solstices, Anchorage gets about 4 hours of daylight in the winter and 4 hours of night in the summer.

8. Edinburgh, Scotland is only 6 degrees latitude farther south than Anchorage, while it is 13 degrees farther north than Boston. In other words, Edinburgh isn't much farther south than Anchorage. No wonder my parents are so cold all the time!