Night out on the town

We went out on the town sans kids and took in the sights. We had yet to try local seafood so we hit one of the town favorites and weren't let down. We had Halibut Fish and Chips and Seafood Chowder. The fish and chips were fantastic, we were surprised that $20 bought us 4 very small pieces of fish, but enjoyed every last bite.

From there we walked around downtown, checking out the visitors center and other sites while searching for ice cream. You can't tell by the pictures but it was after 9pm and no ice cream shops were open! When the sun is up, ice cream should be available.

We had a lot of fun watching the fisherman at Ship's Creek. One guy almost caught a salmon but apparently didn't act quickly enough and lost it. It was amazing seeing the teamwork and communication that was taking place. Definitely realized this is not a place to take the kids fishing, seemed way too intense there.

We drove over to Lake Hood which is home to a ton of float planes. We couldn't believe how many planes were parked there. In order to get to the parking lot we even had to drive over taxi ways. Luckily it was around 10:30 so there wasn't much activity. We're looking forward to taking the kids over there one day when the planes are taking off and landing. The main Anchorage airport was right next across the street from where we were at, so Jason was in plane heaven.

Alyeska

Today we drove down to Alyeska on the Seward Highway. The drive was beautiful!! We stopped at a couple of points to take pictures and take in the sights.

We arrived at the Alyeska ski resort where Jason had snow boarded this fall. We decided to ride the tram to the top of the mountain to get the best view of the area. Here we are standing outside the resort looking up to where the tram will take us.

Inside the resort we saw a bear. Little did we know we would be seeing more bears later this day.

At the foot of the mountain on the way to the tram.

Willem was really excited to get on the tram. The tram took us from about 200 feet above sea level to 2300 feet so it was quite an ascent in 4 minutes.

View from the top. It was a bit too steep for my liking but on our ride up we saw families that had hiked from the top down some of the trails and were hiking back up. I like my hikes to be on flat ground but I was in awe at how many people were bravely hiking on the ski trails.

We were really excited to see snow at the top of the mountain. Willem ran into the snow and had fun slipping and sliding and throwing snow balls.

Ellie really enjoyed riding on Dad's back. She was quite smiley.

Willem and Mom in the clouds. The top of the mountain was literally in the clouds so there was this fog surrounding us. It was quite a bit cooler up there than it was on the ground as well.

On our way down on the tram we were stopped because the tram that was coming up had spotted bears and wanted to take pictures. As we descended we saw a momma and baby black bear literally right off one of the walking trails we were considering. Needless to say, we picked another trail.

One of the doctors at ANMC had told Jason to take the Winners Creek Trail at Alyeska as there was a beautiful gorge and a hand operated tram that was worth seeing. We were up for an adventure and headed out with the kids. The sign said 2.5 miles to the tram which round trip meant 5 miles but we had snacks and were excited to see the sights.

The hike had beautiful views and lots of people with dogs which we figured would alert us if there was a bear nearby. Not sure if this logic is true but it made us feel better when we were out in the middle of nowhere and surrounded by the densest woods I've ever been in.

Ellie seems to love all the fresh air we are getting. We'd been walking for what seemed like an hour and were realizing that pushing a jogging stroller on a path that included quite a few long stairs made 5 miles feel like 30, so we stopped someone to ask how much further to the bridge. Big mistake! Learned we had 1.8 miles left to go. We carried on.

The gorge was beautiful and definitely worth the hike! By this point, Willem was asleep so we didn't get him in the picture.

Ellie conked out, she kept trying to rest her head on Jason but ended up sleeping like this. We all had to give it our all for this hike and Ellie took one for the team by falling asleep where she could.We made it to the hand tram!! People on each side would operate the tram while the passengers were taken across this beautiful gorge. We didn't end up riding it as both our kids were asleep and there was quite a line. The hike was worth the view though.

We are "Winners"

We saw a snow train!!! While Jason was in Alaska this winter he sent Willem a postcard that had a snow train on it and ever since, Willem has been looking forward to seeing a snow train in Alaska. One of our train books talks about snow trains but we've had no luck finding one in Phoneix. A shocker! The Seward Highway is just filled with attractions along the road. We could have stopped many more times and will try and go back down again soon.

Kite surfing, we had never seen this before.

Reindeer Farm and Museum of Transportation

This morning we drove up to Palmer to go to the Reindeer Farm. We had such a great time! The owner, Thomas, was a great guide and he ended up letting us picnic on his private property on top of the Butte. Willem didn't love the dog that was wandering around the farm but he was interested in the animals as long as Mom or Dad was right near by.

They gave us each a kids snack cup full of reindeer food and Ellie was a bit confused as to why we were giving her food to a reindeer but she seemed really excited to see all the animals. Willem wanted me to feed the reindeer for him and Jason teased that I wasn't helping with Willem's tentativeness since I kept leaning further and further away from the reindeer. They may be small but I was not taking their strength for granted.

Their antlers felt soft and they were very eager to eat out of our hands. They were definitely strong willed though when it came to food, we got rid of those food cups as soon as they were empty.

We then fed the moose and holding onto the branch while the moose ripped the leaves off gave us a small view into the power of a moose.

Jason enjoyed feeding the moose so much, he decided he wanted a closer encounter and went in for a kiss. Will post video later, check back for that one...

The owner of the Reindeer Farm owns half of the Butte and let us walk up their private path to their private lake and pasture for us to picnic on. We picked out our picnic spot and much to our surprise there were a dozen horses resting in the field.

Jason and Willem went to check out the horses.

Ellie wanted to go as well. She was fearless about the horse.

Afterwards we headed to the Museum of Transportation and Industry in Wasilla. The drive to Wasilla was nice, it felt like small town America in Palmer but Wasilla was a much larger town. We hit the jackpot with this museum!

Venturing into town and A Moose is Found!

Today we explored downtown Anchorage which luckily is full of trains, train tracks and train history. Just the place for Willem! We checked out the Ulu Factory and picked out the knife we are going to buy for Jason so he can filet the salmon he's going to catch down in Seward:) Then we walked across the street to the Alaska Railroad Corporation building to check it out. We saw some tank cars and train tracks just past the building so we continued on. We're just meandering along when a security guard hollers at us that we are not supposed to be here. Oops... How harmless are two moms with 4 kids, but none the less, we speed walked out of the area. He followed us in his car part of the way and reminded us that their were security cameras everywhere watching us. Glad I didn't have Willem climb on the cargo for a picture.

We then crossed the street to the real train station but no trains were departing. The kids were then ready to go to the park and Marley had been really hankering to go back to Kincaid Park so away we went.

This park is just perfect! The kids played for a long time in the open field playing chase and rolling down the hills.

Ellie stood up on the hill over and over again. Getting closer to walking...

Marley hanging like a monkey. While Willem and Ellie weren't so into posing, Marley let me take pictures of her playing.

Watching the clouds

After the kids got their energy out, Heidi and I took them on a different trail than we had gone on before and we were pleasantly surprised to see a moose. Turns out that moose aren't actually so nice to people at times and maybe we shouldn't have been all that excited. But oh well! Willem was excited and noted that the antlers looked soft but was disappointed when he couldn't pet the moose. Learned the kids are pretty used to a zoo like environment because Willem was a bit disappointed in the lack of other moose's and bears on our walk.