Topic: Alaska (Read 1229 times)

Tex · « **on:** July 03, 2008, 08:49:09 am »

I know y'all don't know me personally but most folks love picures so here are some pics from my vacation to Alaska with my kids to visit my sister. I'll just cross post it from another forum.

We started out to the airport at 4 pm for a 6:30 flight, incoming flight was delayed till 9 pm, been at the airport with kids since 5:00, we have now missed our connecting flight at Salt Lake City. I call Delta we can either go home and try again tomorrow for a 6 am flight (no thank you I ain?t wakin kids up at 4 am) or we can continue on to SLC and get a hotel and fly out at 11:00 am, this is what I choose.

Fly in on Wednesday no problem get in around 3:00 pm their time, one day lost.

Thursday we hit the Anchorage Zoo (I love Zoo's) it is a small zoo but a cool one and they are expanding, the day is overcast (a preview to most of our days on vacation) they have a cool Wolf pack about 7 of them in the pack (Dallas has no wolves) and a cool polar bear exhibit with 2 PB?s

Hot chocolate at the zoo

Stopped for lunch and some clowning around?

Early on he decides that being on film is not for him

That's a "chocolate waterfall" in the background, 2 stories tall.

Next day my Sister, her two boys, me and my daughter go for a hike up Mt. Baldy for a great view of Eagle River, Cook Inlet, and some large mountains, it is a good hike and very challenging for the kids. I ended up piggy backing my daughter about the last ? of the trail, as her shoe was hurting her foot, at the top we stopped for snacks, pics and to take in the view.

Cook Inlet with the tide out

Sitting on top of the world

Snow!

This is about the point in the vacation where I lose track of the days and dates, half the time I couldn?t figure out what day it was?

Wake up one morning to my nephew yelling ?Moose! Moose!? and I ran down stairs and out the door in my boxers with my camera to get this shot. This is a fairly common occurrence and the neighbors come out and shoe the thing away like a stray dog. It liked munching on hanging flower baskets.

Went downtown to a market where the Eskimos pedal their goods. My mom, sister and some of the kids

Tex · « **Reply #1 on:** July 03, 2008, 08:50:02 am »

Next I decide for some alone time, hiking and camping I saw a black bear while hiking but got no picture of it. It was so cool to see a bear in the wild I used to go all the time in Virginia to see one in the mountains and never did, I have always wanted to see one in the wild so it was really cool!

On my way at 55mph

I took my sister?s dog Casey and a .45 semi auto as a deterrent for bears or crazy mountain people, Casey in a hollow tree

Trail that was part of the original Iditarod

Dork

Things I saw along the way

Down to the river

Eagle River

There were some big boulders out in the river I hopped out to and sat for a while taking in the scenery

Hiked along the river a ways

Back to the trail

The terrain changed a lot along the way, there were meadows.

And always mountains

And forest streams

Now where?d that trail go?

Ran into that dork again

Trail? Yeah I had to double back a couple of times?

Finally made it out of the woods and went to a state park campground

Around 11:00 PM still sunny

Midnight

2:00AM still light out

In the forties, mighty chilly!

Tex · « **Reply #2 on:** July 03, 2008, 08:50:46 am »

Next thing we did was took a train ride out to Whittier and went on a glacier cruise

Really Dad? The camera again?

The kids had fun not having to be strap into a car

Scenery

Whittier Alaska

Mom and Sis

Our kids love throwing rocks

The Boat we went out on

Things we saw

Dad NOT the camera again?

We went to 3 different glaciers

Ice in the water; haven?t these people heard of The Titanic?

Sea Otters

We saw a Humpback whale surface briefly and blow it?s spray, didn?t get a picture though. Then we headed back to the train for the ride back.

The train runs parallel to the highway and then when you come to a tunnel in the mountains the highway and the trains share the tunnel but it is just a one way tunnel the cars have to wait on ht e train before they can pass through the tunnel.

Cars waiting

There?s the dork again

Tex · « **Reply #3 on:** July 03, 2008, 08:51:17 am »

Back at the house messin? around

Future Tony Hawk?

Next we went up to an old Gold mine outside of Palmer that closed down in the 1940?s

No pictures I said!

Parking lot snow Yea!

Most of the crew

Stuff we saw

OK we?ve had enough of this camera business, we want lunch and something to drink!

Lunch!

Clouds are rollin? in?

Tex · « **Reply #4 on:** July 03, 2008, 08:51:29 am »

Back at the house, they played ?Rock Band? a lot?

DAD! Come on, no more pics!

The last hike I took was up to ?Flat Top? where there are spectacular views IF it isn?t cloudy?which it was. It was fun though my sis and oldest nephew came?good times.

The dork again?

On our way home?

Had a great time, family, outdoors, it was really a great time, ended up taking 3 weeks off of work; the kids were really wiped out when we got back so I let them sleep in for 3 days?

I am currently still digging out from 3 weeks off here at work and holy hell my yard was a mess I am still weeding?

Heather · « **Reply #5 on:** July 03, 2008, 09:01:53 am »

Great pictures! I always have heard Alaska is beautiful!!!!!! Cute kids as well!!! Thanks for sharing the pictures

JustGina · « **Reply #6 on:** July 03, 2008, 09:14:28 am »

Awesome! I bet the kids loved seeing the snow in June.

Forney Aggie · « **Reply #7 on:** July 03, 2008, 09:16:17 am »

All that hiking made me tired!!!

Great pics!!!

DownTownGirl · « **Reply #8 on:** July 03, 2008, 09:25:04 am »

Thank you for sharing those! Great pictures! You have a beautiful family and it looks like y'all had a great time!

cottonwood · « **Reply #9 on:** July 03, 2008, 11:28:06 am »

What great travelogue, and what a fantastic trip you had! Is the ?dork? you? You?re a pretty fit old geez, doing all that climbing!

What great kids! I think they would add a lot to anybody?s trip experience! I love how the boys are posing in the grip of that cardboard bear, LOL.

Sorry you had to go outside in your alltogethers, but the moose pic is great!

Did Casey take your picture along the trail, or who? Man, it freaks me to the bone when we are in the woods and we lose the trail. But the odds against that every happening to us again are astronomical!

The glacier pictures are sure interesting. Did you get to see any ice fall into the water? Did you get a lecture on global warming? You must have been freezing!

How wonderful, seeing the sea otters. Aren?t humpback whales still extremely rare? It would be great to see them making a comeback, because --- I don?t know --- they?re just very cool.

Looks like the roads are in much better shape up there than they are around here. Looks like a bike trip might be in order? J

Thanks for sharing your trip with us!

Angie

Tex · « **Reply #10 on:** July 03, 2008, 11:48:37 am »

Quote from: cottonwood on July 03, 2008, 11:28:06 am

What great travelogue, and what a fantastic trip you had! Is the ?dork? you? You?re a pretty fit old geez, doing all that climbing!

What great kids! I think they would add a lot to anybody?s trip experience! I love how the boys are posing in the grip of that cardboard bear, LOL.

Sorry you had to go outside in your alltogethers, but the moose pic is great!

Did Casey take your picture along the trail, or who? Man, it freaks me to the bone when we are in the woods and we lose the trail. But the odds against that every happening to us again are astronomical!

The glacier pictures are sure interesting. Did you get to see any ice fall into the water? Did you get a lecture on global warming? You must have been freezing!

How wonderful, seeing the sea otters. Aren?t humpback whales still extremely rare? It would be great to see them making a comeback, because --- I don?t know --- they?re just very cool.

Looks like the roads are in much better shape up there than they are around here. Looks like a bike trip might be in order? J

Thanks for sharing your trip with us!

Angie

Hahaha yeah I am the "dork" in the pics, and yeah I'm not in too bad of shape for 44 considering the way I had lived my life before I had kids.

My sisters boys know how to ham it up for the camera. I tried to get the dog to take my pic but he kept dropping the camera and complaining about how he had no thumbs...so I had to use the selftimer and some rocks

I lost the trail a few times but I just doubled back a ways and picked it back up, but the first time I was like "Ut Oh!"

We saw one little peice of the glacier "calve" (break off) nothing like you see on TV though. They did mention Global warming but no lectures...lol

There were a lot of bikes up there both pedal pushers and throttle twister varieties. A motorcycle trip would be wonderful up there.

We sure enjoyed being up there, it was a trip of a lifetime for me.

JensJungle · « **Reply #11 on:** July 03, 2008, 04:46:33 pm »

Thanks so much for sharing! We haven't made it up there yet but plan on it sometime! Looks like you guys had a great time! I want to go on vacation!!!!!!!

Boomer · « **Reply #12 on:** July 05, 2008, 09:52:53 am »

WTH you went to Alaska and didn't catch any Salmon

osota · « **Reply #13 on:** July 05, 2008, 06:11:00 pm »

Alaska is on my "bucket list". Thanks for the photos and commentary.

^offtopicI used to work with a gal who was born there in 1958...she used to joke that she wasn't sure if she was an American Citizen or not.

Torque · « **Reply #14 on:** July 05, 2008, 06:53:25 pm »

yeh great pics. cute kids, whats the girls name i forgot. Anywho, I'm goin 2 ouray soon, home of 39' nights, and highs in the 60s possible snow. so you never know what to really expect.

Twenty Peaceful Minutes

Author Topic: Alaska (Read 1229 times)

Tex

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Tex

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Tex

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Tex

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Heather

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JustGina

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Forney Aggie

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DownTownGirl

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cottonwood

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Tex

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Boomer

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osota

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Torque

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