Over the weekend, I also organized a surprise birthday party for Kim, who will be turning 30 on Friday.   My mom helped me to come up with an idea where we would take Kim’s youngest brother out trick-or-treating, while family and friends gathered at her parents house for a party.   We had a great time trick-or-treating with Nick, and had a wonderful surprise party for Kim afterward.   It was such a great party that a group of us managed to see two o’clock twice that night.   Kim’s parents also helped put the party together, so I owe a lot of the credit to them.   Some photos from my mother are below.

In celebration of the big birthday, we are heading down to Cabo San Lucas tomorrow morning.   Joining us with be our friends Phil, Doni, Chris, and Kelly.   You may recall that we headed down to Mexico to celebrate Doni’s 40th a couple of years ago, so they are heading down with us to help celebrate Kim’s 30th.   We are staying at the all-inclusive Riu Palace through Sunday.   Again, I’m not sure if we’ll spend much time outside of the resort, but I picked up a few guide books to read on the flight down tomorrow morning.   So long until Monday!

This is the last post of photos from our trip to Alaska. There are a few photos from our drive along the Sterling Highway from Homer back toward Anchorage. We made a slight detour along the way to have lunch in the tiny town of Hope. The only restaurant on the one block long town was the Seaview Cafe, and it provided yet another opportunity for Kim to have some fresh fish.

After lunch we continued along the Seward Highway back along the Turnagain Arm and toward Anchorage. We made a stop at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center. This allowed us to get a closeup view of Elk, Muskox, Moose, Bison, Bald Eagles, Grizzly Bears, and more. We had a free coupon from our cruise at Kenai Fjords, and it was a worthwhile stop. I would even say that it would be worth the $10 admission price per adult.

From there we continued back toward Anchorage. Our last stop before returning the RV was at Moose’s Tooth Pub & Pizzeria. Our lunch was later than I had wanted it to be, but we decided to stop here anyway.   Several people told us that it was a great stop to make in Anchorage, and we were not disappointed. The pizza and beers were fantastic! And the leftovers were a great meal once on the plane back to Denver. That wraps up one of the best trips I have ever been on. I would highly recommend a trip to Alaska for anyone!

Hope on Dwellable

I took an early flight this morning to Kansas City.   It is time for my sort of annual trip for work.   The last time I was here was back in July of 2008, so it’s been a little longer than a year.   The office itself hasn’t changed much.   We are in different groups than my last visit, so many people have moved offices and cubes, but the layout is nearly the same as it’s always been.   It’s nice to be able to catch up with some of the people in my group, some of whom I’m meeting in person for the first time.   And it’s also nice to catch up with all of those that I used to work with that are still around.   I’m hoping to see some other folks while I’m in town for the reminder of the week.   It looks like it will be a busy couple of days.

We had a late start on our sixth full day but eventually we packed up the RV and headed out of Seward. Before leaving the town completely we made a quick stop past Exit Glacier. This is the only glacier that you can drive up to in Kenai Fjords National Park. From the parking lot it’s a pretty quick hike up to the face of the glacier. I wish we would have had extra time and energy to climb higher up the trail to the Harding Icefield, but we got within 10 or 20 yards of the glacier.

From there we continued driving north toward the Sterling Highway. From there we took the Sterling Highway back south toward the town of Homer. This wasn’t a full planned out day, but since we gained an extra day on our trip we decided to make the most of it. We spotted a grizzly along the drive and pulled over to get a better view. The bear was just on the other side of small river eating a salmon that it had recently caught. I was so happy to have finally saw a bear from fairly close, close enough!

The rest of the drive down to Homer was very pretty, as we paralleled the sea for most of it. We had a wonderful lunch along the way in Soldotna at the St. Elias Brewing Company. Once in Homer, we immediately headed for the Homer Spit, which is a four and a half mile strip of land that juts out into Kachemak Bay. We found a great spot to park the RV for the night and explored the town. I will admit that there isn’t much to do in Homer, essentially it is a fishing village that is famous for their halibut. But the scenery is amazing and it was a very nice place to spend our last night in Alaska.

Homer on Dwellable

We woke up very early on our first day in Seward. We had reservations for a six-hour tour of the Kenai Fjords National Park with Kenai Fjords Tours starting at 7am. Before getting on the boat, we stopped for a great breakfast at the Smoke Shack. This restaurant is inside a converted railroad car and has some great biscuits and gravy. Highly recommended!

Our cruise started promptly and though the inside was pretty full when we arrived, there was plenty of room outside on the back deck. We had brought along plenty of cold weather gear and decided to stay outside with a few other brave souls for the entirety of the cruise. Among the wildlife we saw were Harbor Seals, Bald Eagles, a Humpback Whale, two species of Puffins, and Steller Sea Lions. These were all just bonus items, as the real destination of the cruise is the glaciers inside the park boundaries. We passed numerous glaciers, including Bear, Holgate, and Pederson.

The highlight of the trip was when we arrived at our destination of Aialik Glacier. At this tidewater glacier, the captain turned off the engines and we floated for a half hour or so about a mile from the very large glacier. Pieces of the glacier fell off pretty regularly, plunging into the ocean with a large splash and a loud rumble. This was such a cool thing to see in person, and I wish I had a video camera to record some of the action. After a quick lunch, we turned around and we on our way back to the harbor. The cruise was pricey, but highly recommended.

From there we stopped by the Alaska SeaLife Center. Here we were able to see many of the same animals we saw on the cruise in an up-close environment. Unfortunately, one of the exhibits was closed, so we didn’t get to see the Harbor Seals. I was expecting a little more from the SeaLife Center, but it was an okay quick stop for the day.

From there we walked up the street from the SeaLife Center through the main street of Seward, 4th Ave, stopping at a few of the local watering holes. There are a half dozen or so all within a block or two, which provided some much needed nighttime entertainment for a few hours. Later we wandered up to Chinook’s Waterfront Restaurant for an excellent meal before heading back to the RV for the night.

Seward on Dwellable

On our fourth full day in Alaska we sadly had to leave Denali National Park.   Looking back on our entire trip, this would likely be my favorite destination that we visited.   Fortunately, we didn’t have to leave the park without seeing Mt. McKinley in its full glory.   As we were driving out of the park, we were treated with great views of the mountain.   The skies continued to stay clear for our entire drive and we were able to see the mountain from a variety of viewpoints. We also spotted a coyote, which we first thought was a lone wolf. After looking at the photos closer, I can tell it is indeed a rare coyote inside of Denali.

After leaving the park, we drove south back towards Anchorage. Along the way there were many great views of McKinley that we took advantage of. Somehow we still made it back to Anchorage earlier than I had originally thought. My tentative itinerary had us stopping for the night in Anchorage, but we soon decided to continue driving all the way down to the small coastal town of Seward. Before leaving Anchorage we did stop for lunch at Humpy’s Great Alaskan Alehouse. Kim got her first fish fix of the trip, which she thoroughly enjoyed. My chicken sandwich was not so good, though the beers more than made up for it.

The drive down to Seward is incredible. It starts of by following the Turnagain Arm of the Cook Inlet. There are large mountains on the left side of the road and the sea is directly to the right. There are a number of pullouts along the highway where you can stop to see beluga whales, and possibly other wildlife. On our first stop we immediately spotted some belugas, and we continued to see them the entire length of the drive along the water.

We eventually made it down to Seward around sunset and found our way to the city campground which is right on the water and near the harbor where we would be heading the following morning. It was a long day of driving, but we had lots of great scenery along the drive and great weather throughout. I was also happy to have another day to add to the itinerary for the Kenai Peninsula.

Anchorage on Dwellable

Having a great time touring Denali on our own the first day, we decided to go a ranger led Discovery Hike up Igloo Mountain on our second full day in the park. The rangers choose these hikes up to a week before the schedule date.   Since the hikes are limited to eleven people, the park service encourages   you to make advanced reservations one or two day ahead of time. Our hike was listed as strenuous, but that really only means elevation gain more than 1000 feet.

Our guide was originally from Colorado, so we had a lot to talk about throughout the hike. I was impressed to learn that he had climbed all of Colorado’s 14ers. He offered advice to us for future 14ers that should be on our list. All of the others on our hike were European, though nearly all spoke flawless English. Most of them had hiked in the Alps many times so it was cool to hear how Alaska’s scenery compared and contrasted. We hiked for most of the day, and though we didn’t summit any peaks, we had some amazing views throughout the day.

Healy on Dwellable

On our second full day in Alaska we rode on a Denali Park shuttle bus for many hours throughout the park. As I mentioned in the day 1 recap, you are not allowed to drive throughout most of the park and you have to use the shuttle bus system to get around. With our camping reservation at Teklanika we were able to get a special bus pass that would allow us to have unlimited rides. Most of the time we were on a space available basis (which never was a problem), but we were able to make one guaranteed seat reservation for the first full day we had in the park. So on this day we caught our reserved shuttle around 7:15am for the ride all the way out to Wonder Lake.

We wouldn’t arrive at Wonder Lake until 12:30, meaning that we would be on this bus for over five hours. It isn’t that far of a drive, but the speed limit is 35 MPH and there are many planned an unplanned stops along the way. The unplanned stops happen when anyone on the bus spots some wildlife. These sightings and the beautiful scenery helped to pass the time very easily. In order of appearance, we saw a grizzly bear, dall sheep, caribou, a fox, and a pack of wolves. Also there were numbers of golden eagles, northern harrier, ptarmigan, and other birds.

In addition to all the wildlife, we also continued to see amazing colors throughout the park. Fall was really in full swing and the red, yellow, and orange colors were amazing. On top of it all, we got to see most of Mt. McKinley. The mountain, as it’s called inside the park, is often hidden in clouds.   But when we made it out to Stony Hill we had a nearly a cloud-free view. According to the bus driver 80% of the mountain was visible, which was good enough to count as a day when the mountain could be viewed.   He also said that the mountain is only visible 20% of the time, so we were pretty lucky.

By the time we made it out to Wonder Lake, more clouds had rolled in and hid much more of the mountain. I had planned to take a hike for good viewing of the mountain out near Wonder Lake, but since it was hidden we decided to continue on our original bus back to the Eielson Visitor Center for some hiking there. We hiked down to the McKinley River bed from the visitor center, which proved to offer some great views of the entire valley along with the Alaska Range. Once we were finished with the hike we caught another bus back to the campground to wind down the night.   It was an amazing day!

Alaska on Dwellable

Over the weekend, Kim and I took a quick trip to New York City.   One of my good friends and college roommate, Fighty, is in a cover band and this weekend was time for their annual booze cruise concert.   We flew in late on Friday night, and after meeting up with Fighty for a couple of late night drinks, we were back to the hotel to rest up for the following day.   Before the big cruise on Saturday, Kim and I took a walk throughout Manhattan and finally ended up at the World Trade Center site.   It has been years since my last trip to NYC and it was nice to see some progress being made, as well as some of the tributes around the site.   It wasn’t the best day for a walk, but it never really rained hard enough to completely soak us.

The cruise was later Saturday night, and it was awesome! 150+ party-goers paid $50 for an all you can drink cruise around NYC.   After the band started playing the hits, we first made our way out to the Statue of Liberty.   We were able to get pretty close to it, definitely the closest I have ever been.   After ten minutes or so there, we headed back toward where we came, and ended up sailing all the way up toward the Empire State Building.   But the best part of it all was the three entertaining hours   of great music.   The crowd was fully into it and the boat was successfully trashed when it was all over.

Here is the first in a series of photos from our Alaska trip. These were all taken on our first full day in Alaska. We arrived late on Sunday evening, and after spending the night inside our RV sitting in the company’s lot, we were on our way north the following morning. We first stopped for groceries for the week, and then drove up to Wasilla. Wasilla is famous for two things, Sarah Palin and the Iditarod Headquarters. Having always been a huge fan of sled dogs and the Iditarod race, we stopped by the headquarters for a quick visit. It wasn’t terribly exciting, but I just love those dogs.

From there we continued north on the George Parks Highway, eventually taking a small detour to the town of Talkeetna. This tiny place is famous for their flightseeing plane trips up to Denali and also for dropping off many of the climbers up Mt. McKinely. We didn’t take one of these trips, as neither one of us are too found of those small planes. However we did stop for some lunch at a great little restaurant called Mountain High Pizza Pie.

From there we continued up the highway toward Denali National Park. Once we arrived, and after our first shockingly high gas fill-up, we quickly checked in and picked up all of our tickets from the headquarters. From there we were allowed to drive about thirty miles into the park in our RV to the Teklanika campground. Normally you can only drive private vehicles the first fifteen miles, but we had a special pass to get into the campground we reserved. Once at the campsite, we would have to rely on the parks shuttle system to get around, just as every other visitor has to.

Before we could even make it the first fifteen miles, we spotted a group of moose just off the side of the road. The group consisted of one male bull moose and five females. We stopped the RV and walked down the road toward them to get many great shots of these surprisingly large animals. We’ve seen a couple of moose in Rocky Mountain National Park before, but never this close. It was a great start to wildlife sightseeing that would occur over the next couple of days.

The rest of the drive was uneventful. We eventually made it to the campground an hour after entering the park, as the speed limit is 35 mph. Once we setup our camp, we quickly got some rest as we had reservations on the first shuttle bus further into the park for the next morning.

Talkeetna on Dwellable