
Alaska is amazing! That is all I have to say. It is not what you think it is (i.e: huge, vast, cold, small little towns)..... It is one of the most prettiest places I have ever seen. It is totally opposite of that. There are so many mountains that are so green with dark grey rocks and snow capped mountains. The lakes and rivers are an amazing deep aqua blue-green. It is simply indescribable. First I'll start by letting you know who all went. Of course Jason and I, thn his parents John and Leslie and his two brothers Jared and Ryan. (Their wives stayed home with the kids, bless their hearts). As you know, we fly standby since I work for the airlines, so we constantly have to check if the flights look good and if there will be space available. Well the flights up there were totally open and we ALL got first class. It was so nice to be able to choose our own movies, sit in nice leather seats with room to spare and actually have real plates, glasses and silverware to eat with. It sure does make a five hour flight go by so much faster. Anyway we got to Fairbanks at 11:58 pm and it was still light outside. It's like how it is here just after the sun goes down and it stays that way pretty much all night. It would only get dark for a couple hours a night. Well we got to our hotel and we were able to get a great deal since we snuck all six of us in one room every night. Jared and Ryan brought air mattresses and the rest of us slept on the beds. The first day we went to North Pole to visit Santa Claus house and it is so cute. (Sadly, we found out a few days after we got back home that Mrs. Claus had passed away). They have a Mr. and Mrs. Claus there five days a week so that the kids can go sit on his lap and take a picture. Around the store they have all these letters from kids posted on the walls and of course they have tons of Christmas decorations everywhere. The other cool thing is that they have these pre-written letters for good kids, bad kids, naughty adults and so on and you can send them from the store cause it will have a North Pole mail stamp. Those letters cost about $10 so we bagged that idea. After that we went to pan for gold at a real working gold mine. It was actually pretty cool and you do get gold fever but I think Ryan got it the worst. He was always thinking of places we could pan for gold and even bought bags of pay dirt to pan for gold back home. You seriously only get like a few flakes but it still gets you. We all had a lot of fun with that. Then we went to a place called Pioneer Park which just had a bunch of display type things like an airplane exhibit, Eskimo exhibits, paddle boat stuff..... needless to say it was pretty cool even though it doesn't sound so cool. Then at night we went and saw The Dark Knight and it was really good! I was pleasantly suprised. I thought it was going to be a lot darker than it was but it definately is not a kid friendly show. The next day we drove two hours down to Denali National Park area, bought our tour bus tickets for the next day and looked around for a bit. We then drove to our hotel which was an hour and a half south of DNP. The next day we went on a tour through DNP on the tour bus cause they only allow cars to drive about 15 miles into the park. The tour was eight hours total, four hours in and four hours out. It was way cool though. We got to see a couple of wolves, coyote, caribou, three bears and a moose. It was kinda rainy so the windows on the bus kept getting muddy so we'd move the windows down and clean them off with a paper towel. Oh it was actually pretty cold that day, well it was in the lower 60's but it felt cold compared to the 100 degree weather we had been used to. So the tour pretty much took most of the day and when we were done we browsed in some shops and ate dinner then drove back down to the hotel. The next day we had our whale watching and glacier cruise at 11 am and according to our GPS it said it was going to take about 7 hours to get down to seward so we all woke up at 3 am and left at 3:3o am. My husband and Jared were the drivers for the whole trip so thank you for being able to stay awake and get us there safely while the rest of us slept. Also thank you rock stars for having enough kick to keep them awake. Well needless to say it only took us about 4 and a half to 5 hours to get there so we had some time before our cruise left. We decided to go check in our hotel, the Kenai Princess Lodge, early so all our crap wasn't left in the car. When we get there the view was spectacular and it was a really nice hotel. We found out that it was the exact hotel where the girl from Utah got attacked by a bear just a week before we got there!!! They had signs up all over the place saying to walk in groups and make loud noises so you don't startle the bears (which is what they think happened to the girl from Utah). She was just walking up a trail and was about 20 yards from the hotel when the bear attacked. Her jaw was broken and part of her scalp was ripped off plus bite marks in her arms and legs. She is ok but has obviously had lots of surgeries to make her better. Anyway, we were all fine and no bear attacks so everything was good. Our whale watching/glacier cruise was awesome! We saw a couple whales jump out of the water and also got to see a huge piece of the glacier fall off. The sound is incredible! You all should try to go to Alaska sometime even if it's to only see the glaciers. The cruise was about 5 hours long and we got to see a lot of amazing views along with wildlife. After the cruise we got a bite to eat and then kicked it at the hotel. This whole trip was pretty much non-stop whether it was looking at things or driving in the car to get to places so we all just wanted to relax. The following day we went to the Seward Sealife center, which is pretty much like an aquarium and then later that night we went deep sea fishing. All the boys fished while Leslie and I watched and took pictures. It was so much fun! Right when we got to the cove where they were starting to fish we saw a mother whale and her baby poking their backs and tales out of the water. One time the whale was like 5 feet from our boat when it flipped it's tail out. It was the coolest thing ever! Their tales are so beautiful! The other cool thing that we got to see was a bald eagle!!! One of the fish that someone caught was too small so they threw it back. Sometime when they throw the fish back they are in shock so they just kinda float on the water for a little bit and then swim off. Well this fishy took too long cause the bald eagle swooped down from a high cliff and swiped the fish up ten feet from our boat. They are such majestic birds it's so awesome. OH another thing that happened was that a lady that was fishing on the boat caught a puffin bird on her line. Her hook was 40 feet down in the water and it got snagged on the puffins wing. They can dive up to 100 feet down in the water to get their food and this one got caught on the hook. It was flapping around all over the place but the captain was able to get it off the hook and it was fine. All in all it was a pretty cool fishing trip and the 5 hours flew by. We didn't want to go! Between all the boys they caught over 20 fish! Way to go boys! When we got back to shore the captain and his deckhand filayed (sp) the fish and got them ready for us to take home. Mmmmm fish :) The next day we drove up to Anchorage and walked around town in all the shops. Anchorage is pretty civilized and is just like a regular city. I have to admit I didn't like it too much cause it wasn't as pretty as the other places. The next day was saturday and we had to make our way back up to Fairbanks to fly back home. Our flight didn't leave til 1:05 am on Sunday so we still had all day. But first we drove back down south a little bit to go to the Wildlife Conservation Center where it is kind of like a zoo but the animals have way more space to play. We saw a lot of elk, buffalo, carribou, black bears, grizzly bear, bald eagle, musk ox, coyote and black tailed deer. Then we drove back up to the Fairbanks area and saw The Mummy right before we had to head to the airport. The flight home was good but no one got first class. Needless to say we could still choose our movies for free and there were a few movies I wanted to watch so I didn't sleep but 45 min on the flight. Silly me. But I knew that we had all day Sunday to kick back and I also had all day Monday to recoup and get back in the groove of things. This trip was definately needed after the news we found out a week before we left. Alaska is beautiful and I certainly want to go back again someday. Sorry about the long post but there was so much to say and I still didn't even say everything. Hopefully you'll enjoy the pictures but know that the pictures don't do it justice.