Alaska Part 1

Well we are safe and back from our whirlwind trip to Anchorage, Alaska. We were gone from May 23rd-June 4th and we came back with over a thousand pictures! Since it was a long trip, with many adventures and much to tell, I decided to do this in multiple parts. I don't know how many parts it will take, but I know that this is part one of an undetermined numbered series.

Our plane ride up there was pretty straightforward - Midland to Dallas to Anchorage. Having less connections was nice, but that flight from Dallas to Anchorage was 7 hours, which is a long way with 2 year old twins. We left Midland at 1:30 PM and arrived in Anchorage at midnight central time (9:00 PM Alaska time). Mason ended up racking out for the last 3 hours of the Anchorage flight, but Carter the party animal finally fell asleep 30 minutes before touchdown in Anchorage. When he woke up at the landing, he promptly threw up on me. The only real glitch in the trip was that for all of our flights, our 4 seats were not together. This required us to beg and plead with the ticket counter agents to do some last minute rearranging. They couldn't rearrange our seats successfully so we ended up asking people to switch seats around on the plane and everyone was really nice about it. It wasn't too hard of a decision to make for most people seeing that the other option was for their new seat neighbor to be a parentless 2-year old.

Marv and Beth were very excited to see us and their grandkids and they had lots planned for us to see and do. However, when we landed it was time to go to bed. There was a slight problem seeing that it was still light outside and would stay light until after midnight! Thankfully, Beth had taped black construction paper over the windows in the 2 rooms we would be staying in. As a side note of importance, the boys stayed very healthy throughout the trip and slept soundly through every night and nap.

One thing that was a pleasant surprise in Anchorage was the food! We ate like kings when we were there. If you are ever in Anchorage go to the Glacier Brewhouse and Moose's Tooth Pizza. And wherever you eat, make sure you get the beer battered Halibut, it makes me shed a small tear to think about that dish now.

Now to caption the pictures at the top of this post. The first 2 are some of my favorites and are taken a short walk from Marv and Beth's house. They live in a quiet community that is situated near Lake Hood. Lake Hood happens to be the busiest float plane airport in the world with over 800 takeoffs on a busy summer day. With the extended light pilots were landing and taking off until midnight! Needless to say, the boys absolutely loved going on walks to the lake to watch the planes takeoff. I never really got tired of watching those planes softly on the mountain rimmed lake. I was always jealous that I wasn't in one, taking off on some wild fishing adventure - maybe someday.

The next picture was also a highlight of the trip for both the boys and us. If you look closely, you will see what looks like a horse eating a bush. That however, is a cow moose and that picture is taken from probably 40 yards away. Marv and Beth happen to have moose in their neighborhood! The boys got excited every night because our nightly walks took on a new title. Instead of a 'walk park' or a 'walk meow' (the boys love to spot cats) like we go on every night in Midland, it turned into a nightly 'walk moose.' On 2 of our walks, we spotted moose and let me tell you, it is not a super comfortable event being that close to a gigantic wild animal with 2 year olds. But it was another wild Alaska memory.


The next picture is just a shot of Marv and Beth's neighborhood. Anchorage is landlocked with the Pacific Ocean (Cook Inlet) on one side and the Chugach Mountains on the other. There is no room to grow so 80% of all new construction is multi-family dwellings. These pretty townhouse/duplex units were very nice and were a great layout for our visit. The boys loved playing in that cul-de-sac in front of the house and it was nice that there were very few cars.

Anchorage has used up lots of its space on city parks. Everywhere there are gorgeous parks surrounding some lake of creek running through town. Also, along the Cook Inlet there is the Coastal Trail which is a paved, lighted, biking/running trail that runs for probably 15 miles around the coast. Click here for a map
Our first adventure was to one of these parks along the coast and on the coastal trail. This park had a cool rock beach and was situated right below the runway of Anchorage International. This airport is one of the if not the largest cargo airport in the world. The boys got to watch huge jets land right overhead while throwing rocks in the Pacific Ocean.

The last three pictures were taken at our Glacier Brewhouse evening. That dinner was one of the more memorable in my life. Christin and I both said 'top three' for quality of dining. Just excellent food and super atmosphere. Afterwards, Mason and Carter got to meet 2 horses who were pulling carriages for cruise passengers. The horses names were Bob and Bud - we thought that was humorous. However, Bob scared the pants off Mason seconds after that picture was taken. He whipped his head around quickly to get a smell of Mason and I guess Mase thought he was about to eat him by his hysterical reaction. And yes, that cart was selling salmon-reindeer quesadillias - the Smith family was definitely not in Texas anymore!

More to come - stay tuned!!