Thursday, Friday & Saturday

So I'm a few days behind on these posts - Sorry!!

Thursday...

Wednesday had been such a long day that we decided to take it easy on Thursday. Originally our plan had been to drive to Talkeetna to see Mt. McKinley up close but that would have meant a 3hr drive each way with very little to do in between trips. Oliver has been having such a good week, and we have seen McKinley from Eagle River & Anchorage all but two days (only 1 in 4 people who visit Alaska get to see her at all) so we didn't want to push him. We spent the morning at the cabin - playing in the living room, watching toons, keeping watch for any Moose that may wander into the yard and just enjoying time together and the scenery out the window!!

The views from Jason & I's bed in the loft

After nap time we went looking for Moose. We headed to Kincaid park (where we saw the momma & baby in 2012) - that park is known for the high moose population, as well as black bears. We only saw one moose (WAAAAAY back in the woods) and at least 6 piles of bear skat (BUT NO BEARS!!). According to a man that we talked to just Wednesday night there had been a sow with THREE cubs - but we saw nothing! :( I have determined that the animals are hiding from me this year.

On the way out of the park a bull moose wandered right out into the road in the front of us. I wasn't as quick with the camera as I wish I had been but I did get this shot...

From there we headed back into downtown and went to Snowgoose for dinner. It was DELICIOUS as usual!!

They were so good that this is all that was left when I remembered to take a picture

Jason had a seafood linguine and Oliver and I shared Caribou meatloaf (YUUUUM!!)

Friday...

I have lost count but I think on Friday we saw our 30th & 31st Glaciers for the week. We drove North East farther than we have ever gone before with a goal of getting to the Matansuka Glacier. It was a beautiful drive (could have stood to see a few more guardrails in some places though) and seeing that Glacier at the base of those huge mountains was beautiful - this one seemed out of place as it wasn't near any huge bodies of water but it feeds a river that snakes it's way all the way down near Anchorage.

We walked a path that took us closer to the glacier - I took the path - Oliver insisted on "climbing the mountain"

Oliver did lots of "exploring" along the path

We took Oliver back for a late nap. When he woke up I fixed a salmon dinner (again trying to attract a bear with the grill but I had no luck)...

We finished the evening with an attempt to watch the sunset over Reflection Lake but we were too late and we missed most of it. But Oliver got to throw rocks in the lake again which he loves.

Saturday...

We spent Saturday morning walking around downtown Anchorage and shopping at a few of my favorite shops then we went and had lunch at Snow City. We have never had lunch there before - only breakfast but it didn't disappoint one bit!

After lunch it was nap time and packing time for Jason and I. Everyone who travels knows that typically packing to come home is A LOT harder than packing to travel to your destination but we must have done something right because packing was a breeze (even with all of our goodies we bought to bring home).

After dinner that consisted of random leftovers we headed north towards Reflection Lake again (a lot earlier than Friday night). Sunset over this lake was the PERFECT ending to this amazing week! I will just post a few of the 300+ pictures that we took that night (that's what happens when we each have a camera in our hands). Enjoy...

 Not only did we see an awesome sunset but we also got to see our first porcupine (or has Oliver says... "pork-pine")

Isn't he cute?!?

There are not words to describe beauty like this!!

Sunday was CRAZY! We were taking a 12:45am red eye out of Anchorage with a connection in Portland that consisted of a 4hr layover. I was sooooo worried about Oliver but he was amazing - he slept for the entire 3.5hr flight to Portland and 2.5hrs of the flight into DC. Once we boarded the plane in Portland the pilot informed us that there was a fire in the control tower in Chicago so that airspace was closed - so what should have been almost a straight shot across the country from Portland to DC turned into us flying over Denver, Kansas and even Nashville before heading north into DC which added and hour to our flight. It was a REALLY long day but again Oliver was AMAZING - we received so many compliments from the passengers around us about him which felt really good because traveling with an almost two year old was the scariest part of this trip!

We're still in love with the great state of Alaska and plans haven't changed... we will one day own a house up there! Now to begin planning/saving for the next trip - hopefully I'll be spending my 30th birthday in an Iditarod dog sled! :)

Thanks for all of the thoughts and prayers while we traveled!