"North To Alaska"

We left Phoenix at 8 pm for a 6 hour
flight to Anchorage to see the Alaskan
sights, Mark, & the Nays. I felt like we
kept trying to catch the sunset- this
was taken at midnight from the plane.











Finally, NORTH in Alaska!











Welcome!











Isn't dad brave to stand right by this polar bear???
It's actually in the airport.











Dad was a big hit with his traditional orange
soda pop for Savannah.












"Two Smiling APX Guys"- Tyler & Mark kept
on working. Yes! School money for Mark!











Ruth & the girls, dad, & I took a picnic lunch to
the nearby park. Savannah was thrilled
because it has a "castle playground". You can
also salmon fish there.











We got within 8 feet of a MOOSE! I guess there
could be moose for miles in this area! This one
was standing completely still. Even though it
was tricky, I got this grrrreat picture from the
car! We also saw Mount McKinley!!!
























Okay, it was really Mt. McKinley Fence Co.-
does that still count??? One of the things I
had really wanted to do was to see some
Iditarod dogs. We enjoyed a special show
where they pulled heavy sleds & a team of 16
dogs even pulled a 10,000 pound truck
(watch the video clip).





















In a dog sled race between guys & girls, the
girls won. The saying is "Alaska- where men
are men and women win the Iditarod". In this
race, the girls won & so pink stickers were
given out at the end of the show. Here us girls are
"Number 1" !!











For the Iditarod, they use Alaskan Huskies
which are faster than the Russian Huskies.
One of the highlights for me was to see &
even hold the puppies. I loved it! Their fur
is coarser & stiff so they can brave the Alaskan
cold of 50 below!














We were able to go to the Anchorage Temple
with Mark. He saw 3 families from the Samoan
ward & one family from the mission home there-
it was fun to meet people who love Elder C. We
also went with Mark to one of the Wards on
Sunday & got to meet more families & also one
of his favorite companions.











It was Savannah's birthday on Friday. She
loved the princess dresses from Ruth & Tyler.
We were glad she also loved the baby doll we
brought up from Utah! She got the whole
princess from the cake- one huge piece that
she worked on for days. And guess what-
most of the frosting was gone first!














Evie was one week old on Savannah's
birthday. She got to celebrate also,
but didn't get any cake.











Dad & I drove to Seward on Tuesday. It was
rainy most of the time, but I did get this
gorgeous picture when the sun was out for a
little while. This is what I have pictured Alaska
looking like (and no, this is NOT a postcard-
I actually did take this picture!).











At Seward we took a cruise out to see 3 glaciers
and lots of Alaskan "critters"- sea otter, sea lions,
gulls, comorants, puffin (which was my favorite),
a bald eagle, a black bear, and even "moon"
jellyfish. They say that the puffin in the air looks
like a flying football, especially after it has stuffed
itself with fish! These birds are like penguins and
have solid bones. This enables them to dive
80 feet in the ocean!!!



















If you look closely, very closely, you will see
a white dot in the center right of the picture.
This is a bald eagle feeding her young!










It was cold & rainy & even raining hail
when we were at the glaciers. As the glaciers
are "calving" or breaking off pieces of ice,
it sounds like thunder. This is a picture
of one boat in front of the glacier which gives
a good perspective of the glacier- it is huge
& some do come right down to the water.
Yes, the ice really is blue.











When the glaciers calve, the ice floats
in the water & breaks up into lots of chunks.
We were glad to hear that the hull of the boat
was especially reinforced as ice chunks would
sound like they were gouging holes as the
boat would hit them. Here is a "sea of ice cubes".











A final beautiful sunset as we drove
back to Anchorage.






















Hey, wait a minute- this last
picture has a palm tree in it! You are
right- there are NO palm trees in
Alaska. This was back in good old
Phoenix at the end of our
"North To Alaska" excursion!