Sept. 18 - AK

September 24th, 2005 | By April | No Comments »

Day 48 - Another visit to the coffee shop to get our morning going well – I could see this becoming a bad habit. Then, we headed off for our long journey to the south. We are trying to get through as many miles as we can at the moment – meaning less nights on the road = less money spent at campgrounds.

A few sites that we drove past were a few glaciers, one right outside of Anchorage was huge and a site of awe. The fall colours continue to paint our path east and south through the mountains. The boarder crossing was the simplest we’ve ever had and I think we should appreciate that since I don’t know if they will be as easy for the rest of our world trip.

Alison with her local favorite coffee shop in the background - good luck with the music kids this year!!

A glacier outside of Anchorage on Hwy 1

Sept 17 - AK

September 24th, 2005 | By April | No Comments »

Day 47 – Anchorage has a ton of coffee shops, just like Seattle – and for most of our stay here it was drizzly also – making it feel like Seattle was right around the corner. Unfortunately, that is not the case and Seattle is 2,252 miles away.

After a nice morning breakfast at the local coffee shop and some spending at the second-hand book store we toured the downtown a bit. Alison took us to a great movie house that had a restaurant instead of a concession stand and the theater had tables in front of all the seats. Dinner and a movie all in one, and I must say dinner was amazing. Their garlic treats were delicious – flour tortilla with melted cheese, garlic (I think they used at least a clove per square inch) and jalapeños; it was soooo good. The movie we watched was Murderball and I really enjoyed it – would suggest it to anyone.

Kate and Audrey - Alison’s really nice cats. Playing with them made me homesick for my cat, Mo.

Sept 15/16 - AK

September 17th, 2005 | By April | 3 Comments »

Day 45/46 - We slept through a windy but dry night at Denali National Park and woke up early to start our trip up the dirt road and go as far as we can with the other lottery winners for today. The drive was smooth for a dirt road that is covered in snow for 2/3’s of the year and the animal sightings were abundant. Unfortunately, Jason and I only have our two eyes to use for looking at them, so a mama bear and her three cubs by the river – looked more like a fuzzy big brown oval and three little ones. Some people on this excursion were very serious with their super telephoto lens and climbing up on top of their camper cars to get pictures and viewings of the animals. It was exciting and I bet some really great pictures were taken.

The mountains started to clear up the closer we got to Wonder Lake and we snuck a mostly full view of it for a few moments before the clouds came back to cuddle around the top of Mt. McKinley again. It was a very beautiful ride of yellow leaves, colorful dirt and shrubbery – not to mention the snow covered mountains contrasting with brown ones in front. Thank you so much Sarah and Dan for giving us your ticket!!!

It took us about 8 hours of driving to complete the trip in and out – a long gorgeous day. We arrived at night to my friend Alison’s house in Anchorage.

Mt. McKinley

The cliff and road in Denali - I loved all the different colors of dirt and rock all throughout the park

There is a moose hidden in this hill…. Where’s Bullwinkle?

Making lunch at Wonder Lake

note - 2

September 15th, 2005 | By April | 2 Comments »

Okay - We appoligize for the photo album style of show and not posting them with the blog. There are two reasons for this - one, we took way too many photos and wanted to share a lot of them & two, it is a lot faster for us to do it this way when there are so many photos. We will normally post pics up with the blog though - unless there is a ton (like when we visit such beautiful places in the national parks).

So, with all that said…. here is a link CLICK ON ME to our photos for Yellowstone and Glacier National Park. You do not need to sign into the site, you can just click on the photo to view them. We will be posting the Canada and AK pics asap.

Hope all is going well with everyone and thanks for your patience as we updated the last two weeks of our traveling.

Sept 14 - AK

September 15th, 2005 | By April | No Comments »

Day 44 - Thanks to my Aunt Laurel, whom we call Lolo, we took a boat tour of the Chena River on the Riverboat Discovery. She had some pre-season ticket still and tour season is just about over. Thank you very much Lolo for the boat tour!!! It was a good tour that had very good donuts and we were able to learn a lot more about dog sledding and Athabascan Indian’s culture and villages.

At night we visited Russ’s favorite bar The Marlin in Fairbanks and we met Dan (my oldest cousin) and his girlfriend Sarah there. It was a laidback college bar with open mic and as we walked in a talented jazz band was playing. This was Russ’s last night at Fairbanks before flying out to school and our last night before moving on to Denali National Park. It was a relaxing way to spend the evening.

Tomorrow we depart from Fairbanks and go to visit Denali National Park. Sarah was extremely generous and gave us one of her passes for driving all the way into Denali National Park, which you can only get by winning a lottery. Thank you so much Sarah and Dan! Thank you Lolo, Eric (my uncle), Mik (my youngest cousin) – good luck with school, Dan, Sarah, and Russ for a very hospitable time and warm home. I can’t wait to come back and visit later!

Sept. 13 - AK

September 15th, 2005 | By April |

Day 43 – Today it was pleasant to wake up in a home and comfy bed. We spent most of the day updating the blog and website and visiting with the family. All three of my cousins were here, which was great because the middle cousin, Russ, was about to leave for college at Eastern Washington and we got to visit before he left.

The Stahlke Family below

Aunt Lolo, Mik, and Uncle Eric

Russ, Sarah, and Dan