Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Alaska Vacation - Part II

We spent the last couple days of our trip doing more "touristy" things. We took a day trip to Denali National Park. Unfortunately, the mountain was completely clouded in so we didn't get to see it, but we did take a nice drive through a portion of the park and then we went on a short 2.5 mile hike through another part of the park. We saw some beautiful scenery and some great wildlife. It felt good to get some exercise too!

We got a little lost on our way into the park and had to stop at the Grizzly Bear Cabins to ask for directions. They had this picture board there, so of course we had to get a picture as Eskimos :-)

The beautiful scenery of Denali National Park.

Taking a quick picture break on our hike.

The family (minus Mikey & Steph) at the turn-around point on our hike.

I needed to rest after the first half of our hike, so I found this nice rock to lay down on while everyone else walked around. I am so out of shape!

Hanging on for dear life!

Our last day in Alaska we decided that we wanted to do something relaxing, so we took a trip to the Chena Hot Springs. It was about an hour drive from Bob & Linda's house. The thing about Alaska is that there is a TON of space (duh) so everything is really spread out and we spent a lot of time in the rental car driving to all our destinations. I have never been someone that gets carsick, but I sure did in Alaska. A lot of the roads up there are severely damaged from the permafrost and it is seriously like riding a roller coaster. Tony's parents rented a big SUV that fit all 8 of us, but it was a tight fit and I didn't do so well driving on those roads when I was stuck in the back seat!

Tony and I were the last of the "kids" to fly out of Alaska, so the two of us, his parents and Linda all went to the hot springs. We saw a couple moose on our way up and another on our way back. We also took some homemade bread and lunch meat and made sandwiches for lunch. It was a great way to end our vacation!

This is one of the moose we saw driving up to the hot springs.

Tony & I in the hot springs (along with a bunch of old guys :-))

More swimming in the hot springs. Don't worry, I only stayed in for 10 minutes :-)

1 comment:

Pemberton Family said...

I love that you are updating your blog regularly. Now you need to continue to do that when the baby gets here. IT looks like it was a very fun vacation and it was so fun seeing you guys in Lynden. Looking forward to celebrating Baby Butorac in August!