Girdwood Adventures

HI DAD WE MISS YOU!!!!!

The Seward Highway was recently voted one of the top 10 most beautiful drives in America. It runs from Seward to Anchorage along the Turnagain Arm Inlet.

It is SPECTACULAR in any season....but it does have its dangers....

falling rocks from melting and freezing ice, avalanches, and from the mountain goats

such as those we watched yesterday who kept pelting cars just beneath them.

This is cousin Sean's first trip to AK. We stopped at Beluga Point in hopes of seeing a few Belugas but were unlucky. Meg's luck changed the next morning when she saw a pod of 60+ Belugas as she walked along a portion of the Inlet further to the north.

Our next stop was Crow Creek Mine. You can still find gold either panning by hand or with high tech dredging machinery.

I love the juxtaposition in many of these shots.....the antiques from time past and little boys with dart guns and light sabers.

The boys loved going in and investigating the buildings. This was the ice house. I asked Zach how he thought they got the ice back then. After thinking for a moment he went into this very in depth explanation about cutting out chunks of ice in the spring etc.... I was blown away because he was spot on and said it in such away that he just thought through the process not that he had heard it somewhere.

The Lost Shoe Wall.

Humorous yet freaky! I'll explain!

Since I was young I have hated seeing a random shoe along the roadside. It creeps me out because I think where's the body that belongs with that shoe. It all started when I saw a Stephen King movie where a child gets hit by a Semi and all you see is a shoe fly through the air.

As a missionary walking the streets we not only wore out our own shoes but we also often passed random shoes. One AWESOME companion, Sorella Spendlove, knew how I felt about them. In my last city I received a package that had a bunch of greasy spots on the outside from her. Clueless yet curious I opened it and found a stinky rotting chicken foot that she had found on the road outside a butcher shop....it still makes me laugh thinking about it.

Tourists panning for gold down at the river.

We just hiked around.....

and goofed around.

While Meg and I were busy getting the littlest ones ready the bigger boys took off and

we found them patiently waiting for us up the trail.

On the way out the boys grabbed a fun soda treat from the natural glacier water cooler.

On to the best playground for miles with a castle, train, slides galore and a sand pit full of diggers.

Graham's first solo swing ride. He liked it for about 4 passes. I get way more laughs from him when we stand behind his bothers pushing them.

I JUST LOVE THIS CHILD!

Swinging didn't take us high enough so we rode the tram to the top of Alyeska ski resort.

It was so cool to be at eye level with the paraglider

and the view was STELLAR.

Bye Dad...We had another great adventure but we'll

be home soon!