Girdwood Adventures

DAD, WE MISS YOU!

The Seward Highway was recently voted one of the top ten 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 the mountain goats,

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

This is cousin Sean's first trip to Alaska. We stopped at Beluga Point in hopes of seeing a few whales 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 lightsabers.

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 from rivers in the spring, etc. I was blown away because he was spot on and said it in such a way that he had thought through the process, not that he had heard it somewhere.

This is 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 truck 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 lone shoes. One AWESOME companion, Sorella Spendlove, knew how I felt about them. In my last city I received a package from her that had a bunch of grease spots on the outside. Clueless, yet curious, I opened it and found a 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. 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.

Onto the best playground for miles, which has a castle, train, slides galore, and a sand pit full of diggers.

Graham's first solo swing ride. He liked it for about four pushes. 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!