Go Kiss a Moose

After Talkeetna, we were off to Anchorage for a short day. 

It's really quite a pretty town

with good food

huge flowers

and whale bones.

When we left Anchorage for Alyeska, we stopped at the Alaskan Wildlife Conservation Center.

Happy Birthday, Talkeetna Style

I hate it when a birthday present works out perfectly, because for the next birthday, no matter what I do it will be inadequate.  Some how next year I will have to top this...

He got to ride a moose

and then a train. 

 Got to see Denali

while hanging out in Talkeetna.

Had a caribou for dinner,

 saw a moose up close

 Saw Denali from the hotel room window, in the middle of the night

and had reindeer sausage biscuits and gravy the next morning.

What do I get him next year?????

30 Percent Club at 20,000 feet

It's not quite what you think.  

 After our tour of Denali National Park, we spent the night at Grand Denali Lodge.

Then we took the train from Denali to Talkeetna.

Where we saw this....

 and this

this

and even this.

This was the view from our room at the Talkeetna Lodge.

Thirty percent of the people who visit Alaska never get to see Mt. Denali because it is usually cloudy and rainy during the tourist season.  We are now members of the exclusive 30% club!

Gypsy Soul

So I have a gypsy soul, I love to travel.  I used to have a goal of visiting every state before I was 30.  I failed.  I came close, but I didn't quite make it.  I did make it to Alaska though.  After the first trip to Alaska, I had to come back.

Cleveland to Fairbanks.  Yeah that was a long day, nuff said.  But it is worth mentioning, there is a Frontera Grill in O'Hare Airport.  We also learned that self-scanners at the grocery store in Alaska aren't quite as efficient as they are in the lower 48.

We spent day two in Fairbanks where we visited the El Dorado Gold Mine.  One of us was a little better at panning for gold than the other, but neither of us were as good as my mom.  Between her and my dad, they had enough to put it in a locket.

After the gold mining we got to stop and see the Alaska Pipeline.  No matter what your feelings on oil drilling are, the pipeline is an engineering marvel.  It's over 800 miles long and can expand and contract up to 4 feet a mile and sway in an earthquake.

Then we rode a sternwheeler down the Chena River

And stopped by Susan Butchers place. 

The third day started with a train ride on the Alaska Railroad.  We traveled on the train from Fairbanks to Denali National Park.  The train ride was amazing and the park took my breath away and we got to have reindeer sausage for breakfast (what you thought I might have a blog post without a picture of food?)

We saw moose from the window of the train.

After arriving at Denali, we had a tour of the first 60 miles of the park, on a bus.

Where we saw a marmot

A moose

 And lots of grizzly bears

Quiet week

I was going to say it was a quiet week, then I realized it really wasn't.

I spent three days in NOLA.  I wish it was for fun, but it was all about work.  One of these days I will get to go there for fun.  Did get to eat some yummy food though, should have brought home some crab meat cheese cake.  I was there to attend a USEPA stakeholder meeting about the upcoming changes to the national recreational use criteria for beaches, but I won't bore you with that tonight.

The Great Flood

You know it's not going to be good when the next door neighbor calls you at work and tells you to come home.

Well, I'm glad he called, but we really could have done without this.  The water main that runs down my street burst, under my driveway.  We have water again, but we still don't have a driveway.  We do however, have our own orange barrels.