Alaska

When I think of Alaska, three words come to mind: majestic, mountains, mosquitoes. 😁

I won't be long-winded, because let's face it, you want to see pics and not me blabbing.  I'll put captions under the pics explaining if necessary.

But before the pics, I want to thank the Kirsch family from the bottom of my heart for blessing us with this amazing vacation. It was so good for our souls. 💗

Mountains

The view from the Big Lake airport

The view from a friend of a friend's house

We were driving somewhere. haha

The view headed from Big Lake to Palmer

A neat preserve off of one of Alaska's main roads. And a photo bombing by a dragonfly.

Kaidin's birthday

On top of the observation deck at the preserve.  A recent earthquake knocked it off of its foundation.  Yet we still climbed it. 😄

A lookout on our way to Soldotna

Another pull-off on our way to Soldotna

Kenai Beach with a view of Mount Redoubt - a volcano that is just letting off a little steam

Not a volcano. 😃

An overlook on the way to Homer Spit - there are non-active volcanoes in this pic

Homer Spit and the edge of the Ring of Fire

Mount Redoubt at about 9:00 PM

On our way home from Homer Spit

A coffee shack and Russian restaurant we stopped off at on the way home from Homer Spit

A beautiful teal blue lake we found on the way home.  The water here was gorgeous.  Pics don't do it justice. 

We called this Antler Mountain.  Who knows what its real name is, but the snow on the mountain looked like antlers.

This mountain range was at the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge.

Hatcher Pass - a view from the parking lot near the top

Hatcher Pass looking out from the mountain top

On our way home from Hatcher Pass where there was some avalanche damage from a couple of weeks ago

I don't remember where this was taken, but it's beautiful!

Taken on our way to Wrangell-St. Elias National Park

Glacier seen on our way to the National Park

This mountain was brown the night before.  It had a major snow storm over night and when we woke up, it looked like this.

Kaidin with Aunt Ellesha.  We were at the goldmine in Nabesna. If you look closely at the mountain, there is a "C" on the face of it to the far right.  We claimed that we were destined to be there.

Pyramid Mountain in Nabesna.  Like Antler Mountain, not the real name, but what we called it. 

On the way home from Wrangell-St. Elias

Sitting on the top of the Butte (Alright, stop thinking of your backside, it's pronounced "beaut" like in the word beauty 😂)

Views from the Butte

The Butte in front of the mountain that I took a picture of previously.  We hiked the Butte.  It seemed like a mountain until I saw this. haha

I believe this was in Wrangell-St. Elias

My sweet friend and me somewhere on Alaska 3 (or AK 1 ... Who knows. There are only a handful of main roads in the entire state.  I only rode on three of the them. 😄)

Flying

Courtney got to fly Uncle Jeff's plane for about an hour.  I think that was the highlight of her trip.  Courtney took an aviation class online a couple of years ago and loved it.  Jeff is an instructor and made her dream a reality.

Getting ready to fly selfies with the plane

Courtney helping Jeff do the pre-flight checks

He's not so sure about this

Gavin actually fell asleep on this plane ride

Checking all the gauges before take off

On our way up to 6000 ft

I think Anchorage is in the far background, but I can't remember exactly.

She's flying this thing!  And I'm trying not to have a panic attack. lol jk... serious, not serious

A little glacier break up in the left bottom corner

A better pic of it

The beautiful blue color under the glacier is breathtaking.  I've never seen this color blue in nature before.

Lake George Glacier

Whiteout Glacier (I believe)

6000 ft up, the view is amazing

Part of Whiteout Glacier

I don't know what happened here, but I love the white light emitting from the glacier. lol

Wind sheer, Uncle Jeff takes over temporarily

Descending down into the mountain range.  I LOVED this part.  Garrett was not a fan of the elevation drop.

On our way back to Big Lake's airport

Group photo, Gav and I are kinda hidden

Kids taking one last private flight the day we departed for home

Wildlife

If I were to take a picture of the living creature we saw the most: it would be of gigantic mosquitoes.  Since those are no fun to look at, we'll settle for these pics.

Cranes (by the shed)

Recent moose tracks near the area near Big Lake where the Nov 30, 2018 (7.1M) earthquake hit

Kenai Beach about 9 PM - Huge water fowl that nearly snatched the toddler away.  I was brave and just screamed. lol

Moose near the Ring of Fire

Homer Spit Moose on the loose. This is also the area where I was greeted by an Alaskan with "sign language" because I pulled to the side of the road to get this pic. I was in her way.  She proceeded to honk her horn making the moose run away. Because of my camera delay, I got a moose rear pic.

Another moose we saw on the way home from Homer Spit

These brown and black bears were in a Wildlife Refuge.  Thankfully, I didn't meet any in person on the many hikes we took.

Birds in a tree. I just found this interesting.

Bald Eagle flying over us

Wolf tracks on the trail to the Nabesna Mine

It's very hard to see, but there is a moose somewhere in the middle of this pic. lol. It's in between the two smaller spruce trees. We saw it on the way home from Nabesna.

Randomness

Johnathan made 3D printed decos for my birthday breakfast, and Lael made the breakfast. What sweeties!

Birthday breakfast and singing

A car full of kids, AK style, Courtney is in there somewhere

A lake house, literally. The only way to it is by boat or snow machine.

Left over crack from the 2018 earthquake

The kids by "the crack" at one of the Kirsch family's friend's houses

The lake house posted previously is off to the right of this pic

Kaidin's birthday mocha

Moose crossing - although no moose ever did cross while we were driving

Kaidin being silly and pretending he's sick... or maybe it was the smell.  These are actually outhouses. No plumbing in AK rest areas

The bottom of the observation deck that got knocked off the foundation

Itidarod Museum

Having snowball fights on our way to Soldotna

The largest donut I've ever eaten

And that donut was found at The Moose is Loose in Soldotna

We went to Soldotna Historical Society & Museum. This was a stream running into the river

The stare-down

Homer Spit / Ring of Fire

Homer Spit

Sunset in Soldotna right before midnight

At the pretty teal/blue lake

Lael at the Wildlife Refuge

After a couple hour walk around the refuge, the kids found this neat couch made of rock to sit on.

The Great Alaska Earthquake

Remnants of that earthquake are still visible

Our trip over Lake George Glacier in the airplane (top half), and the fun 1000 ft drop we took (bottom blue graph); our speed is in green

So rock painting is a thing, a very popular thing, in AK.  Here's the back of mine.

And the front (not to scale 😂)

Garrett did Antler Mountain

Gavin did Mount Redoubt, if it were to erupt

I also did the Alaska state bird, uh, I mean a monstrous mosquito

Antler Mountain in progress

Court did the mountains and teal water

Hiking up Hatcher Pass

Part way up, Kaidin in is the van in the parking lot in the background. He wasn't feeling well that day.

Lael and Garrett part way up

One of the resting places of Matt. Hatcher Pass

On the way out of Hatcher Pass is this beautiful river

Garrett decided to stack rocks there

This was at a scenic overlook on the way to Hatcher Pass

A glacier on the way to Nabesna

Same glacier

Same glacier, but enhanced with me, Garrett, Courtney, and Lael

Kaidin was taking the bucket's sign literally 😂

Our cabin in Nabesna with its own private outhouse!  This place was totally off grid and in the middle of nowhere

The "road" that led to the gold mine

Nabesna Mine: A mine opening on the face of the mountain.  Looks kinda like a creepy face.

Kaidin sat at the foot of the mountain.  He and Courtney weren't feeling well this day, but they took the hike anyway.

Another resting place for Matt. Nabesna Mine

A pretty stream running down from Nabesna Mine.

One of the many rivers driven through in order to get to and from Nabesna Mine

The minivan made it through mostly unscathed. Nothing a few zip-ties won't fix.

Gavin was a good babysitter to Molly.

Everything was in spring bloom.  We had allergy season all over again.

There were pretty rocks like this all over the place.

Freshly cut spruce

In Nabesna, everyone had runways in their front yards.  When I say everyone, I mean all ten residents.  Serious, not serious.

Frost heave was most likely the cause of this RV accident.  When we came into the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, there were severe dips in the road right before this accident.  When we came back out of the park two days later, the dips were fixed.

It was very sad.

A snowstorm brewing

On top of the Butte

Gavin on the Butte with the glacier in the background

Another resting place for Matt. The Butte

They had coffee shacks everywhere in AK.  Alaskans love their coffee!!

Kaidin's painted rock.  Let me explain. 😄 Kaidin took a quote from Ellesha out of context, then placed a weed plant above it to remember all the weed shops is Alaska. Just to be clear, Ellesha is not advocating for drugs. 😂

Our Boeing 767 from Anchorage to Atlanta - very roomy for economy

Somewhere over AK on the flight home

Somewhere over the Yukon on the way home

Hudson Bay from 39,000 ft in the air

Gav and Garrett took a four-wheeler ride with Uncle Jeff.  They got to see Denali (in the far background).  These two are the only ones in my family who got to see it.  Denali is the largest mountain in North America.

In front of the mud flats in the Kenai Wildlife Refuge

My first ever four-wheeler driving experience.  It was exhilarating and sometimes terrifying (because of deep ruts on the trails)

I took 1,099 pictures on our trip. Only a handful made it into this blog post.  We had so much fun with our friends.  It wasn't the same without Matt, but we enjoyed the time we had together.  And now I can put Alaska on my Adventure Map.