Aggies in Alaska

Monday, June 11, was day five of my parents' trip to Alaska, and we took the road less traveled to Glacier View. Along the way, near Summit Lake, it started raining. Barron noticed that the temperature was also dropping pretty quickly, and before we knew it, it was snowing...in June. :) My parents were thrilled. So we jumped out and took several pictures of the snow. We stayed in a luxury tent that night called Alpenglow in Glacier View. The large canvas tents were set up in the hillside on wooden bases and had magnificent views of the Matanuska Glacier. It was beautiful! I tried to fool my dad into thinking that moose pellets were malted milk balls, but he wasn't having it. He said, "Those aren't candy. Those are turds!" Hahahahaha... It was definitely the coldest night of the whole trip, being up in the mountains. We had a nightcap after dinner, and we all had to wrap up in the down comforters from the beds. Dad was a bit c...

After our day in Denali, we got on the road again on Sunday, June 10, headed to Fairbanks. On the way, we got out of the super tall mountains and actually went through areas that looked more like the Appalachians. It was a new experience even for me and Barron, as we had never been to Fairbanks before. Once we made it into the city, we went about 20 minutes more to the southwest to the town of North Pole. All of the streets have Christmas themed names, like Saint Nicholas Drive, and all of the light poles are painted in red and white, candy cane stripes. Even the local businesses go along with the theme. And, the main attraction, Santa Claus House is open year round with Santa himself being there to take pictures. My dad loved it! Santa eventually got Barron to sit with him, but we didn't get a good shot of it. :( We did get to visit Santa's reindeer outside at the stables, too. Mom was thrilled with the cooler temps here, especially after being in Houston heat j...

When we stayed in Healy, just outside of Denali National Park, we were in a wonderful two-bedroom garage apartment that we found on Air BnB. It was great and had tons of room. We were only about ten minutes from the entrance to the park. We got up early on Saturday, June 9 and headed to the park. We started at the bus depot where we caught the famous Denali bus out to the Eielson Visitor Center. The scenery was unbelievable the whole way up to Eielson. We didn't tell Mom and Dad that the bus would be driving on the edge pretty high up. They got a little nervous but still enjoyed all of the animals that we saw. Pictures were very difficult to get up close from the bus, but we got a few. We ended up seeing seven bears, four moose, several caribou, mountain goats way up on the mountains, snowshoe hares, lots of eagles, and some other birds. We all enjoyed the views along the way. We didn't get to see McKinley that day because it was ...

My parents came up for an Alaskan summer visit earlier this month. They got in to Anchorage on Thursday, June 7. We picked them up from the airport, took them to a quick dinner at the 49th State Brewing restaurant, and then drove up to Eagle River (about 20 minutes north of Anchorage). The back of the Jeep was jam packed with luggage! We spent the night in Eagle River at a great Air BnB spot. Then we hit the road for Talkeetna. It's the Alaska town that the TV show "Northern Exposure" was based on. It's a bit of an artist community, but there's lots of things to do, eat, and see there. The Alaska Railroad had just pulled into town when we got there, so there were plenty of people milling around. We had lunch at The Roadhouse and then started walking around. We first took Mom and Dad over to the old schoolhouse that's a museum about the town's history. Then we went over to the original store in town, Negley's, and also got some sill...