Aspen, Colorado
People we met along our journey who knew Colorado told us to make Aspen an ‘absolute-must’ stop. So we did. In fact we made it our first destination. We didn’t know what to expect. We haven’t had Internet for the last 3 weeks hence we didn’t know if there was still snow. For our Australian friends who do not ski – Aspen is one of the top skiing destinations in the United States.
You could differentiate Colorado from Utah as soon as you crossed the border – the greenery and more upmarket homes started to pop out almost immediately. The wayside stops (resting areas) were also full of greenery and trees in bloom.
When we got to our destination, we were quite surprised to find that Aspen had a very short winter this year and most of the snow had already melted away. It was still quite spectacular!
It was getting late when we arrived at the ‘Mt Difficult’ campground. No wonder they called it Difficult – it was …closed! Oh boy! It was getting dark and it also started to rain. We pulled up outside of the campground in an area, which was designated “day use only”. It was a large area and nobody seemed to be around so we decided to spend the night and figure out what to do in the morning.
As we were preparing our dinner daddy looked out of the window and yelled ‘bear, bear, bear!’. We all jumped up and ran to the window just to discover that it was not a bear but a huge red fox strolling through the campground. Mummy attempted to take a quick shot (photo) of it but didn’t have the right lens on her camera so this picture is not as clear as some of her other wildlife shots. The fox was very beautiful with a red, thick coat which mummy said she was envious of.
The night turned quite ugly: the rain got stronger and colder and soon turned into a storm. The lightning and thunder was scarring our little ears but mummy kept on reminding us that it is nothing more than two clouds bumping into each other and saying ‘oh, excuse me!’. This put us at ease and soon we fell asleep to the beautiful rhythm of raindrops.
The morning was still wet although the rain had backed off a bit and the sun was fighting to peek out from behind the angry clouds.
Daddy went outside first and he met some nice people who were going on a hike and so he started talking to hem.
He asked them about the campground and they said they didn’t think it’d open till the following week. They also suggested that we should just stay where we were as it was totally out of everyone’s way and we wouldn’t be disturbing anybody. Not a bad thought! Although the many signs around about bears made us a bit apprehensive. Even to the extent of mistaking foxes for bears, lol.
Check out the claws marks on this tree!
As soon as we finished our schoolwork, we jumped out of our caravan/trailer to say ‘G’day’ to the friends daddy was talking to. They had an adorable dog called Cajun (which we learned later was rescued from New Orleans’ Hurricane Katrina).
Daddy asked them if they knew where we could get some water from as we totally run out of it yesterday. They thought for a moment and then said ‘you can always follow us back home and we can give you some’. How nice was that?!!!!
We followed them to the residential area of Aspen and connected our hose to their garden hose and before we knew it we were full again. Woohoo!
We chatted away with our newfound friends, Brooke and Mark. We found out that Brooke is a published author who has written two fantastic books, one for children called ‘The Little Tern’ (which sold over 2mil copies) and the one for adults, called ‘Jamimea and James; black and white memoirs’. This one might even be made into a movie! Brooke gave us copies of her books to take home. She was so nice.
Mark, on the other hand, is a professional hockey coach. How awesome is that?! We love hockey – can’t really skate that well yet but we love watching it.
Brooke and Mark recommended that we go to a ghost town, which was just outside of Aspen. The weather started to improve so we went to have a look at it. It was quite interesting. Mummy only wished that we had arrived here a few weeks earlier (when there was snow) or a few weeks later (when the leaves started to grow on trees). But even with bare trees Aspen looked beautiful to us!
After the ghost town we headed back to the main town, for a hot chocolate to warm us up. We ended up in a little poshy café, which served lots of those ‘chocolate thingies draped in something topped with blah, blah on a bed of poached uh-huh, yeah!’ Whatever they were, they were yummy!
And after that we spent the rest of the afternoon in the library. We wonder how many tourists ever visit libraries when they go to towns like Aspen? Well, we did and we loved it! We read lots of books and then we discovered that even though we do not live in Aspen, we were allowed to get our own library membership! What a cool souvenir to take home (and for free!!). Not only did we get a card (Bella got it this time, she even got to sign it with her own signature!) but also we were able to borrow some books and DVDS! Awesome!
When we got home, mummy read us Brook’s book, which was a very clever tale of a bird, which found itself not being able to fly and how through life’s disappointment and frustrations he finds hope. He finds that by looking at life from a different perspective his life can become much richer than he had previously known. He also discovers that our real strengths sometimes come from our seeming weaknesses.After dinner we went to bed and mummy read Brookes other book to daddy out loud. They finished reading in the middle of the night and they both said it was very, very good. It was based on a real story from Brooke’s life. Mummy told us that Brookes mum was an accomplished artist, her father was a mathematical genius, who wrote some famous books. But what got us most excited was when mummy told us that Brooke and her dad used to visit Albert Einstein (yes, the brilliant, mad- haired genius) every summer and eat vanilla ice cream with him! How cool is that?!
The next day after a little hike around our campground through the beautiful aspens, we headed to the towns recreation center. See, the day before we found out that they were going to have an open day for families, which will be absolutely free. Splendid! We got there just before lunch and stayed till about three o’clock. We got to do a lot of fun things:
First of all we got to do some rock-climbing, which was three stories high and totally ace!
Then we indulged in some ice – skating. We all got geared up and went for a scoot!
Mummy even found these sleds and was pulling us around. Man, did we have a blast.
We then met Catherine, a local ice skating instructor and she showed us how well some of her students could skate.
She then proceeded to show us a few basics (safety position skating). She was very good! She even attempted to turn daddy into a ballerina!
After skating we all hopped into the pools. They had a few of them there, some with slides, one with a lazy river (where the current pushes you along), some with some diving boards. We had so much fun that we did not want to leave!
When we came out we’ve noticed that the weather had improved considerably (although it was still a bit cold) so we went for a drive. It suited us just fine as we really wanted to watch some of the movies we rented from the library.
We ended up in in Maroon Bells National Forest (apparently one of the most photographed areas in Colorado). It was quite beautiful. We didn’t stay there long as being at such high elevation the air was a bit too crisp for a wet hair day.
We did however meet some really cool people, Kevin and Debbi who were locals and who gave us a hundred and five different places we could see in Colorado. We didn’t remember them all but Debbi said she’d email us a list. Awesome!
We hiked Aspen for the next two days. There was not much more to do as the snow season had ended and the next season didn’t open for another three weeks (when Aspen apparently rocks). The township was a bit of a ghost town – we couldn’t even buy a t-shirt with Aspen written on it.
Daddy was laughing saying ‘I don’t know why they say Aspen is so expensive? We spent nothing on accommodation (the campground was closed), nothing on souvenirs (the shops were closed), nothing on food (BYO) and nothing on entertainment (family day at the skating rink was free and we had a National Park pass for the Maroon Bells where we did most of our hiking.’
‘Now, that’s what I call a cheap vacation’ our daddy said.
After we left Aspen we drove for about an hour and we spotted a MASSIVE outdoor swimming pool, which unusually for this time of the year was open and busy. We quickly turned our rig around and found out that the big swimming pool was nothing other than the famous Glenwood Hot Springs of Colorado. Yay!
We decided to stop for a while and splash around in these massive hot tubs. A ‘while’ turned out to be the rest of the day (the $45 entry made us ensure that we got our money’s worth, translation: turn into prunes), LOL
The pools were huge and although there were a few people in it they looked empty. Apparently in the peak time last year they had over 3,200 people in it! That’s a lot! Lucky the water (over 1.3mil gallons) replaces itself every six hours with new natural spring!
We were going to head off straight after the springs but the lifeguard who spent a lot of time chatting to us recommended we go to the local brewery for dinner. When she mentioned that they serve kids meals on Frisbees there was not even a single negotiation entered into - our parents knew they’d lost the argument!
The meal at the restaurant was finger lickin’ good and since daddy wanted to try some of the local beer we didn’t end up driving too far that night. We pulled up at the first rest stop and fell asleep to the humming of two massive diesel truck engines to our sides, both of which apparently needed to be run all night long.
In the morning we took off pretty early and stopped at Vail (another great skiing destination). Vail, unlike Aspen (which is more boutique and pricy) was full of massive resorts and hotels. Again, a bit quite as the snow melted away early this year with lots of workmen fixing up the roads and preparing for the next ‘rush hour’.
We just drove through the town and then we stopped at a massive Wal-Mart Centre to pick up a few groceries. As daddy went one way to buy some food mummy and us girls wandered off in pursuit of new sketch books (we go through so many these days) and also seeing what else Wal-Mart had to offer. The shop was so huge that we could’ve spent the whole day there (if our parents would’ve permitted us).
We got our ‘electronic fix’ by indulging in some games
Read some books
Checked out all the latest toys
We even found this…. real junior rifles in our favorite colors (with real ammunition!) for only $32 each! We had to take a picture of this - only in America you’d buy bread, milk, socks, tools and a gun in the same shop! Holly guacamole!
We got to Leadville mid afternoon. The town was recommended to us as an old mining town, the highest elevation incorporated city in the USA (at 10,200 feet). We also managed to find an RV Resort in town, which allowed discounts for our membership. As we needed to recharge our batteries and get some more water (we’ve been dry-camping for almost a month now) we were really looking forward to get full hook ups.
Our smiles were quickly wiped out when we arrived at the ‘RV resort.’ We knew this was supposed to be an old town but the messy car park adjacent to a junkyard and falling down houses, which was calling itself an RV resort was not a pleasant surprise. As we have arrived a hairy cave man, who smelled of tobacco emerged from a scrap-like trailer from the prehistoric times and greeted our parents with a toothless smile. Our parents initial thought was to turn around and run but after seeing how courteous Lee-Roy was they looked at each other and said ‘what the heck, we do need electricity’.
The only good thing about this RV Park was that it was walking distance to the township so after grabbing a sandwich to eat and locking the caravan/trailer to the hilt, we headed out to check out the old mining town of Leadville.
Most of the tourist attractions like the mines and museums were closed for the season (of course) but we found lots of amusement in the antique shops on the main street. We also went to a very interesting gemstone, rock and fossil shop, where the shop assistant showed us lots of very interesting ……gemstones, rocks and fossils. The fossils were in particularly interesting; lots of dinosaur and prehistoric animal bones. They also had petrified timber to die for. All so beautiful! Wished we could buy it all for show and tell at school but we were not sure how our customs officers would feel about us bringing a dinosaur to Australia.
In the evening we got our money worth by actually using some electricity. We even got to watch a movie on mummy’s computer!
After spending a night at our junkyard RV resort, we pulled out as soon as the sun rose and left for Twin Lakes, which was a very pretty area with two lakes (as the name suggests) snuggled into snow capped mountains.
The higher we got the colder the air became. We even drove past a few totally frozen lakes.
We spent the whole morning fishing at the Twin Lakes and although we did not catch a fish (they all got away with our bait), we had a great time.
In the afternoon we decided to head towards Denver with a stop over at Silverthorne. We picked up a few bargains in the Silverthorne Outlets and decided to visit a Horse Rescue Centre our friends from Australia told us about (thanks Nerissa!).
A lovely couple Rose and John from Georgia set up this facility for abused animals (horses especially). They bought this beautiful property and are currently fostering over 30 horses. What a beautiful set up.
Rose and John were not there but the lady-manager showed us around and even let us feed and groom their ponies. Oh how we so miss our horses from back home!
They had horses; they had ponies, a donkey, an alpaca, lamas and sheep. Also a dog and 4 adopted cats. We played with them all. How nice!
By the evening we found a campground in the Golden Gate Canyon State Park, near Denver. At one stage we didn’t think we were going to make it as the road kept on climbing and climbing and climbing and our truck (with the home on wheels) kept on screaming and screaming and we kept on chanting: just keep going, just keep going!
We finally reached the top of the road at 11,158ft (3,381m), went through a tunnel drilled through a rocky mountain and weeeee, down the hill we went almost cooking our brakes again (ejector seat, anyone?). That one hill almost consumed our whole tank of fuel, ooops!
We ended up finding a campground in the State Park, which was just an hour out of Denver. The campground was really nice (and even had electricity hook up!).
We made fire that night and played in a little tent our parents bought us at Wal-Mart. They thought it was the best $22 they have ever spent as it kept us amused for hours and included a relocation of all our soft toys, of which we have accumulated quite a few (the ban does not include toys which are given to us and so the family grows).
We stayed at the campground for a few days mainly using it as a base as we did a few day trips from it.
One of those trips was to Boulder, a town nearby. We were only planning to stop there for an hour or two but it just so happens that Debbi, who we met last week in Aspen lives in Boulder. When mummy sent Debbi an email saying that we are going to be in the area she said she’d want to catch up - and so we met with her, her daughter Hayley and her adorable grandson Kallen.
We ended spending most of the day together. It just happened that Boulder town had a great arts festival / and markets going on with so many wonderful things that all our pocket money we earned was quickly spent. Some in the toy shop but mostly on tips for the street performers.
We met our new yoga teacher who was just incredible. He could fold his body like a piece of paper and place himself a little see-through box. That was just awesome!
He even taught us a few tricks. Like putting our legs behind our heads for example. With just a little tuition, we were on our way to becoming yoga masters
We then met an older couple playing didgeridoos. They were really good although their instruments did not come from Australia (ours were too heavy and valuable for them to lug around). They still sounded good. Made us feel like we were back home. Of course we didn’t hesitate to take this opportunity to join the band and do some street performing together. Bella did some tribal dancing and I joined with another didge. We had a blast!
Debbi, Hayley and Kallen had to leave in the afternoon, which was a pity – we had a great time with them. They did however, recommend that we drive to the Wild Animal Sanctuary just down the road.
And so we went for a drive to check it out. Good thing was they were not closing till 7:50pm (sunset) so we had plenty of time to explore.
We knew the place would be good (it also got recommended to us by our Australian friends who were there a few months earlier) but we had no idea we would love it so much.
The place, which is a non-profit organization, is a sanctuary for rescued animals, mainly tigers, lions, bears and wolfs. All of these animals were born in captivity and cannot be released to wild. All their animals have had one thing in common: they were all previously abused by humans (before being rescued)
It was totally heart breaking reading about the history of these animals. The DVDs shown were even more upsetting.
There were 25 lions for example which were confiscated from circuses in Bolivia after an English couple spent 2 years ‘working’ undercover for those circuses and filming the mistreatment of these animals. These two made so much ‘noise’ about it that Bolivian government put a ban on using exotic animals in circuses and ordered confiscation of all the lions. Lucky this sanctuary in Colorado was in existence and helped in building facilities for the rescue of these animals. Now, all 25 of these beautiful creatures have their own acres to roam.
You can view all these animals down below the walkway platform, which has been built for humans. Much better than sticking the animals in cages!
There were also a lot of tigers, which came from all walks of life. A lot of them have been purchased as cute little pets without the buyer thinking that it’ll grow into a massive animal, which needs to be fed -or else! A lot of them lived in shocking conditions usually tied up or in tiny cages or in horse trailers. We were shocked to discover that there are more tigers living in people’s homes in America than there are in the wild! That’s crazy!
We met a lovely lady who volunteers at the sanctuary. Her name is Jill and she told us a lot of wonderful stories about this rescue center. She was fantastic! I (Jordi) told her that I am going to come back when I am 16 and work with her as a volunteer and she promised she’d teach me all that she knows. I also told her that I would own my own Rescue Centre when I grow up and Jill said she will come and work for me.
We were so glad that people like these guys exist in the world. People who spend their entire life undoing what others do wrong. Good on you!
The next day we went for a drive to The Rocky Mountains National Park. It was very pretty but unfortunately most of it was closed off till Memorial Day (in another three weeks). We still made the most of it – we always do!
As we perched ourselves on top of a viewing area, trying to do our Junior Ranger program, the weather started to deteriorate and the raindrops soon turned into snow and the lovely breeze turned into a freezing winds.
On the way down from the mountains we saw huge herds of elk. They were desperately trying to eat up all the grass before it got snowed under.
The first group of elk was a bunch of young boys, which obviously were re-growing their antlers. They ate, they ran and they mucked around as any teenage boys would.
Later on at the base of the mountain we saw massive herd of girls (cows) - as in hundreds and hundreds of them.
The ranger at the station told us that there are over 3000 elk in this area, as they don’t have a lot of predators in this neck of woods. The bears are obviously a bit lazy around here.
At the ranger station we completed our Junior Ranger program and a lovely ranger Matt swore us in. He put us in the middle of a room (with spectators all the way around) and then when we were done repeating the pledge he congratulated us and made a big announcement for everybody to hear that we came all the way from Australia and we have been made into Junior Rangers. We got a huge applause from everybody. Boy, we are getting famous!
As we left the park in the late afternoon the snow started to really pick up its pace. In fact we went from green grass to totally white in a matter of minutes. In fact the two photographs below were taken 10 minutes apart. Fun, huh?
The drive back ‘home’ was fabulous. Everything was covered in snow!
When we got back to our campground our poor little tent was being converted into….. an igloo!
We tried getting to the Rockies from a different direction the following day (as in driving the other side of the loop road) but found that most of the roads in the mountains were closed off for the season.
Never mind, we came across a cool town called Winter Park where we spent the afternoon in a fabulous kids playground.
And we experimented with mummy’s camera (again!) – this one was fun although daddy was getting very dizzy from spinning us around!
We also went for a walk around the lake
The next day we decided to ‘hit the town’, that is drive to Denver (which was about an hour away from our campground. And what a better place to go to than a Science Museum?
We spent a whole day at this museum, which was superb, especially it’s ‘star gazing and outer space’ section.
We attended a science class where we learned about the effects of vacuums and pressure in space. We learned that if an astronaut was to rip his space suit accidentally his lungs would puff up like a balloon and his blood would ‘boil’ and lose all of it’s heat and freeze. Ouch! Better be careful out there!
The lady showed us an example on a marshmallow man, which puffed up like a puffer fish when a vacuum was applied. He looked so much more….delicious! LOL
The lady also showed us what would happen if an astronaut wanted to shave in space and he was to use shaving cream – lucky the lady had it contained in a glass container otherwise the whole room would be invaded by the shaving cream!
Of course we got to play astronauts as well
We learned lots about the moon and its craters.
And watched a spaceship take off
We then progressed to the top deck where we actually got to see the sun through a telescope – no kidding –THE SUN!!!
A nice man showed us the sun by first announcing – don’t try this at home! Then he put a special filter on the telescope –and voilà!
Mummy even got to take a picture through the telescope. Here it is – the sun! It even had some sunspots on it (only three time the size of earth)
Downstairs again, this really nice man showed us the coolest floating interactive sphere, which represented earth. It looked like it was just levitating in mid air and you could control it via remote control. We could literally Control The World.
It had up to date weather reports on it (you could even go back in time), it had records of all earthquakes, aircraft movements and flight paths, it had tectonic plate movements,– it was just THE coolest toy we have ever seen! It was so cool in fact, that we couldn’t drag our parents away from it.
The man even showed us how over millions of years the landmass have shifted and how for example Australia came about – really remarkable!!! Lucky the museum was closing otherwise our parents would still be there!
Ok, we need to pause Colorado here for a bit because……….brace yourself for this – we are flying to …..ALASKA. Yep, the far-away state with grizzly bears and moose.
It all started about a month ago when we were in Bryce Canyon snapping pictures at the sunrise. Daddy started a conversation with another photographer who said ‘if you think this is good, you should see Alaska’. That conversation was followed up by a detailed recommendation email from John and so the seed was planted.
A couple of weeks later we were having a chat to Thayer and Jill (out Nutella friends). They both grew up in Alaska and so they told us all sorts of wonderful stories about it and so the seed grew bigger.
Mummy did a search on Internet and found out that to fly to Alaska was horrendously expensive unless one flew out of…….. Denver, Colorado.
And then we got an email from out Canadian friends (the Blues Brother Family) asking us if we would want to join them on a cruise to ….you guessed it – Alaska!
So then when we got to Colorado, mummy hopped on -line to search prices and they had a special on flights (because the season have not started the prices were unusually low). So she did a search for RVs. Again the prices were very expensive except for…. one, which had a special on. And so mummy and daddy wrote to the RV place asking if they would further reduce the price (as in drop it by 70%!) and to our absolute disbelief we got a positive response! Holy Guacamole! The ‘once a dream’ was suddenly becoming a possibility!
But the final trump card however was dealt when mummy, just before she booked the flights, rang Debbi (who we just spent a day with a couple of days ago) and asked her if there are any better prices though the airlines she works for. And guess what she said? She said: why don’t you use my buddy passes? It turns out that Debbi can occasionally get her family and friends on last minute (or stand by) flights for fraction of a price. She managed to get us tickets for all of us for less than ONE full-price ticket!!! How super-duper awesome was that?!!!!
Mummy is a strong believer in what she calls ‘Law of Attraction’ which means that if you set your mind on something you suddenly will attract the right people and the right circumstances into your life to make your dream come true. Well, this certainly was a FINE example of that!
Not only did ‘Auntie Debbi’ organize us the flights, she also offered to store our car and caravan/trailer at her place. AND she drove us to the airport. AND she gave us lots of yummy treats to take on the plane. UN-Belie-Vable!!! Lova ya Debbi! We are truly blessed!
ALASKA
ALASKA
How can you possibly NOT like this state? A state where there are a million acres for every day of the year! A place where in the summer sun does not go to sleep (19hrs of sunshine), a state where the combined size of national parks is bigger than Texas, a state where there are roads for dog sleds only, state where wild animals get to their biggest sizes. A state where a government actually pays you to live there (money from oil taxes got reinvested and is shared with the residents).
A state where people are either super- friendly or....... who simply wish to be just left alone.
But mostly super- friendly!
We arrived very late (almost midnight) and went to the nearby hotel. By the time our parents went to bed it was almost 3am. Needless to say that when we excitedly drew the curtains at sunrise (two hours later) and announced ‘Look the sun is already up’, it didn’t go down that well. Oooops, not a good start. Mental note: do not open curtains when parents have only had 2 hrs. sleep! LOL. Another mental note: the sun does not fully set in Alaska in late spring/summer.
After a yummy breakfast at the hotel we got picked up by the RV motorhome rental place and we got delivered to our new ‘home on wheels’.
The motorhome we got was not the nicest thing in the world but if you have a good sense of humor and close your eyes to the fact that everything you touch eitherwas torn, broken or mismatched, then it didn’t really matter. Who cares, we thought, it was cheap, it was big and mechanically sound, it worked for us! And the people who run the rental place were very nice and they let us go into their storage area and pick up whatever we wanted for our trip.
After we set up out nest in the new RV, we asked the owner if he had a map of Alaska. He said ‘what do you need the map for? There is only one road in here’. ‘Really?’ – we thought. Our first day trip was decided by a flip of a coin. Tails- turn left.
The first stop was just out of Anchorage, in the animal wildlife center. We figured out that if we can go and ‘tick off’ all the animals we need to see in Alaska, we could then just enjoy the scenery.
The day was very ordinary (weather wise) but the good news was we were allowed to drive around the park which meant we got to see a lot of animals from our RV and without getting wet. Well, that was the idea anyway but we like getting wet so we joined mummy on a walkabout to snap some pictures.
We met some adorable ‘teenage’ moose that came over for a scratch. They were so beautiful (in an awkward-ugly kinda way) – their limbs seemed way too long for their bodies and their heads moved around like they were listening to Stevie Wonder. These two did not have their antlers as moose lose them every year and then grow new ones in autumn/fall.
We then met some cool looking Musk Ox. We have heard so much about them and were really looking forward to see them in ‘real life’. They look like a mini version of a Bison but much, much woolier. Like something you would see in a science fiction comic book perhaps. We have learned later in our trip that they are not even remotely related to the bison – but more about that later.
They were so adorable and mummy couldn’t stop her shutter from snapping. At one stage however we saw mummy running away from the fence and then we realized that one of the bulls decided to charge her. Lucky there was a fence between them as the bull rammed straight into it. We learned later that if you get down below their eye level they automatically assume that you are a wolf or bear and need to be destroyed! Oooops! I guess mummy will think twice now before she does her next ‘ look down at me’ shot. LOL
The bison were quite incredible – big, black and beautiful.
Some even had little babies (calves), which were only born a few days earlier.
There were also a few rescued bears. This brown bear (2y.o.) was our favorite.
We even made friends with Josh, the zoo – keeper and he let us feed Togoka (the bear) though a special tube. How cool!
Just before we left we went to say goodbye to the porcupine who looked quite upset to see us go.
Looks like our friend, Bindi Erwin from Australia was here as well - playing with him (we saw some pictures of them on the wall). No wonder this porcupine likes Australian girls!
We spent a night in one of many wayside stops, along a beautiful lake. It was incredible driving almost till midnight and not even getting tired. The constant daylight certainly gets you fooled, LOL.
The next day we though we’d check out the glaciers. The town of Seward offered boat trips out to see those spectacular blue rocks of ice sticking out of the water. We never made it though (although our parents were very tempted). The weather was rainy, the ocean was choppy and they said that the $500 fee would only be 15% refundable if we never make it to the glaciers (they had a weather warning). It also didn’t help that both Bella and I decided it would be a good time to ‘run a muck’ and so instead of seeing the glaciers, we spent most of the morning in the RV writing ‘I will be nice to my sister’ about like ……one hundred times. Ouch!
In the afternoon we thought we would check out the Exit Glacier, a place where apparently you can walk up to a glacier. We were very excited about it but we soon found out that the road was closed off. It just happened that this part of Alaska had a massive amount of snow in the last few months (with over 90 inches / 2.3mtrs this week) and they have not cleared the road yet. A 12 mile hike through the snow was not something our parents were prepared to do with us in toe.
So we kept driving a little bit more and found an incredibly beautiful lake. We stopped there for lunch and after we munched something up, we went for a walk along the lake.
When we came back we found out that Russell invited us over to their picnic area where everyone was celebrating Trevor’s birthday – he was turning 6.
So we went and joined the party and met some wonderful new friends and ate some delicious birthday cake. It was so great to catch up with some kids our age, our parents lowered their guard and we ran around yelling and carrying on like any 6 or 7 year old should. Yeah!
One of the girls in the group (Trevor’s sister- on the right) – Ashley- we found out, is a Musher! That is a name you give to people who race in dog sled competitions. At the age of 12 she has completed a 40-mile race through snowy Alaska with 8 wonderful huskies. How incredible is that?
During our parents discussions we found out that a town about three hours away called Homer was having a Bird Festival. Apparently that weekend lots and lots of birds were migrating back to Alaska for summer and birdwatchers decided to make a festival out of it.
Mummy decided that it is something we definitely needed to put on our to-do list. So after saying goodbye to our ‘Birthday’ friends we drove off towards Homer.
Along the way we saw lots of beautiful birds. Mummy jumped outside to snap some pictures while we stayed in the motorhome glued to the window, pointing ‘photo potentials’ to her.
We arrived there just before sunset (about 11pm, LOL) and after quickly checking out the town we settled in a beautiful viewing area just outside of town – for the night. It was so beautiful to wake up to this view.
Homer was just a spectacular place! Although we didn’t get to see too many migrants (the birds) we got to experience a lot of organized activities in the Museum and the Wildlife Conservation Centre. The birds were apparently more visible from organized boat tours, which were fully booked up, than from the shore.
In the Wildlife Conservation Centre we completed our Junior Biologist Program, which was by far the hardest program we have done so far and then we met Ragel at the museum who taught us how to do origami.
We had a blast. We made more birds out of origami than we actually saw outside at the festival. Yay!
In the afternoon we went to the Spit, which is a famous Halibut Fishing Capital of the World. Halibut is a big, funny looking fish (like a flounder on steroids with eyes in the wrong spots). Apparently it’s a fabulously tasting fish.
And to top it all of there were bald eagles flying around collecting left over fish from the fishermen. We found out a story of this Eagle Lady who unfortunately died two years ago. She was the only one ever allowed to feed the eagles (no one had a heart to tell her no). Every winter she would sit on the pier and with donated fish from the fishermen she would feed these majestic birds. Someone told us that sometimes you would see over a hundred eagles around her. Wow, that would’ve been spectacular.
What a pity she wasn’t there anymore. Mummy absolutely adores eagles and that would have certainly made her day. Or a year for that matter. We did find some eagles however, which were just stunning! And SOOO big!!!
As we were just about to leave the marina area to go check out the fishing junk-yard we saw earlier (and mummy wanted to photograph of course), when we met some wonderful people who just arrived in Homer and who also had an RV rented from the same place as ours. This of course started a conversation and we were shortly invited to join them at the RV park they were staying at on the Spit.
But before we went over to the RV park we went to check out the ‘junk yard’. There were lots of old rusted boats, lots of fishing equipment – it actually looked like it was somebody’s office - somebody with a good sense of humor and artistic flair must’ve put it all together. Mummy certainly had a ball snapping her pictures.
We ended up in the RV park (a big gravel car park on the spit) around 9:30pm that night. It was still as bright as the morning so no one even thought of going to sleep. We went over to speak to our neighbors and the ‘party’ had begun. There were 7 of them. Mum and dad (Norma and Allan) and their grown up children: Curt with his wife Lauren, Stephanie with her husband Brendon and Brian their youngest son (a grown up too, LOL). They were SOOOOOO much fun! We goofed around for hours with them.
We even ended up driving their RV just before midnight to watch the sea otters swimming in the bay (somebody told us there were hundreds of them). Here they are. You probably won’t see them that well but keep in mind this photo was taken at 11:20 pm!
We had so much fun with our new friends! We hope when we grow up we are going to be such a close family and still travel with our parents – just like them!
The next day daddy decided he would go fishing in the morning. Can’t be in Homer, Alaska and not go fishing! Since it was a full day trip we had to occupy ourselves and our RV neighbors suggested we go kayaking with them.
Kayaking? That’s sounded like fun! We know how to do that now (‘uncle’ Brent in Texas showed us how!).
Our friends rang the guides in the morning and organized for mummy and us to join them. Brian (the youngest son) also volunteered to be my (Jordi’s) kayaking buddy. He was totally ace! Like a big brother he looked after me and even did all the paddling when I got too tired (which was about twenty seconds after we left, LOL).
The guides first took us on a boat and took us about 20 minutes off shore to nearby inlet. Then they went through the drill explaining what to do if for any reason one would flip over. As mummy already explained to us that in that temperature our bodies would last about a minute before turning into an icicle, we decided it was smart NOT to wobble around too much.
The trip was just exquisite! The warm sun peaked out from behind the clouds and the water was just like glass. The kayaks were extremely stable and since we had mummy and Brian doing most of the work, we were just ……..chillin’
Mummy unfortunately didn’t risk bringing her heavy camera but luckily Lauren was kind enough to take some pictures for us with her phone.
Our new friends were so much fun! When we stopped at one stage to stretch our legs and shed a few layers of jackets, Curt and Brian decided that it would be fun to strip to their shorts and…go for a swim. Wholly Guacamole! They must’ve stayed there for less then a minute as they came back still alive. Brrrrrrr!
We really enjoyed this little excursion. The sun, the calm water, occasional sea otter, the beautiful mountains as a backdrop. Wow!
On our way back the guides separated us into two groups to get back to shore (same as on the way out there). Curt came with us again and he was so funny – he was teaching us about bees. See back home, in Kentucky, Curt and Lauren have…beehives. He showed us pictures of them on his phone and even taught us how bees communicate. They communicate through…….…dance. Wow! He showed us how they do it and for the rest of the trip the three of us were buzzing around, moving our bottoms and shuffling around– communication at its best! It was so much fun – we’ll never forget it Curt!
In the afternoon we went for a stroll to the shops and I got myself a new friend – Denali, a husky. Don’t ask me how I managed to get pass the ‘no-soft-toy rule’ – somehow we occasionally get mummy on a technicality. This time I think it had something to do with Mothers Day…
We then met Brea, a lady who’s birthday it was that day.
She is an artist and a belly dancer. She even showed us a few of her moves.
She also said she started this tradition of giving away gifts on her birthday and told us to come with her (and our mummy) to her car. She then gave us her two special rocks and showed us their meanings in a book she had.
Bella got a magic rock, which will help her make great decisions and I got a Happy rock, which will make me happy - always. How nice was that of her? Fancy meeting someone who gives away presents on HER birthday! We love Americans!
Daddy ended up catching two massive Halibuts that day. The bigger ones got away (of course) but the ones he hooked were still decent size.
The man on the boat showed us how to gut the fish, fillet it and he even found some crabs in its stomach (phew!)
Daddy ended up donating the fish fillets to our RV neighbors. Daddy doesn’t eat fish, so he thought our neighbors might enjoy it.
That afternoon we said goodbye to our new friends (which took a long time as we were mucking around for ages). Just before we left however, Curt gave us our final bee – trivia information: a bee flaps its wings 11,000 a minute! That’s 180 times a second!!! How incredible is that??? (that really got us wondering - who got to watch THAT video?)
This last bit of information had certainly earned our new friends the name of ‘Bumble Bees’ (the bees they have are not bumbles but the name sounds fun and since these friends were Fun- with capital F we’ll stick with Bumbles).
We would’ve stuck around a bit longer with our Bumble Bee friends but mummy spoke on the phone with Melissa (remember Ashley- the 12 year old Mushing girl? That’s her mum) and organized for us to come around to their place and meet her huskies. We couldn’t miss that!
We didn’t arrive at Ashley’s place till about 9pm. Lucky Alaska is very light at this time in May. Ashley went to so much trouble displaying her sleds and mushing equipment and she spent a lot of time explaining to us how the dogs get connected and how the whole race works. It sounded like a lot of fun and a lot of hard work too. The race Ashley completed was a 40 mile race but the grown ups compete in a 1049 mile race which takes approx. 9 days! WOW!
Ashley had two 3 year old dogs which she is training for the next race: Abigail and Spot. Abigail is her lead dog and she was very sweet. She even let Ashley put a harness on to show us what she does. Although she (Abigail) looked a bit disappointed she wasn’t going for a real run.
Daddy filmed Ashley’s presentation; we will show it to our friends in Australia. Wonder, if we could do that with our ………………..kangaroos? Mush them, that is….. Hmmmmm. Although it’ll probably be too bumpy, LOL
After saying goodbye to our Mushing friends (and getting beautiful gifts from Melissa – who is an award winning artist), we headed off to Exit Glacier for our second attempt - to get to it.
Our second attempt failed as well. On the way there, there were road-works people saying that there might be a ‘little delay’. Whilst they were blasting some of the roadside areas, they accidentally blasted off too much (with dynamite) and covered the road and so they needed to spend some time cleaning up their little mishap. Predicted delay – 5 hours! After 3 hours of waiting and seeing no particular progress we turned around.
The next day we ended up in Anchorage again (it seems all the roads in Alaska lead to Anchorage). On the way there we though we might check out another glacier as we saw advertisements in a book that Melissa kindly donated to us – where the boat tours are at much more reasonable prices ($32 per person). So we drove there only to find out that the boat was……….frozen into a lake!
Oh boy, we certainly weren’t having much luck with the glaciers. We could sort of see it from a distance, although it was snowed under. Apparently in the last week only they had 90 inches/7.5 feet of snow (that’s about 2.2meters!)!!!! Wholly Smoke!
After restocking a bit in Anchorage we headed off north. As Denali National Park (the most famous National Park in Alaska) was yet to be opened we decided we would drive to Fairbanks and loop it back through Denali. For those of you who have no idea what we are talking about here is a map.
One thing we should also mention- we had all the intentions in the world to catch up with our Canadian (Blues Brother) friends who were currently enjoying a lovely cruise through Alaska. That was before we discovered that 1. There are no roads that get to their port areas (accessible only via ferry or plane – ferry ride about 3 days!) and 2. The only road, which would take us even remotely close to them goes through…………..Canada! And our RV contract strongly stipulates - NO CANADA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Check this out! Ay, we were devastated! Sorry guys!
So to Fairbanks we went. On the way there we stopped in a couple of interesting farms.
The first one was a Reindeer farm. It was awesome seeing those animals up-close and personal. We even got to feed them and play with their little babies.
We learned something really interesting – the Reindeer and Caribou are the same thing, except reindeer is domesticated. How about that?
They were all so tame and lovely – the lady told us that they trim their hooves so they don’t fly away at Christmas. That’s pretty clever!
They also had a couple of Moose on the farm (also dropped their antlers).
Big Antlers!
They were sooooo tall! They even had one last year (unfortunately died of old age), which was 7ft tall at his shoulder! Wow! She said that Moose never stop growing but unfortunately the biggest ones make a large target for the hunters so they never get to their potential.
At the reindeer farm they also had a lot of Elk
And they had an absolutely adorable Bison called Dolly. She was very sweet and came up to the fence for a scratch.
At one stage she got so excited when she saw a truck pulling up to the driveway (the owner arrived) that she was bouncing off the ground like a little baby goat not a massive 1500 lbs./680kg bison. It was so funny!
The next farm we went to was a Musk Ox farm. This is where we have learned that Musk Ox is not a small bison. There is nothing small in Alaska! The Musk Ox is actually a ….goat! Wholly Guacamole! No Way! Really? A goat????
Apparently some French travellers, a long time ago mistook the animals for an Ox and the ‘perfume’ (Musk) they were smelling was simply a goat being a goat – a boy goat peeing on himself to attract the girls. Trust French to think of everything as a perfume, LOL. (Sorry our French friends –no offence intended)
Having this information at hand it makes sense now that the bison hasn’t ‘shrunk’ in Alaska but the goat enlarged. By a lot!!!
After we left the farm, we stopped by a lovely lake for a lunch break. It was such a lovely setting.
We played there for a while, first playing a ‘horse-shoe’ game
Then pretending to be chefs
And then we tried to see how many trucks we can get to honk! Quite a few apparently!
The next day (still on our way to Fairbanks) we had a bit of a slow start. As soon as we got up we realized we had a flat tire. Oh-oh! With no phone reception in sight, we drove to the nearest fuel station (which we were hoping was closer than our fuel tank would allow) to see if we can get some tools as the rig we were driving did not have any.
We were lucky enough to find one about 20 miles in. There we met this nice man from Paxson station – Bill – who lent daddy his jack so he was able to lift the RV and change the tire. It turned out the tire didn’t get a puncture; it just died out of natural causes, simply worn to death. Bill just shook his head in disbelief that someone would even rent out a car with this (internal) wheel on it. Oh well, lucky we had a spare one and daddy with superman abilities!
As we got back into our RV and started heading North, mummy had a look at a book, which we got with our RV (‘Alaska for Dummies’, hint? LOL) and discovered that we were going to be driving past a very interesting town called…NORTH POLE! ‘That’s not Santa’s place, is it?’ we asked and when mummy smirked we yelled ‘Wooohooo. Giddy-up!’
We stopped for a lunch break along the way (as it was still a bit of a drive). While our parents were cooking up something yummy we went outside to stretch our little legs and poke a stick into ‘something or rather’. Suddenly we heard a disturbing, scary noise. Howling. As in REALLY howling – a few dozen scary animals perhaps. ‘Wolves!’ – Bella cried. I don’t think we ever run as fast as we run to the motorhome that day! We knew daddy spotted a wolf crossing the road the night before when we drove late into the night - so there was NO slowing us down!
Wolves! We yelled as we hopped into the RV. Our parents opened the door and sure enough the howling was incredible. As soon as we got into the car, guess what our parents did? Yes, you got it – they got out to check them out! Mummy with her massive camera and daddy with a stick behind her. ‘We don’t want to lose you’ we cried as we stuck our noses to the window. Mummy kept going and going towards the woods and suddenly she turned around a started to laugh. It turned out someone had some kennels with huskies in the woods and they all were ‘singing away’. They sure sounded scary to us.
SO we kept driving. The watch was telling us that it was almost 5pm (not that you would know looking out the window), so we decided to stop over at a nearby lake for the night. This lake was defrosted (for a change). The weather started to warm up (we even got to our short sleeves) and the lake (Birch Lake) was smooth like a glass and just spectacular.
And so we decided to spend the night there. And lucky we did! We met these awesome three ladies who were renting a cabin nearby and were having a jolly good time. Carol, Mindy and Sharon. They brought their kayaks with them and two wonderful bears: a grizzly bear and a polar bear
Just kidding! These two adorable dogs are Bouvier de Flanders from Belgium and belong to Mindy, who in winter straps them up in harnesses and goes skiing. How cool is that! People in Alaska have so much fun!
The ‘Kayak Girls’ (as we are going to call them) were real fun; they joined us for a campfire that night and were chatting with our parents and playing with us till after 11pm. We were having so much fun that we didn’t even realize it was so late. With 19hrs of sunshine at this time of the year, it gets really confusing - In a nice kind of way! Who needs to sleep when you are having so much fun?
All three ladies used to do mushing and Sharon at one stage had 70 huskies! 70!!! That would’ve been incredible! We loved listening to their stories.
In the morning we helped our kayaking friends pack up and put their kayaks away.
We also helped them walk their beautiful bears…………..ahh – dogs
We left at about lunch-time as we had a special place to visit. Here is our new destination
We got there in under an hour and our first impression was: where is the snow? It was about 16C/approx. 60F, everybody was wearing short sleeves. In fact we received a phone call from my best friend in Australia (Pippa) as we were hopping out of the RV and guess what? It was the same temperature in Australia as well! That would not be the global warming people talk about, would it?
We went inside Santa’s house and wow, it was beautiful. Big, big shop with lots of Christmassy stuff but unfortunately no Santa in sight. Apparently he went on vacation, which would probably explain why four of his reindeers were missing. Including Rudolf.
We left our letters to Santa Clause with ‘pretty please’ wishes for Christmas. Our Nutella friends would be proud of us – we included a jar of Nutella on our wish list, LOL
We took some pictures, got a couple souvenirs, stuffed our little faces with some Santa’s fudge and off we went.
Outside we found something really cool. For years our parents have been telling us that they have a ‘direct’ phone number to Santa and if we misbehave they’ll ring him and ‘dob on us’. They would be very protective of the number and tell us that kids cannot have it so they don’t call him direct…
But guess what kids? Check this out - Santa is selling his bus AND he left his home number on it!!! Ha, ha, ha – gotcha mum and dad!
FAIRBANKS
The next day we arrived in Fairbanks and went on the most amazing Gold Mine tour.
First we hopped on a train where we were entertained by the incredible fiddler Earl Hughes, who was really funny and played incredible music. He taught us that the difference between the violin and a fiddle is that the fiddlers shave down the bridge so that you can hit two strings at once making a chord. So it turns out all fiddles start as violins. Incredible! Maybe now our parents will have more patience when I am practicing violin – they certainly love the sound of the fiddle! Just have to shave something off it, can’t remember what it was but I’ll figure it out (maybe).
We learned history along the way while our narrator talked. There were people along the way dressed in olden day costumes and were showing us how they used to pan for gold at the beginning and what sort of machines they used as they progressed.
We then stopped the train and listen to the owners, who told us about modern day placer mining methods. Dexter, the colorful miner also showed us how WE can pan for gold ourselves – which is exactly what we did right after we got off the train.
When we got off the train there were lots of pans waiting for us all lined up. Everybody got a sack full of dirt and rocks and off we went panning for gold. This tour guaranteed that we would find some gold so EVERYBODY was very excited!
As we paned the dirt and rocks away excited voices started to ….. One by one we all started to find some tiny glitzy yellow little shavings. Wooohooo!
Check out what we found!
Just kidding! These are worth about $10,000 each. Display only.
The 'shavings' we have found when we combined ours all together ended up being worth $96!!! Yay! That almost covered the cost of this excursion and it was probably most educational two hours of the last few months!
We met Dexter in person and he showed us some massive nuggets he carries in his pocket. He was a real funny character!
He told us that the gold in Australia was discovered by someone who came all the way to California because he heard that there was gold there. However because it took him 6 months to get to US from Australia on a boat, he missed a lot of opportunities. Since the boat needed 1 week to refuel and restock, the Australian used the time to have a look at the equipment used and the terrain and made a decision that the terrain in Australia was just as good. He promised himself he will go home and find gold within two weeks. And that’s EXACTLY what he did! His name was….. and he proves the point that ‘sometimes the riches you seek in the far away land is buried in your own backyard’. That’s not an actual quote by the way. Mummy just made it up but it sounded so poetic, we put it in inverted comers (‘’) LOL.
This little beauty as you can see is worth $60,000 and it sure was heavy!
Yukon Yonda, the boss lady, told Bella to tell daddy to buy her a front-end loader, bulldozer and a drill and then she can play in dirt to her heart’s content. She said you never know what you find in dirt. See mummy? Told ya! Don’t ever tell us off for getting dirty in the mud again! LOL
They also served yummy cookies and hot chocolate at the end, which certainly gave them big thumbs up from us.
Today this working mine pulls out approx. 10,000 ounces of gold a day!!! WOW!
At the end of the tour the narrator pulled us aside to tell us a bit about the big pipe which was going through their property. It was very fascinating.
The Alyeska pipe is 800 miles long and it carries apparently 600 barrels of oil per day. It has a capacity of holding 9 million barrels if it was totally full! That’s a lot of barrels! That’s a lot of money too apparently! All this oil gets transported aaaaaall the way to Texas to get refined and comes aaaaaaall the way back to Alaska as fuel.
He said that if you wanted to start an argument with an Alaskan simply ask them why is their fuel so expensive. This oil is creating 90% of the state income, which must be quite huge because every year the government hands out money to the residents of Alaska for simply living there!
Our parents were very impressed. No income taxes, no sales taxes and the government pays you to live there – how cool!
We went to town for a few hours to do some laundry, find McDonalds for Internet reception (when everything fails try McDonalds – says mum) and refuel. As we arrived at the gas station we saw a man on the side of the road with a sign saying he was hungry and homeless. So while daddy was fuelling up mummy and us prepared him huge lunch with sandwiches, a healthy drink and some fruits and we took it to him (with some money as well). He was so thrilled – he told us this was the best gift he has ever been given. We were happy we could help him.
In the afternoon we drove to Chena Hot Springs, about 50 miles from Fairbanks. The area was quite nice but the hot springs were a bit dated and could certainly do with some ‘spring’ cleaning. Made no difference to us – we had fun anyway. And our parents chatted away to new friends they met- Leanna and Jim who live half a year in Alaska (a cabin in the forest) and half a year in Texas (near our favorite spot in Bandera). They certainly got it right! We went to their campground after dinner and chatted for a while. Well, our parents chatted, we just played with their adorable dogs, Buddy and Alvin.
The next morning an awesome surprise awaited us. Remember the Kayak girls from the other day? Well, Sharon, one of the ladies has organized something absolutely ace for us! We went to visit her family who live on a large 200 plus acre farm and have lots and lots and lots of sled dogs. In fact with all the new puppies they will have close to 100 dogs!
Sonny, the main Musher and the man of the house is a very, very successful Iditarod competitor. For those of you back home who haven’t got a clue what it is – it is the most amazing annual dog race in Alaska, which runs for 1,049 miles!
We had no idea how professional and incredibly competitive this race is. We knew it sounded like fun but man, the amount of work, expense and professionalism that goes into it is incredible.
The dogs have to be on special diets and have to be trained every day (with a small vacation after the race). The equipment (i.e. sleds) are all custom designed and are all different for different occasions. Sonny has about 20 of them in his storage area.
Sonny drives the dog sleds approximately 15,000 miles a year. Wow! That is what we did in 6 months of driving! In a CAR! Those dogs must be so fit!
Sonny and his wife Gina were incredible hosts and were kind enough to show us how everything works. As the dogs were ‘on their vacation’ and also it was a bit too wet we couldn’t actually go on a sleds but it was awesome to learn how everything operates.
In fact the whole family was incredible and really got out of their way to show us how their farm operates.
Leslie showed us their wonderful gardens and greenhouses and explained to us how the plants have a very short period of time to grow as the spring/ summer lasts about 6 weeks. Apparently that is how long will take most plants (like tomatoes for example) to grow from tiny to full-grown. The advantage: 19 hours of sunlight!
Sharon, her daughter Erika and her grandchildren Aubery (10) and Ethan (9) have also joined us, which was great. We are so grateful to Sharon for organizing this ‘get together’.
Gina, Sonny’s wife let us walk her stunning Friesian horse.
Mummy was instantly in love – those who know her well– know that she just LOOOOOVES Friesians!
We also got to meet Sonny’s lead dog, Whip, which was a real treat. She was very jumpy at first (as all the other dogs were jealous she got picked) but then when she realized all we wanted was a little play she become the sweetest little dog.
We even got to cuddle little lambs
Sam (8) took us for ‘a pretend’ drive in
It was so nice meeting this wonderful group of people. Their hospitality was incredible (including the yummy food) and we were thrilled to be able to learn so much and play with all the cool kids. Mushers, we decided, absolutely rock!
In the afternoon we decided to see if Fairbanks had a stargazers club – it happened to be the 20th of May and we have learned that this was the day for a solar eclipse.
A solar eclipse happens when moon gets in the way of the Sun and mummy really wanted to photograph it. Here in Alaska the sun was only going to cover 60% of the sun but it was still worth seeing.
With a quick Internet search, we quickly located a club and went over to check it out. It was phenomenal! People gathered at the bird refuge area in Fairbanks and those fortunate enough to have binoculars and telescopes with special filters, were sharing them with others.
We got to see the eclipse through a lot of fancy telescopes
And binoculars
And even through common welding masks – that was probably the clearest view!
Mummy also got to photograph it.
And as our parents marveled over the meeting between the sun and the moon, we did what any young kids would do……climbed some trees.
We also met Katie, an adorable blue eyed husky.
When the clouds finally covered the moon-sun encounter and people started to disburse we so we drove around to a park where our parents cooked up some dinner.
While they were doing that we decided we are going to open…….. a business. A quick discussion between my sister and I and we had a business plan, marketing and signage ready. We decided we were gong to teach people how to do …origami.
Before our parents even noticed, we had signs plastered in all windows, a clipboard prepared (for client registration). It was only when I asked mummy to help me design a website she asked what we were up to. So we explained to her our business concept and as happy as she was for us to come up with such a creative idea, she had to burst our bubble. “We are not allowed to make money in this country girls”– she said. She then went to explain to us about the word illegal and about uncle Sam – who made up those rules. We were shattered!
‘What if we didn’t charge anybody?’ I asked, ‘would we still be breaking the rules?’ Mummy smiled “no, but why would you do that if it is a business?’ she asked “because people can give me some tips’ I said. Mummy just smiled and said ‘that’s my girl!’
And so we opened our business! Ooops, we are not allowed to call it that! Our ‘fun with paper sessions’ (origami). We took a clipboard out and would ask any person walking by if they wished to get into our origami classes.
Before you knew it we had people joining in. Mummy and daddy were very proud of us for the initiative and for being so outgoing. We even took a big group of young adults who certainly weren’t planning to be doing origami when they got up this morning to do just that -folding paper into little ducks. We had a ball and so did they. After our fist session we made $6.5 in tips and had a ball – beats making beds for pocket money in the morning! LOL
As the group was getting a bit rowdy, we decided to get back to the bird sanctuary area for the night. It was starting to get late (10pm - still light). When we arrived there, we found out that the nearby pond had been stocked with fish for some kid-fishing competition the day before. So we joined the group of fisherman and fished with them. The fact that we did not have any fishing rods got soon remedied – man next to us gave us some line and bait and he also let us reel in ALL the fish that he caught (6). We had so much fun! Fishing till midnight because it’s like daylight – only in Alaska!
The next day daddy decided that he would really like to go to the Arctic Circle. He said it would be shame to be so close to it and not go. ‘How many Australians’ he said ‘ can say they’ve been to the Arctic Circle?’. The only obstacle we had was that we were not allowed to take our RV onto Dalton Highway (the Ice trucker’s road- not that there was ANY snow!). A quick ring around and we found a solution – meet ‘TOM’ – a Dodge Ram 2500!
We had a choice between Tom (yes, they name all their cars) and Lily (a fancy Jeep Patriot). It wasn’t even a contest. We had one look at Tom and outvoted everybody – who takes something like Lily onto an Ice Trucker’s road anyway? We wanted TOM!
And so the Arctic adventure began. We had two days to cover 700 miles (1120km) on a very beautifully graded gravel and atrocious sections of asphalt with potholes big enough to swallow a moose.
Tom’s suspension was so tight that we felt like we were ridding a bucking bronco for most of the trip. But we made it to the circle and beyond! Here is a picture to prove it!
Along the way we saw some interesting roads and 'towns'
After resting for a while at the Arctic Circle we decided to keep going another 60 miles to the town called Coldfoot. A tiny little township with a big fuel station (where everybody refuels) and a pub where everybody eats. This is where we stopped for dinner (which by the way lived up to its reputation). When daddy asked them how much do they charge for kids meal, they just looked at each other and shrugged ‘Don’t know, never thought about it - we never see kids here. Do they eat much?’ they asked. When daddy showed them how much they just laughed and let us eat for free. I guess they are used to feeding hungry truckers there!
We also got to honk their horns. A lot of them!
We checked out the silver trucks, black trucks and the red trucks too!
We even met Jim-Bob and Nate. Jim – Bob (on the right) actually appeared on the ‘Ice Road Truckers’ television show (season 1, ep.7). He told us some hair-raising stories about some spectacular mishaps on the ice-covered roads, one of which was when he was trapped against a guardrail at the edge of a cliff for two and a half days because of an avalanche just before Christmas.
Another time he spun out of control in his fully loaded truck and ended up sliding backwards over 200 feet (70 meters)! Holy smoke!
Part of his job in winter is to drive onto the actual ocean (as it freezes in some parts). That’s where they drill for oil. How scary is that? Driving on the ocean???
Jim-Bob and Nate were so cool – they even let us hop into two separate trucks and talk to each other on the two- way radios! Man, we didn’t want to get out! LOL
As we were leaving Bella got all the truckers to synchronize honk - goodbye – melody. What wonderful music - it was ace!!!!
As it was still very, very light, we decided we would keep driving north. Our Truckie friends have suggested that another 120 miles and we are going to start seeing a lot of wildlife and beautiful vistas.
And that’s exactly what happened. First we saw a wolf running across the road. Then 30 seconds later a big grizzly run across after him. It was a huge bear and it was so exciting seeing it life. We have seen a lot of bears in the zoos but seeing it wild made it so much special. He was huge especially when he stood up to check us out. He soon decided that ‘Tom’ was a bit too big to take on and so the bear did a runner. Very, very fast!
We also saw a lot of caribou along the way.
We ended up driving about 175 miles past the Arctic Circle and our parents were seriously tempted to keep going all the way to the ocean however you could only get there with private guides (they don’t want you anywhere near the Alaskan Black gold mines (oil) which seem to occupy all that territory.
Also, that area seems to be quite populated by Grizzly’s vicious cousin (polar bear), which apparently is not that nice. The day before we left on this trip mummy’s friend sent us some horrific pictures of what happened to someone who decided to go camping in a tent and got a visit from a polar bear. A tent?!!! Really???
When we left on this arctic detour, we initially planned to stay the night in Coldfoot but then we heard from someone that the accommodation was not only extremely expensive (remoteness multiplied by oil?) and so we decided we would spend the night with “TOM”. There was a big enclosed area at the back of the truck where we transferred our mattress (from our the motorhome) and we were planning to spend the night there.
That was before we pulled off the road (at about 2am) when the temperatures dropped to 0C (32F) and the back of the car was………….. FREEZING. We also discovered that the lock at the back of the truck didn’t shut properly and it would take a baby bear about a minute and a half to open it and eat us. Oooops!
So we have all decided that we would sleep in the truck. It is amazing how the truck suddenly shrinks when one decides to spend a night in it. We seriously attempted to sleep but the constant daylight (the sun just doesn’t bother setting here at all) and lack of space (oh, yes we did try all sorts of yoga positions to get comfortable) left us all tired and miserable. At 6am we just simply gave up trying and turned around to head back.
We drove for a few hours before we decided to pull up near a river to munch on some breakfast and stretch out our weary bodies. We played for about an hour before we hit the road again. We drove for less than 5 minutes when daddy cried out ‘bear, bear’. We pulled aside to have a closer look and sure enough there was a big grizzly trying to reach something on the pipeline. The pipe hid its head most of the time, which suggested that it was at least 8 foot tall. And it was SO close to where we were walking around just minutes ago!
There were some road works near by and we told the ‘lollipop’ lady that there was a bear nearby. She said she knew about it because one of the workers camped out in a tent and got his tent shredded (lucky he worked at night and wasn’t there). In a tent? Are these people crazy?
She also said something really funny. She said that this bear usually hangs out by the river turn out (exactly where we had our breakfast). Ok, that’s enough lets get out of here!
We stopped again a few hours later at a ‘hot spot café’, which was a trucker’s wayside stop in a middle of nowhere. There we met Julie, the owner and told her about the bear encounter. She said a truck driver spotted three cubs playing on the road a few days earlier. Oh, how cute!
We continued back to Fairbanks following the famous pipeline
Mummy was really disappointed we couldn’t be in Alaska 6 weeks later when the salmon was to start its run. Apparently one can fly to Kodiak Island just off the main land and photograph the biggest grizzly bears in the world catching their dinner. She would’ve loved to do that but I guess one cannot be everywhere – we are yet to get to the east coast. If we were to hang around for the right timing with every stop, this trip would take at least 10 years.
Not that we would mind at all!
The next day we caught up on our sleep - 48 hrs with no sleep had taken its toll on us and so we snoozed till almost lunchtime.
After a decent nap we decided to check out a tour our Mushing friends have recommended. Gina asked us to text them when we decide to go on the Riverboat Discovery Tour and so we did.
Little did we know that Gina and Sonny would organize VIP passes for us to go on it! That was such a nice surprise! Certainly wasn’t expected.
The tour was tremendous! Aboard a steam powered paddleboat we cruised down the Chenna River and had a look at a lot of interesting things.
First we watched a pilot take off and land his airplane on the river. It was interesting watching the plane negotiate though the small front yard missing park benches and garden ornaments by just inches.
We then went pass David’s home (David is Gina and Sonny’s friend who organized our free passes- thanks David!)
David and his late wife Susan have been involved in sled dogging for many, many years. Susan in fact was the first woman to ever win the Iditarod competition (remember the 1049 mile dog races?)- not once, not twice but THREE times!
David showed us his dogs and then got them to pull him on his ATV. Boy, they were soooooo fast!!!
The highlight of the trip was a stop ashore at the Old Chena Indian Village, where lovely native girl, Ahley, took us on a tour and shared a lot interesting stories about her ancestors.
She told us how they used to live, hunt, fish, make clothing and make shelter. It was so interesting!
She even posed for us in some of their Native clothing, which was just beautiful!
She even let us climb the ‘cash’ with her for this photo. Check out all these beautiful furs from all different animals. That’s what they used for clothing.
And for shelter
The village had a truly fantastic display of Native village shelters as well as cabins of early prospectors and fur traders.
At the village we also got to see David and Susan’s dogs ‘in action’ as well as meeting David, who signed his book for us that he wrote with Susan about a dog who nobody had faith in and which ended up helping Susan WIN the Iditarod competition. A real hero story!
We so enjoyed this tour and highly recommend it to anyone raveling to Fairbanks. Very informative and fun!
Denali National Park 25th of May 2012
So we finally got to see the National Park everybody talks about – the mighty Denali. Denali in Athabascan means ‘The Big One’ and the 6.5million acre national park is called that because it ‘houses’ the tallest mountain in the United States called Denali (Mt McKinley). In fact all top 16 tallest mountains in the USA are in Alaska. Everything is big in Alaska!
The top of mount McKinley is 20,320 feet above sea level. The interesting fact is that this mountain it is actually THE tallest mountain in the world from its base to its top! Sure some other mountains in other continents are taller in total, but they all start from higher ground to begin with. And to top it all off - Denali grows an inch every three years. See the massive slab of earth crust Denali sits on is constantly crushing itself against Alaskan southern coast.
The drive between Faibanks and Denali National Park was also quite spectacular. A few nice pull outs along the way
And some nice bridges
When we arrived at the park it was late afternoon. The only way one can actually see the park is on a shuttle bus as no private vehicles are allowed to pass the first 15 miles.
As it was too late to take the shuttle bus we went to check out the town and do some window-shopping. Not that we needed any windows but just looking and ‘stuff’ was fun.
After a while daddy plonked himself on this bench. There was a plaque announcing the bench was designated for his purpose. He waited for a while
And some more
And then he thought he’d just have a snooze…
After we were done with the shops we ended up in a photographers gallery. And what do you know – he happened to have a studio with lots of dress up clothes – oh yeah!
Mummy thought this was a tremendous opportunity to get an ‘Alaskan theme’ cover-book portrait., so here it is.
Mummy made friends with the photographer and she allowed her to use the studio for a few more shots – we just LOVED dressing up in those beautiful furs.
After the photo shoot we went for a drive on the 15-mile stretch of road, which was allowed to be driven on by private cars. As it was getting late (not dark though) we got a chance to see some wildlife.
The next day we went for a 6 hrs drive in a shuttle bus. Unfortunately most of the park was still closed off due to roads being maintained and so we only got a chance to see half of the park.
The ride was great although we didn’t get a chance to see a lot of animals. Occasionally someone would yell ‘stop’ to the bus driver because they’d spot some animal although most of the time they’d be the size of pinhead. Even with mummy’s super-duper big lens, after severe cropping, they looked tiny. I guess that’s what happens when you have wildlife roaming 6.5mil acres, LOL
In saying that however we have spoken to some really lovely Australian who we met along the way and they had seen bears and other wildlife up close. So you just never know.
During our break in a mid way point we completed our Junior Ranger program with Ranger Bob. He was awesome! He showed us all different furs of animals and showed us what bears can do to cans of food.
Also, after swearing us in as Junior Rangers he made a big announcement to everybody in the building. Once again we got a huge applause. Boy, we are seriously getting famous!
On the way back we stopped a few more times to take photos of some animals, still a bit off into the landscape. Although this time mummy’s camera brought them back a bit.
But most of the time when people were rushing to one side to take picture of a dall sheep somewhere up, up in the mountains, mummy would open a window on the other side and take photos of the beautiful landscape – certainly beat the little pinhead up on the rocks- LOL
After we arrived back at the bus depot we wondered off to check out the beautiful train that goes past Denali twice a day. It was big and noisy and it looked like something from the olden days. It was ace!!!
We of course stood there and gave all the travellers a decent farewell. Even the train engineer made a special sound for us when we waved him goodbye.
After our dinner we went on an evening drive. And guess what? A lot of animals decided to come up to the road!
There were bunnies
And baby moose
And there was the mum with newborn twins hopping around. They were so adorable!
At the 15 mile turn around (where cars were no longer allowed) we thought we would stop for a little hike (close by so that the bears don’t eat us) but this idea when right out the window when we realized how cold it was getting. Being still light one would think it was mid afternoon but it was pushing 10pm. No wonder it was getting so chilly
As we got out of the car for a while we met some ‘stranded’ Texans. Their car had decided to call it quits for the day. We even tried helping them to push it, but the car wouldn’t have it.
They had been waiting there for a while so we fed them, gave them a drink and took them into our still cozy and warm RV. We then delivered our Texan friends back to their home in town. They were really funny, especially Brando who kept us very entertained on the way back. He had long hair so we dressed him up as a…… girl. Lucky (for him) our mummy was there otherwise he’d end up with lipstick and all…
Next day we left to continue on our journey and came across a Mt. McKinley lookout. And there she was, in her glory – the Lady Denali! (well, we called her a Lady because ‘she’ was so pretty!!!)
At the lookout we caught up with lovely Australians we met on the way – what a small world! We actually met a few days earlier so it was nice to see them again. They had travelled over 30hrs on the plane to get to Alaska – ouch, that’s a long flight!
As our parents were chatting away, Bella wondered off offering her free ‘photographic services’ to all the tourists. People were handing her over their cameras and posing for the photos in front of Denali. This is how we met another nice couple who have been to Australia before. Only after a twenty minute conversation they offered mummy some freshly smoked salmon. They said we couldn’t leave Alaska without trying some. How nice of them was that? We truly don’t know how we attract all these wonderful people….
Just after we said goodbye to them a bunch of bikies arrived. So …..we wondered off to say ‘G’day’ and of course they let us climb onto their bikes to check them out (dad, can we get one of those bikes when we get home?)
And try on some groovy helmets
Our destination for the day was a town called Wasilla, where the Iditarod (the dog sled competition) headquarters are. We did stop however for lunch in a groovy little town called Talkeetna. It happened to be a special day that day (Memorial Day) and so the whole town was buzzing with activities and markets.
We went through the little market and made a few new friends. I (Jordi) met a lovely artist, David Totten, who was kind enough to give me a drawing lesson.
Bella, of course, was drawn to jewelry - and so she found a lady who taught her how to make some beautiful bracelets.
We finally made it to the Iditarod Headquarters in the late afternoon just before they were ready to close for the day. Unfortunately the man with his huskies (…….- who happens to be the son of a man who started the Iditarod) was gone for the day.
So we have decided to stick around for till he next day. We were recommended a campground nearby and so we planned for an early night (by then we hadn’t slept for over two weeks – well hardly sleptAs it turned out – the early night was not to happen. When we got to the campground we quickly spotted some kids. Being ‘cooped up’ in the motorhome for this long with mostly grown-ups to play, it was party from the word ‘GO’.
We made friends with two different families, with 6 kids in total. We had a blast! Needles to say we did not go to bed till midnight (ooops!)
As soon as the door opened at the Iditarod Headquarters, we were there. …..arrived with his lovely dogs and two cute little pups.
We finally got a chance to go Mushing – dog sledding. Well, since it was spring already and no snow in site, we got to sit in a cart instead of a sled. Wow, those dogs were so fast. We even got to yell out ‘Mush!” which is Alaskan for ‘go’. And mush they did!
When we got to Anchorage we decided to the Native Cultural Centre, which was very interesting.
We had a look at their replicas of native homes
Met some artists. Mummy ended up buying a beautiful painting from one of them.
In fact we liked them so much we ended up joining them on stage to teach them how to do 'hockey pokey'. Why not? Nothing like cultural exchange, LOL
In the afternoon we caught up with one of the families we met at campground. Our parents really hit it off with them and we really enjoyed playing with their kids
We all ended up going to a cinema restaurant to watch ‘Mirror, Mirror’ and munch on yummy pizza
Afterwards, they invited us over to their lovely home. Our parents shared a lovely bottle of wine with their parents, Kasja and Nick while we enjoyed some yummy ice-cream and watched 3D movies. It was sooo cool!
And then we played some dress-ups. You like?
And then we played some dress-ups. You like?
McKenna ended up having a sleepover in our motorhome, as we stayed parked in our friends’ driveway overnight. Needless to say, we had a blast together.
We had only a couple days left in Alaska and our parents decided that we really need to go to Valdez. Along the way people were telling us how beautiful the drive was so mummy and daddy decided to drive there (even though it was a bit out of the way).
Along the way, daddy pulled up to the side of the road when he spotted a little sign saying airport. See we really wanted to see the glaciers but we haven’t had much luck with them as they either were under snow or impossible to get to.
So we pulled up at the airport (which after entering we realized it was a private operation). Mummy hopped out and went to speak to the owner. She asked him if he could take us to see some glaciers and he said ‘sure’. She then asked him how much he would charge us and he said ….’Nothing’. She asked him again a bit confused and he explained to her that he doesn’t do commercial flights and so he doesn’t charge but he runs a non –profit missionary teaching other pilots how to fly so they can get to remote areas. He said he’d be happy to accept a donation but it is up to us how much we would like to give him (if anything at all). He’d be happy to fly us either way. Really? Do people so nice exist???
Mummy and Dwayne King (the owner) then talked for a bit more and worked out what would be an appropriate donation so that Dwayne definitely ends up in front but the figure they came up with was a fraction what it would cost us commercially.
They also decided we would take the flight the following day as Dwayne needed to attend a function that afternoon (to which he also invited us).
We needed to decline the offer as we still wanted to get to Valdez and we needed all this time to get there and back so we could meet our 8am scheduled glacier flight.
Dwayne insisted that we stay on his property overnight when we get back from Valdez. He suggested to tuck our motorhome nicely next to one of his airplanes.
After all the arrangements were made, we continued to Valdez, which ended up much, much further than we expected.
The scenery however was getting quite beautiful the further we drove.
As we drove to the car park, which was nicely plowed we realized it might not be as easy to get to the glacier as we thought. The wall of the plowed snow was higher then our heads!
Check this out – you can hardly see our car!
Or the building...
Check this out – you can hardly see our car!
Or the building...
As we walked around we noticed that there were some footprints on the snow, which were leading towards the glacier so we decided to follow them.
A dozen steps in and mummy was the first one to almost disappear under the snow – just went in like a lead balloon (well, truth be told she’s not THAT much taller than us, hence she almost disappeared, LOL). Daddy helped her get out - just to lose one of his limbs under the snow 30 seconds later. We decided maybe we were a bit too ambitious trying to get to the glacier through this 5 ft high snow powder.
On the way back as we maneuvered and carefully watched not to loose an more body parts under the snow, we discovered who’s footsteps we were following.
A grizzly bear’s of course. Brrrrrr! We go back into our motorhome in how should we put it? A TIMELY MANNER
The further we drove, the more beautiful it got.
Check out these waterfalls we saw on the side of the road.
Check out these waterfalls we saw on the side of the road.
We finally reached Valdez, which is a non-descriptive little town. The only interesting part about it is that that is where the big 800 mile Alyeska oil pipe finishes. It was once a very well known town…for the spillage of oil into the ocean. It all had been cleaned up now.
We had our dinner in the motorhome and then we decided to head straight back…it was almost midnight. As we were cooking our dinner all sort of creatures started to wander out – we even saw a couple of black bears!
We hopped into bed as daddy drove all the way back with mummy keeping him company. It was a loooooong way back. In fact by the time we got back to the airport, it was 4am!
Mummy and daddy had to pay attention to the animals as a lot of them were wondering down the streets. Daddy counted 20 moose! It wasn’t extremely dark but a bit too dim to take pictures so daddy gave us an impersonation first thing in the morning.
We finally got to the airport and as per pilot’s instructions; we cuddled up to one of the planes near a runway. Not often do you get a chance to sleep at the airport, next to the plane.
You also don’t often get to snooze on one either
You also don’t often get to snooze on one either
In the morning, only 3 hrs after our arrival, we joined the whole crew of pilots and engineers for breakfast. It was mighty delicious!
And then we squeezed into a tiny airplane and went for our joyride. The plane was a bit squishy but the views certainly made up for it!
The mountains were spectacular
And so were the glaciers – finally on our last day we got to see them!
The drive back to Anchorage wasn't bad either
We still had a few hours to fly out (11:55pm) and our Motorhome rental people were gracious enough to let us keep it till the late evening so we didn’t have to drag our language around the streets of Anchorage. This gave us plenty of time to go and check out the Anchorage Zoo. And it was fabulous- full of all different cold-weather animals!
Right at the entry we saw some big, big polar bears. Wow, lucky we didn’t come across these ones anywhere in the wild! They were humongous!
Yet so beautiful!
There were a lot of nice animals there but the ones we spent a lot of time looking at were the wolves
The arctic foxes, which were adorable!
And the grizzly bears, which by now have almost reached the top of our favorite animals list!
We got to the airport ahead of time and settled in at the waiting area for our Colorado bound plane to arrive. Unfortunately the plane was delayed by an hour. Fortunately we had plenty of movies on our computer to keep us occupied.
By the time we got on the plane we were so tired that we fell asleep before the plane even took off. Three weeks of hardly any sleep (come on, the sun doesn’t sleep – why should we?) certainly took a toll on our little bodies.
When we touched ground back in Colorado, we sadly realized that we already missed Alaska.
When we touched ground back in Colorado, we sadly realized that we already missed Alaska.
Absolutely wonderful photos, Anna. What an amazing gift you have given your girls, they really seem to enjoy and appreciate each new adventure. I really enjoyed your blog! When are you heading home?
ReplyDeleteNutella