Sunday, October 24, 2010

Alaska - Days One and Two

Day One - AKA, L's 30th Birthday

Our flight was early... which meant that the kids were going to be up for the day. Which meant keeping them entertained on two longish flights... with a 2 hour layover in between.

Sigh.

I can summarize the flights with - "it did not go well." A did ok. H, however, was the epitome of three and threw tantrum after tantrum. Apologies to those on our flight.

L's trip to Alaska completes her quest to visit all 50!
Arrived in Alaska with little time to do anything but gather our rental car and head to the hotel.

Our rad minivan for the trip
Outside Anchorage

Dinner at Applebee's, L celebrated with a margarita. Early to bed.

Day 2 - Anchorage Zoo

The kids were up so ridiculously early. Like before 5:00 am early. Oy. And in Alaska at this time of year it doesn't get light out until almost 9:00 am!! Since we had time to kill we had some breakfast and then pawned the kids off on my parents so we could go to the fitness center and get a workout in. I hadn't run since my 20 miler and was itching to get some miles done.

First 30
Second 30
Outfit
If you have any question where I get my OCD and sense of adventure from, it's certainly my Dad. He is currently on a quest to ride his bike in all 50 states - he is a lot closer to his goal than I am! With as far as we had to travel, it was of course not practical for him to bring his own bike. If you have never been to Alaska in October, it is the beginning of the "off season" and a lot of "touristy" things are shut down for the year. Originally our forecast for the entire week was rain and snow. So on our first day when we saw that it might be dry and somewhat sunny out, my dad found a place to rent a bike and decided to go for 2 hour bike ride.

My Dad with rental bike


The rest of us killed time at the visitor center.

A outside the visitor center
We watched a video about all the "cool" animals in Alaska. My Dad isn't a big fan of going to the zoo, so we decided to do that while he was out riding his bike. The Anchorage Zoo is neat because it houses only animals that are actually native to Alaska. It's really spread out and you feel like you are in the middle of a forest walking through it.


A and H in front of the "bored" moose

We learned bears in the zoo hibernate too!
Alpaca
Dall Sheep - this one was missing a horn :(

Dinner? Boston Pizza. Early to bed.

2 comments:

  1. GRRREAT job keeping your sanity while traveling with kiddos and getting in your runs... sheesh just thinking about all that makes me tired!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow - I can't imagine it being dark at 9am. That's kind of cool!

    ReplyDelete

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