Parents to Alaska

I am sure many of you who know my parents closely have already heard a lot about their trip to visit me, but here are some more pictures anyway.

A birthday gift from a gift shop in Glennallen. I laugh every time I look at the guy's face

Mom and Dad in Kennecott

So my mom and dad flew into Anchorage on June 29^th. I had just flown back from Grizzly Lake earlier in the day. So I had to get back to boxtown, quickly wash some clothes and then pack to go pick up my parents. I got into Anchorage at about 10:15pm and just had to hang out for a while until their flight came in at 11pm. I drove them directly to the hotel because they were pretty tired when they finally were able to get out of the crowd of people along with their bags. I asked my parents to pack lightly before they came; so of course they both had large checked bags, the largest allowed carry on and a smaller personal item. (Rolling my eyes, haha) Luckily my car has a large trunk.

orca pod

The next day we woke up early because we had to have the car packed and ready to go by 8:30 in order to get to Seward on time for a day Cruise. Seward is about a 2hour and 40min drive and we need to be there by 11 am with the trip at 12pm, so we had enough time. The day cruise was really fun. At the beginning of the trip my mom asked me what I wanted to see. I had 4 things that I have always wanted to see; humpback whales, orcas, porpoise, and puffins. If I got to see those my trip was complete and I was more than happy. Well what do you know, wishes do come true because

humpback whale (there were two)

I got to see each and every one of those animals and then some (although the porpoise I saw really only lifted its fine out of the water for a half of a second so I am not actually sure I saw it, but who is complaining?).

Our hotel was in Seward so we hung out there for about half of the next day, but we needed to make our way to Anchorage to pick up supplies and also to continue on to Wrangell-St. Elias. I showed my parents the awesome Brown Jug Warehouse liquor store (my dad enjoyed, mom not so much but oh well). We also stopped and

ate at Moose’s Tooth. They make super good homemade pizza there so it was an obvious suggestion. Then we were on our way to the park. Now for those of you who do not know, Alaska is a very VERY mountainous state. So when driving really anywhere you have to drive up, down, and around mountains. In addition to this, guard rails are not always present (actually there are a lot of times they are no more than a few poles sticking in the ground with reflectors). Call me crazy, but I am not too fazed about that sort of thing. Now my mom on the other hand does not like heights and she just so happened to be sitting on the side closest to the edge. I thought it was funny but I don’t think she did haha.

The rest of the week I had work as normal so I didn’t see my parents during the day. I did cook for them a couple of nights. The first night I cooked up a fillet of burbot I had from Grizzly Lake. The second night we make steak and fresh salmon my parents had caught down in the coastal town of Valdez.

On the 4^th of July I had to be in McCarthy early to run a booth for the Exotic Plant Management Team. That means we got to wake up and be out the door by 6am to make the 3hr trip on the dirt road to McCarthy. It wasn’t that bad though. There was a little parade in the town we got to watch and people seemed pretty happy that we were working to keep out invasive plants in the park. My parents decided to go on a flight seeing tour so I had some free time to hang out with some of my co-workers who were in McCarthy for the festivities. We all ended up going swimming in this little area that is sort of offset from the glacial fed river. It was super nice. Some of the people were complaining it was cold, but compared to the river it was a hot ^th of July.

spring so I wasn’t saying anything. When my parents returned from their flight we all went up to Kennecott (it is an old copper mine from the early 1900’s and is a national historic site that is being restored), to look around and do a little hiking. My parents wanted to go out on the glacier, but we got up there too late for that, so we just hiked to the top of this little waterfall with a foot bridge across it. All in all it was a pretty good 4

On the 5^th we all got up early again and were out the door by 6am. It is a 7hour drive from McCarthy to Anchorage and my parents wanted to do some souvenir shopping in Anchorage before their flight at 4pm. In Anchorage we went to the Ulu factory (an ulu is a type of knife that has been used for many hundreds of years by native Alaskans), to a pretty huge super tourist shop, and my mom got to go to a quilt shop. Then it was off to the airport.