David and I recently had the chance to go to Alaska for a week to visit friends and do some site seeing, it was so wonderful and everything was just as beautiful as I remember it as a kid when I lived there. Plus it was awesome to see some really great friends that I haven't seen in a while.
Downtown Anchorage during a week day, quiet, clean and a pretty.
We did a lot of driving because Alaska is so big, between towns of interest you drive through really beautiful country, which meant a lot of great pictures from the car like this one on the way to Girdwood and Seward both south of Anchorage. Girdwood was where we went to go skiing and hang out with friends a lot on the weekends.
Walking on the bike path, Anchorage has a whole network of bike paths in the city along the coast and the culture for bikers is great, I have fond memories of biking for hours on these paths as a kid. On the right in this picture is our good friend Vivian, a crazy awesome girl and her dog Sweatpants, a very sweet and beautiful pittbull.
Moose are everywhere in the city especially this time of year when the trees are budding at sea level and there is still snow in the mountains. We saw nine moose and the Renfro's, Vivian's family talks about them like we talk about deer, usually the pest who eats our garden.
David looking dashing at the beach, just had to put this in because he's so handsome.
Love this picture too, we are the cutest :-)
Vivian and I super excited to see each other after so many years and sweatpants having a blast on the beach.
We attempted a short walk through the woods one day along the Old Seward Highway, however on the way in we were warned by some old friends we ran into that a bear and 2 cubs were just off the trail about 2mi up and then we started walking and 1/2mi in a moose was standing right next to the trail and well that was enough for us to turn around :-( Oh big wild animals, you never know what they are going to do.
On the trail after seeing the moose, and Sweatpants wishing we would let him chase the moose.
Beer, beer and more beer. We went up thinking we'll be hiking a whole bunch but with all the snow we ended up eating tons of good fish and drinking lots of microbrew beer, which is fine with me! This is taken at Midnight Brewery in Anchorage, so good.
THE BAKE SHOP!!! This is the best breakfast place ever, it's in Girdwood and Vivian would take me here all the time as kids cause it was right down the street in the little ski town from her house and the breakfast food was awesome. And I don't think the place had changed a bit since 6th grade. It was sooo very good.
The outside of The Bake Shop, literally sitting at the bottom of Alyeska the ski mountain.
In Seward, south of Anchorage. Vivian being her self. This town 4x in population (it might even be more) the weekend of July 4th because of a race called the Mountain Marathon, tons of people run, and you run straight up this mountain which I've hiked and it's hard to hike and then down a gravel shute. It's quite the race and tons of people come to watch and camp. It's a lot of fun. But when we were there it was the quiet typical day in Seward.
Us attempting a jumping pictures
At the Seward Sealife Center, even the animals are big up there
Hiking up flat top, a great hike right in Anchorage, couldn't make it to the top because of snow
Close to the top of Flat Top :-) with Vivian and Sweatpants
Saturday Market in Anchorage where you can find great food, gear and music
Tom, Anne and myself, good family friends
At Anne and Tom's Cabin just north of Palmer, AK. Such a beautiful place, surrounded by mountains and quiet, sleeping in a loft, warmth by fire place, food by grill, soaking in a paddle hot tub, it was a great way to close our visit to Anchorage with a night to ourselves.
Canoeing in the valley at the cabin, tons of birds nesting right in the reeds at water side
The view from the porch at the cabin
The view on the drive back to from Anne and Tom's cabin to Anchorage
Overall it was an awesome trip!! We had a great time, saw some good friends, made some new friends, saw some great sites, ate good food and drank good drinks. Sad to have had only 6 days there :-(
