Whats on the agenda?

So I originally started this blog to share my travels with the friends who might want to know about them, or the strangers who were curious, and because I was going to go to a ridiculous amount of places in a short amount of time. But, a great deal of my planning there was a lot of planning and only limited actual travel. Regardless, I kept this blog up for the times that I DID travel, and even though I am not *great* at sharing my travel stories, I like to think that I am getting better- I mean I did write almost every day while we were in Alaska.
Now, on to the purpose of this post. No, I'm not currently somewhere exciting. No, I dont actually have the tickets to somewhere exciting. But YES, I do have a few trips in the works, and since this is my travel blog, I am going to share them with whoever might actually read this thing! :)
Last year I had a friend go to Japan, and she will be there for at least another year. This past Sunday I had a friend run off to China and he will be there for a year. And then a third friend will be running away to France at the end of next month. So I have decided that I am going to go to France for my birthday next year! Then we are going to take a family vacation to Disney. And finally, I am going to try to gather my Transy family and any significant others that we might have for a week in South Carolina. I need to hit a *new* state or two, but Im not going to worry so much about those- they will come.
And there you have my latest news!
Oh, and for anyone who might be reading this, I am taking suggestions for a long weekend trip this fall. Hmm... maybe NYC? Who knows, but I want SOMEWHERE TO GO!! :)

Onward Seward!

I wrote this yesterday, to post yesterday, but we didnt have wifi at yesterdays B&B, so I am posting it today, therefore my tenses might convince you, but Im not going to change them. That clause is for my Grammar Nazi friends. :)

First thing is first, in last nights post I failed to mention that our hotel was located on East Pioneer Ave. And we live on East Pioneer Drive- we just HAD to stay there.
Back to today. I didn’t sleep well at ALL and finally gave up around 5:30. I was exhausted, I had some awful sinus gunk and someone was texting me, not to mentioned I was a little worried about getting from Homer to Seward in a timely fashion for our boat tour. See, it normally takes about 3.5 hours and the person who booked the tour said we needed to allow 5 hours. So that means leave somewhere between 6:30 and 7. Yea, well my dear old mother and father didn’t get UP til 6:30, so I wait, and wait and wait and we leave at 7 but we need breakfast, so we go to McDonalds, and we actually hit the road at 7:19. Sigh. Not the way the morning was supposed to go. But finally we are on the road, dad is too tired to drive, so I am driving- and I book it, safely, of course while dad sleeps. I get us to Cooper Landing which is about an hour away from Seward and we stop for gas and dad decides to drive. Finally, we make it to Seward, and we are an hour early. So all of that frustration and mental death threats for nothing! 
Once we arrived we got some Subway for our lunch on the boat. Then we picked up our tickets, I mailed my postcards at the oh so perfectly placed postal thingy’s and we boarded the boat. The captain was giving his welcome and he said “The crew is hard working, good looking and mostly single. Oh yea, and they know CPR and first aid.” Cracked me up- because he was speaking the truth, at least about the good looking bit.  We went for a 5.5 hour tour that included wildlife and glaciers!  We saw a couple of bald eagles first, then a humpback whale that was breaching- so cool, then some glaciers. Dad and I were suffering from sinus issues and it got cold out there on the Alaska waters- burrrrr! - so we went inside for a bit, but then porpoises, sea lions, puffins, mers, otters, and seals were all spotted- pretty cool, yo. On the way back from out expedition I was pretty tuckered out, so I put my head down and took a little nap.
Once we docked we put our boat gear in the car and went shopping! I got 2 more t-shirts, to go with my fleece, my other t-shirts and my pajama pants and socks! But we were pretty exhausted to we decided to go on to tonights bed and breakfast. Hah. We drive out of Seward, turn on the appropriate road and then pass by a dump and a trailer park- it looks pretty run down so we are thinking, Oh crap, what have we done, but then we see the sign for our little B&B. Its quaint, and not as scary as it looked driving up. We are in the “King” room which has a queen bed, a twin and a roll out mattress. In the middle of the room is a table and 3 chairs and we have cable tv, but no wifi- or any internet for that reason, so this post wont be posted until I can find wifi, but I wanted to write it while it was all still fresh in my mind. There are random noises that sound like gunshots that are a little unsettling, but its all part of the adventure, right?! 

Homer Bound

So, the saying in Homer is that it is a drinking village with a fishing problem. :)
Today we started at our bed and breakfast, David cooked us breakfast and provided some great stories, mostly his story about how he went to Hawaii in 2006 and it changed his life. He came home and quit his job, sold his computer company, sold his real estate, divorced his wife- they had been separated for 2 years, and packed everything up and moved on. He now spends winters in Hawaii, summers in Alaska and then springs and falls in Colorado!
Then we were gathering our stuff and getting ready to leave and I hear mention of stamps. Stamps, I need stamps, Ive written 4 postcards. So I grab some money and ask for stamps. Well, he doesnt know how much a postcard stamp IS, so I helpfully say "its 15 cents less than a regular stamp" to which he looks at me and says "Why do you know that?!" I dont know what I know that, I just do. I then suggest that a regular stamp was 47 cents, he said no, its 45, and Irene- the B&B owner says no, its 44. (I was right, its 47 cents!) And then he goes to count a sheet of stamps, and I say, ever the helpful one, "There's 20 on a sheet" and David just looks at me like "What planet did you come from?!" haha. But it was funny. And then he was going to count how much I owed him and he said "1.90, know how I know that? There are 19 stamps on this sheet and they are 10 cents each" It might be one of those "You had to be there" type of things, but it was hilarious. It got really confusing and I think I got more stamps than I paid for and then I think he gave me too much change, but you know, it was funny and easy going so all is well.
And then we were off, another 4 hour drive, this time to Homer, at the bottom of the Kenai peninsula. We stopped at a wildlife refuge where we saw Bison, Elk, Moose, Bears and other things but the cutest things were the baby moose and the baby muskoxen. SO VERY CUTE. Moose are like a mix between a horse and a camel, and I love both which means I love moose and now I want a moose, desperately!! But, I know, they are wild animals and people shouldnt own wild animals- so I will just yearn for one from afar!
Once we got back into the car, it was a long haul down to Homer. Let me tell you something I havent yet mentioned, there are RV's here- EVERYWHERE. Like seriously, every 3rd vehicle on the road is a RV- its CRAZY. So our long drive seemed to take longer. I dont actually know how long we were on the road- we left the B&B around 9:30 and we got to Homer around 3:30 but we stopped for gas, that wildlife refuge and lunch at McDonalds!
The whole reason we came to Homer was for me to see a friend from Transy. So I texted her once we got in but she wasnt free til 6, so we were lazy and just hung out for a bit- did some laundry actually, and then went to the Homer Slip- a little piece of land that has a restaurant called "Land's End" at the end of it- where we ate dinner. It also has some little shops and one of the "Deadliest Catch" boats docks here, apparently. So we had dinner with my Transy friend- Amanda- and hung out and talked and saw a Bald Eagle grab a fish out of the water, and I saw an otter and it was a good time. Then we went to the pier and saw about 4-5 bald eagles just kind of hanging out- waiting for the fishermen to bring back some food for them to steal!
Then it was back to the hotel- tonight we have a suite and its been our cheapest night in Alaska yet!
And now its almost 10:30, and I should go to bed, because we have to be gone tomorrow by 7 am. But I was writing this post- hoping that maybe someone is waiting with baited breath for our latest adventure. And now, I need a shower. Til tomorrow, folks. Goodnight!

On the road again.

Today wasnt very exciting. We woke up- I was the late riser, and we had breakfast at the hotel. You know one of those outrageously expensive resort breakfasts that are delicious? Yea, thats what we had- I'm still feeling the effects of it even though I ate it about 12 hours ago!
Then once breakfast was done we packed up and headed back towards Anchorage. The drive seemed to take FOREVER. Dad even almost fell asleep- not cool man, not cool at all.
But finally we got to Wasilla and had lunch. Then we headed over to Palmer to see the Musk Ox farm- which I have to admit was pretty cool. They are big fuzzy animals that we couldnt pet, but there were 2 that we could feed, go figure. Anyway, that was a nice little stop. Then we finished our journey to Anchorage and are staying the night in a Bed and Breakfast.
Mom, dad and Grandma are loving the bed and breakfast thing. Me, Im not so convinced. I kind of love hotels though, so maybe thats my problem. Its just with a Bed and Breakfast you are in or around someone's home and someone that you dont know, it just feels a bit odd to me.
Tomorrow we head down to Homer so I can see a friend from Transy. Then Friday we are headed back up to Whittier and perhaps taking a tour and then Saturday we shall come BACK to Anchorage so we can leave Sunday. Shew. Lots of driving. Homer is another 4 hour drive- my father may kill me by the end of this trip! I'm kidding, he might get frustrated, but I dont THINK he will kill me. :)

Bear necessities

This morning started early, especially since I stayed up late talking to friends last night. Shew, that wake up call was NOT welcome, but it happened, and I woke up and off we went.
Yesterday we signed up for an 8 hour wildlife viewing tour through the Denali National Park.
So we get to Denali and we are the last group on the bus, but our bus driver, John Miller is WONDERFUL. I mean within 2 minutes of us being on the bus we are laughing. But the day is a dreary rainy foggy cold pretty icky day. Sigh.
Regardless, off we go. The first animal we come across is a snowshoe hare, not to be confused with a rabbit, apparently the difference is that a rabbit cannot change color whereas the hare does. The hare is white in the winter and brown now. And I know this makes sense but I still found it amusing: their feet are HUGE in comparison to the rest of their body. Yea, thats the one thing that I picked up about the hare.
Further into the park we go, John is giving us all kinds of info, the history of the park, the geology of Alaska, the history of the animals, the rivers and the mountains and while that might sound boring, he was a very good storyteller so it was fascinating.
But the miles came and went and there were few sightings of wildlife. We did see 2 caribou from afar, really really afar. And someone asked the difference between caribou and reindeer and the answer is that genetically there is no difference, but reindeer are shorter. We dont want reindeer to crossbreed with the wild caribou though because it would make them shorter and less likely to do well in the winter. The remaining question though is would a reindeer/caribou cross be a carideer or a rainbou? :)
We saw some mountain sheep, just chillin on the top of a mountain checkin us out, chewin their cud- it was amusing but again, not all that exciting. We want to see bears and moose!
We keep driving, further and further and further into the park. The road is now a 1.5 lane rock road and we are on an upgraded school bus- and there are steep cliffs and other upgraded school buses, coming the opposite direction! But our guide is not only a very good guide hes a very good driver and we all stay safe!!
So probably a mile before we get to the turnaround place we come across a momma bear and her 2 springers... that means the cubs that she had with her were born this past January. Bear mommas take care of their cubs for 3-4 years. And this big ol momma grizzly was just chillin on a hillside, eatin some plants. The cubs were kind of checkin things out and playing- but they were all totally ignoring the buses that were lining up to watch them. Momma grizzly then decided to cross the road- RIGHT IN FRONT OF OUR BUS! So cool! We took this opportunity to go do our turnaround and then come back where we got to spend more time watching the momma and babies. Let me tell you, I am so glad I got to see a WILD grizzly bear in person, what an experience, amazing!
And then on our way back we saw a couple of moose! Experience complete. What a freakin awesome tour.
One unexpected but enjoyable thing about the day is that once inside the park theres no cell phone service. Now, unfortunately I told a friend that I would be glued to my phone- and I was, because I took pictures with it, but there was no service. It was kind of cool though, no electronic binging of phones, it was very much a wilderness experience, that is except we were on a bus and safely away from the animals! :) haha. 
But, wait for it, our day is not yet complete!
Once we get some hot chocolate and back to our car we decide to check out the sled dogs that the park has- they have puppies too!! We got to pet the dogs and then got a demonstration that talked about the history and the current status of sled dogs- it was pretty good, even if I did get yelled at for crossing the rope to try and pet the dogs- I am a dog person, I want to pet them!! And they werent clear in the directions that one shouldnt cross the rope!! But in all honesty- sometimes I just have to break a rule! haha. :)
After we saw the dogs mom and grandma went to look at the science center while dad and I stayed in the car- mom and grandma got lost, surprise surprise, but eventually they found us and off to dinner and shopping we went!
Dinner was Subway- gotta love Subway! And shopping was touristy! I have a weakness for touristy shopping! :) So I bought some bear socks and a bear t-shirt. This is in addition to the zip-up fleece that I got yesterday for $9... thats right a zip-up fleece jacket for $9, can you say a steal?! :)
Mom and grandma kind of ran out of steam while we were shopping, so we headed back to the hotel room.
As I have been writing this post, the sun came out, its quite magical, considering we havent seen the sun the whole time we have been in Alaska... its been cloudy the whole time with some pretty rainy moments. Amazing that its 9pm right now and the sun is out as if it was a 5pm at home. Its just beautiful.
Alas, my day is coming to an end and I've got nothing more to talk about, so I will give you a sentence or two on what we will be doing tomorrow. We are gonna head back towards Anchorage tomorrow and then Homer the next day. I think we will be staying 2 night in Homer then back to Anchorage so that we can head home.

Goodnight friends. :)

Wassup Denial... er, I mean Wasilla Denali!

Today we started out heading to the Anchorage Botanical Gardens. First thing we see is "Be bear aware" and the other things we see are mosquitoes... large deadly scary mosquitoes. So while dad and I are being bear aware and slapping ourselves silly, mom and grandma are looking at the pretty plants. Dad dodges the majority of the mosquitoes by putting up his hood while I apparently attract them, by the hundreds with my hair. And while slapping at a mosquito I missed and scratched the area by my left eye, so much that it looks like I was scratched by an animal- yep, I drew my own blood, which probably didnt help my mosquito problem. Ok, so mosquito adventure done.
Next we head towards the highway and up to Wasilla. In case you live under a rock, a very large rock, thats where Sarah Palin lives. I googled her address in time to look up and say "Thats the road off of which she lives." as we drove by, and that was that. Next we stopped at a Subway for lunch in a town called Talkeetna. They also had showers in the gas station in that little town- something that I have never seen before in my life!
Ok, so I pee while at Subway, and then I pee at the gas station next door as we leave, but you know, less than 20 miles down the road and I have to pee again. There's only one problem with that: Talkeetna was the last town- and bathroom- for 95 miles. I have a sprinting bladder and it gets nervous when it knows it wont be able to be relieved for a long time... I do NOT have a marathon bladder. So here we go, 95 miles...and I have to pee for about 80 of those miles. There is gorgeous scenery passing by and all I can think about is oh my god, I have to pee. Someone says funny, I laugh and then regret it instantaneously. Anyway, here we are driving in the middle of beautiful Alaska and all I can think about is counting down the miles til we can get to a restroom. But heres where magic happens. We are driving and theres a sign for a trailhead but it also has the universal- or what I think is the universal sign for bathrooms, so I scream "BATHROOM" and my dad says "Do you want me to stop here" I said "YES!!" and had my door opened and was RUNNING down the path to the little outhouses before he had the car in park. Relief never felt so good.
So, after that little side trip we got back on the road, and finish the trip to Denali. Let me just say, the scenery here is breathtaking, absolutely beautiful. We got to Denali, checked the place out, got tickets for a big wilderness seeing adventure tomorrow, and then went to dinner. Oh, and I bought a bear bell, its a carabiner with a bell. I hate making noise, but Im willing to make noise if it means that I dont have to deal with a bear.
Back to the day, we did a little 15 mile drive through the park and saw some Caribou... which the reindeer are a subspecies of, btw. And then once we got out of the park we went to dinner, where we had to wait for a place to eat for over an hour, but it was delicious pizza! Thats where I made my grandma cry, not awesome by the way. But mom really pissed me off, making me feel worse about hurting grandmas feelings so I got up and left for a while to cool down. I felt horrible, about half an inch tall. Really, I didnt mean to hurt grandmas feelings, but apparently Im good at it, sigh. So I buck up, buy her an emory board- because she loves them and go apologize. Things seem to be fine now, I just gotta be patient and not so quick with my one liners.
After dinner we went shopping!! I love souvenir shopping! I love it more when I can get a fleece zip-up thingy for 10 bucks! YES!! But I also dont like to dawdle, so we did our shopping and then came back to the hotel, which has a river running right outside of the cabins, which is beautiful, and by this time its 9:30ish and mom and grandma get situated and fall right asleep. Dad and I again are the ones up but since it is now 11 here- no it didnt take me an hour and a half to write this and if it did, I blame it on being distracted by talking to friends on FB- I need sleep, we have to be back up at the National Park by 7:30 in the morning... eek!
Goodnight friends!

Alaska

So, here I am, in Alaska. I may not have visited all of the lower 48 states but I have now visited both Hawaii and Alaska.
The trip up was fairly uneventful.  While going through security in Lou I pulled a sticker off the back of some foreign (cute) guy's shirt. It was funny trying to explain what I was doing- gotta love language barriers. The Lou to Minneapolis flight was nice and then we were in an old plane for Minneapolis to Anchorage. There were lots of babies too, but thankfully there was no more than about 5 minutes of crying the whole flight- magical.
We got in and got our stuff, called the hotel for a shuttle and made it to our hotel around 1:30 am Alaska time- which is 4 hours earlier than home time. And the coolest thing was that the outside light was similar to that of dusk at home- thats right dusk at 1:30 am. Welcome to the summer in Alaska!
We were all exhausted though, so bed was of the first order. I popped in my night guard- attractive, I know, and my newly purchased ear plugs and I was blissfully unaware of anything until about 8 am. I am only wondering why I never invested in the ear plugs before- especially with my dads snoring and my grandmas rustling.
This morning we woke up and got our rental car. The rental car guy was an attractive black guy named Matthew who had a very large championship ring- thats how I knew his name was Matthew btw, not from a name tag but from his ring! Apparently he played football for the University of Washington and got the ring when they beat Nebraska for some championship- I love random people's cool stories!
After getting the car- a brown Hyundai Santa Fe, and checking the lost and found for mom's hat- she doesnt really remember where she lost it, we headed to brunch with our old neighbor. Well technically her parents are still neighbors but she moved to Alaska about 5 years ago and was actually headed to California today, so brunch was about the best visit we could manage! Anyway, it was good to see her, she is an amazing person and was like a sister to me in some ways growing up- a much older sister! And since she is honorary family, this is my not-so-shameful plug for her music, go look up Amy Lou Hettinger and listen to her CD, its amazing!
Somewhere between getting the car and getting brunch mom lost her credit card- are you counting? thats 2 things in 2 days- and so we retraced most of our steps looking for it, but no such luck, so we had to come back to the hotel to call the credit card company to cancel the card. Me, well, Im pretty annoyed by now, really, why would you put your credit card in the same pocket as your phone which you are checking every 5 minutes? Maybe I've just learned my lesson and mom hasnt yet. And grandma, oh goodness grandma is being helpful. So mom is losing things and grandma is being helpful, my annoyance level rises higher and higher. Oh, and while we are back at the hotel dad has gone to get drugs for his athletes foot. Never a dull moment!
So credit card canceled, with lots of extra help, and athletes foot treated we are on our way again. We head up to the Alaska Native Heritage Center- it was WONDERFUL! On our way there we saw 2 moose (!!!!!!) and as we walked in we were greeted by a dancing demonstration, then we walked around and learned about the various Native Alaskan tribes (?- I dont know if tribe is the technical term, but its what I am using) and along this path an Iditarod champion was set up, ok not just ANY champion the 2011 champion! And his dogs, and new PUPPIES! So we paid the outrageous price of 10 bucks per person for a 3 minute ride with 16 Iditarod dogs! And these dogs were happy to mush, amazing! We then met a native that was a great storyteller, someone we could have listened to for hours, but really, we were starting to fade.
Back to downtown Anchorage where we stopped at an Ulu factory that was near a stream where there are supposedly Salmon- we didnt see any Salmon. By this time its about 5 and we are hungry, so I directed the family to an "Old Alaskan Restaurant" where mom and grandma had halibut and salmon respectively and dad and I had a cheeseburger and a hamburger, respectively. They may have been burgers but neither dad nor I think that it was actually beef burgers, so I am claiming that it was a moose burger! hah.
After dinner we came back to the hotel room and have been vegging out. Mom and grandma have been asleep for hours now but dad and I are up and reading, although I think after this post I am headed to bed myself. Its now 9:30, which is a nice respectful time to go to bed, right?! Even if it looks like its the middle of the day outside still? I LOVE this daylight for something like 20 hours a day! Tomorrow we plan to hit the botanical gardens, Wasilla and make it all the way up to Denali!
Oh and in case you were wondering, I did get over my annoyance, in fact I got pretty giggly and amused as the day wore on- thank god!