Bird to Gird with Mom and Dad

A beautiful day for a ride!  

So I told my parents the plan for the ride, let them know where we were riding, the distance, etc.  My mom let me know that her major fear in Alaska was bears....so once we were out in the wilderness, and after seeing a bit of bear skat, my mom started freaking out....so we went 12 miles to Girdwood, my mom stopped, got off her bike and decided she wasn't turning back!  Subsequently, we left my mom back in Girdwood, rode as quickly as we could back to Bird Creek to pick up the car and back to pick her up!  

Mom and Dad M come to Alaska! --Hidden Lake Hike

The day Becky and Jeff left was the day my parents were leaving NY.  Around the time they were supposed to fly out, I got a call saying that they were offered a voucher to get on another flight, with only an hour layover (vs five) and they, in turn, they each received a voucher for a future flight...and were upgraded to first class...not a bad deal!!   Not only this, but they are such rock stars, that they were able to get up the next morning and head on a hike with me.  I was supposed to meet my hiking buddies but silly me, had the time wrong.  So, we hiked alone, hoping to catch up, but they were too fast for us.  It still ended up being a great day for them to see some of Alaska's beauty!

 Pioneer Dad blazing the trail for us

 Soaking in the sights

 My poor mom tore her meniscus a few weeks prior so really was hurting but kept on hiking like a trooper!

 Check out the blue skies!!!

 My dad wanted to climb and climb and climb!

 Barely a cloud in the sky and getting warm out!  Jet lag!? What jet lag?!

 Funny enough, we ran into a few friends (different from my hiking group) on the trail who were able to take our photo.  We never ended up making it to hidden lake, but it was still a beautiful day for a hike!

 After our hike, which I deemed "hitting the jackpot" because of the weather, we also saw a moose!  

This would be the first of many wildlife sightings over their 17 day visit!  

I'm so grateful my parents are willing to visit us wherever we go!  It's so nice to be able to share our adventures with them as we live all around the globe.  Stay tuned for more chronicles of our visit!

Becky and Jeff's visit August 2012

Our month of visitors had arrived. 

We were so excited to hear that Becky and Jeff were coming to visit we could hardly contain ourselves!   They wanted to see Anchorage and of course, other parts of Alaska.  Unfortunately, we didn't realize how responsible for the weather we would feel until we had visitors.  We were literally begging the sun to come out to show them how beautiful it could be.  

They arrived late on Friday night and to our surprise, it was actually not light out any more at 2:30 in the morning....all summer it had been.   Becks and Jeff appreciate good breakfast food like we do so we took them to our favorite place, Snow City Cafe for a scrumptious breakfast, which of course had a line out the door...off to view some sights before we ate.   

Afterwards, we headed out for an abridged hike to McHugh Creek to show them the views, then off to do an abridged Gird to Bird bike ride.   The weather wasn't the best with wind and rain but we wanted them to see as much as possible.  

 Views from McHugh

Then, we drove on and parked our car in Girdwood for a little biking

 Then a little Gird to Bird action in the rain.  

We made it back to our car, parked conveniently at Double Musky (one of the esteemed Girdwood restaurants) to get in line by 4:05pm.  

 Becks and Eric comparing sneaks!

 This was the line at 4:30...we were 6th in line getting there at 4:05!!!

Double Musky has a creole menu and is only open 5-10pm Tuesday-Saturday and as you can see, in the summer months, the line is literally out the door!  If you're not in line by 4:30, you won't get to eat so you might as well get out of line and try another time.  They're known for their large portions and rich food.  After arriving soaking wet, due to the rain, and subsequently, very cold, the comfort food went down very smoothly. 

 Eric's pepper steak

A little walk by the creek to burn off those excess calories

On the way home, everyone passed out...Jeff got home and went straight up stairs.  He claimed he was only taking a nap, but by this point, it was already 8:30.  He had no clue it was so late because it was so  darn light out!  Needless to say, Jeff never made it back downstairs to join all of us.  

The next morning, it was Eric's birthday.  We ended up having a bit of a lazy morning taking a walk around the neighborhood, then off to Midnight Sun Brewery for some lunch and brews.  

 We were there for the 'tapping' of a new brew, pretty tasty! 

Afterwards, we went to Kincaid park to walk all over the place in search of a moose!!!

 It finally started clearing up and getting some clear skies! 

 Anglers! 

 Views of the bluff from near our house

Happy Birthday Eric!!!  

His favorite, carrot cake!!!  

I love Birthdays and was happy we could share it with Beck and Jeff!  

Sadly, they had to leave the next day but we meet up again in Homer in just a few days!

Quartz Creek Camping trip: 14-15 July 2012

So those of you who know me well, know that camping, well, it's not exactly my type of thing.  My first experience in camping was back in my Daisy/Brownie/Girlscout days and let me say, that did not give me the best introduction.  My memory of those days is rain, cold, bugs, and hotdogs that were not fully cooked.  You can sort of get why I didn't like it, right?  Or maybe that's what camping is all about?  None the less, fast forward a few years (or decades) to present day--including us living in Alaska.  Camping is just another thing we do here.  Eric and I have taken to all the other outdoor activities beautifully and even accepted the fact that it's not exactly warm in the summer (40s-65 average temps), and we're both totally cool with it.  

So, why not camping?

A colleague of Eric's invited us (and 45 others) to camp at Quartz Creek Campground for the weekend.  After asking many AK friends via facebook about camping tips (and asking my non-AK friends not to make fun), we didn't receive the best feedback, meaning, not that many had great things to say about camping in general.  We did conclude from the advice that we should not sleep in a tent (bears!) and that we should rent na RV.   Well, renting an RV was way too expensive for one night.  If we were going to pay that, we might as well have paid for a hotel.  So, we finally decided on sleeping in our car (even though my cousin advised against it, sorry), we figured this was our safest next option to the RV.   Since Eric was up on the North Slope til Friday, we decided to forgo driving down to Quartz Creek (about 100 miles from ANC) til Saturday morning.   It all worked out anyway as Friday was Friday the 13th and you can imagine the many things people had to say about that! 

So, Saturday morning we work up nice and early,  we packed up our car with clothes, blankets, firewood and food and headed on our way.   As usual, it was a beautiful drive and the sun even started peeking out a bit. 

We arrived at the camp site around 11:30 and found no one.  We were going with 45 other people and we found no one.    Hmm :) We walked down to the lake and eventually found one other person from our group, and after a short walk, we found more people, thankfully.  Nearly everyone was in a RV or "5 wheeler" (camper hooked on the back of the car" and a few in tents.  We, were sleeping in our car :)  

Checking out the grounds.  We hung out for the afternoon and then started to get ready for dinner which was at 6pm at the Pavillion.  At one point it started to drizzle so these guys set up this nifty tarp over the campfire to keep us dry.  

The question is: How many engineers does it take to hang up a tarp?  Haha, many made fun of Eric's hand placement.  

 Starting to BBQ

 Pot luck it was!

S'mores around the campfire, awesome.  Also awesome, this was around 8:30 at night and still very light.   Love Alaskan summers!

 The messiest s'more

 This is Keaton trying to prove to me that the s'more is definitely not larger than his mouth :) 

When most of the kids left, Eric brought out the jiffy pop that Eric's Aunt Patti sent to us as one of our anniversary presents!  I'm sorry Patti, this one did not work, Eric scorched it!!!  Note: This was at 10:30pm.

Checking out the jiffy pop.  Luckily someone else had another so we popped that one successfully :)

We stayed under the tarp while it rained for a while and every so often someone would lift the orange pole (in front of Eric) to alleviate some of the water forming on top and inevitably someone would get soaked from the water falling down.  Luckily, we stayed pretty dry.  

We decided to call it a night around midnight and cleaned up the mess and headed to bed when it was still as light as the picture above is.  Even though the sun sets, it really doesn't get totally dark which is pretty cool now (yes, we know the opposite will be true in the winter, never getting truly light), maybe not in the winter :).  Off to the jeep we went, to set up our bed and try to sleep.  Not gonna lie, it was a wee bit cold (and pretty darn light without the blackout blinds)..should have brought more blankets. You see, when camping, minimal packing styles don't work.  Better luck next time!  We woke up pretty early and decided to head out.  

 A fifth wheel (RV) belonging to Cameron, the many who organized the whole weekend, thank you, Cameron!

This Westfalia was seriously the coolest thing!  This bad boy is a 1991 VW Westfalia and is like a mini camper inside.  The pop up top is where they slept!  They only made them from 1986-1992 so they're quite a bit of money if you wanted to buy one now.  

 Last trip to the lake before we headed out.  

Breakfast at Sunset Diner...at least if we couldn't get a shower or a bed, we could get a warm breakfast! 

All in all, it was a successful first night camping.  Does this make us want to buy a tent and camp all over?  Umm, maybe, maybe not.  I'm still a bit too scared to sleep outside with potential bears!  And buying an RV wouldn't make sense for us.  Sleeping in the car wasn't bad as long as we get a thin mattress and a warm sleeping bag!   It was really peaceful and relaxing which was really so nice about Alaska.  Until the next trip!