A Rare Sight

When we got back from Whittier, Andy let Ripley out of the car to pee and I wandered around in the backyard looking for our moose in hopes of letting Miranda see one close up (and alive) before they had to leave.  When I got to the back of our yard, I looked over to the neighbor's yard and immediately shouted a profanity (or 40) and told Andy to get Ripley inside.  This is what I saw:

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

Yep, that's a black bear.  It scared the living hell out of me, too, since the most dangerous thing I'd seen in my yard to date was a wandering moose looking for twigs.  Once we got Ripley inside and safe, and we pulled Nick into the house to stop taking cell phone pictures, we watched the bear head out of the neighbor's yard and directly across the street to complete its mission.

GARBAGE!

Most people in our neighborhood either keep their trash inside (us) or they have bear-proof garbage cans. These neighbors have the bear proof cans, but they aren't so bear proof when you don't close them all the way, it seems (who would have thought?).  Side note - doesn't he look like a human peering in the fridge for a snack?

The bear quickly decided that he needed to dump the garbage out in order to take a full inventory.

And then he started tearing into the bags.

We sat in our front room and on the front porch (once we realized he was a good distance away and had no interest in coming to eat anything at our house...obviously he hadn't spied Fro, who is basically the cat equivalent of kobe beef) and watched the bear rifle through the garbage for a good 30 minutes.

Thankfully the neighbors weren't home and we yelled at the other neighbors to go back inside when they took their kids out to play.  Andy, and our next door neighbor, Kelly, who also grew up here, had never really seen bears in town before this.  I'm hoping this is the last one we see, and I'm hoping the neighbors learned their lesson about keeping garbage outside.

The big bonus was that Nick and Miranda got to see a bear on their trip! Not so excited that he was in our yard, but still very cool.

Sadly, though, at this point, Miranda had struck out on her mission to find a moose, and they were flying out on Monday afternoon.  We finally decided that we were all going to get up at 6am Monday morning and drive out to Kincaid Park where we would have at least a fighting chance of seeing one.

Much to Miranda's dismay we woke up early and jumped in the car.  We first tried a couple of hot spots near the house where we see moose most mornings on the way to work (including pretty much every morning this week...go figure), but we were unsuccessful.

Then we drove to Kincaid Park on Minnesota, a main highway in town that typically has moose around it...no luck.

Finally, we drove into the park and just before we reached the entrance, Andy slammed on his breaks and told me to grab the camera, because he'd just spotted this guy:

Success! And! It was a bull moose with his horns coming in, which was pretty cool to see.  Thankfully this one was so sleepy that he let me get out of the car and take his picture for proof that Miranda got to see her moose.

We drove home and took a nap and then went out for one last lunch before taking the Woods to the airport.  We had an excellent looooong weekend with them and really enjoyed showing them our new (old to Andy) home and seeing some stuff that was new to us, too.  Come back soon, Nick and Miranda!

Gold Rush!

Sunday we headed out towards Girdwood to go gold mining! Since Nick and I have an unhealthy obsession with "Gold Rush" on the Discovery Channel, I knew we had to incorporate something gold-related when they came to visit.  The Crow Creek Mine in Girdwood came highly recommended.

On the way, we stopped at Beluga Point to look for whales.

While we didn't see any belugas, we did see some other awesome creatures.  Can you spot them in the rocks?

Let me zoom that for you:

DALL SHEEP! Aren't they cute?  They just happened to be next on my Alaskan wildlife "to see" list.  Next up, wolverines.  Andy's thrilled about that one. I think that'll take me about 20 years of searching.

After meandering along the inlet and seeing tons of sheep, we got to Girdwood and headed up the most ridiculous dirt road full of potholes to get to the mine.

Definitely better than the tourist place that's right on the highway, the little mining town was totally adorable.  According to our guide who looked and acted just like Kenneth from 30 Rock (this guy), some of the buildings had been there since the 1890s.  That's basically prehistoric in Alaska terms!

For $20, you get a pan, other necessary equipment, a brief lesson, and some dirt with guaranteed gold.  Bargain!

After our excellent tutorial, we got to work looking for gold.  I think Miranda did the best.  She was extremely focused.

Nick was having more fun with it.  As any avid watcher of "Gold Rush" knows, education is not a prerequisite for miners.

Once we picked our three tiny gold flecks out of each of our pans, "Kenneth" sent us loose to the creek to pan our hearts out.  

A little chilly, but a great place to kill time and strike it rich! The scenery couldn't be beat.

We quickly put our skills to test:

All Ripley wanted to do was pull sticks out of the creek (or try anyway):

When he originally directed us to the creek, "Kenneth" told us we might want to stay away from "death hill."  Once we looked up from our chosen location, we realized what he meant.  There were rocks and trees tumbling down the hill toward us.  Not surprisingly, we exhibited great judgment and we stayed directly in the path of destruction.  

We panned in the super cold water for about an hour.  As Miranda said, it was an excellent lesson in futility.  So much dirt, so little gold.

Ultimately Andy was the only successful one.  Here he is with his big find:

Andy decided to abandon the river and go panning directly in my wallet.  Jerk.

After gold mining, we headed to Whittier to have lunch.  It's only about 20 minutes in actual time from Girdwood, not counting the fact that you have to wait in line to go through a tunnel to get there.  We did not know this about going to Whittier, so we sat in line.

Ripley was not amused.

In case you can't tell, it was raining outside.  What happened to our amazing weather??!

Eventually, after waiting about 30 minutes in line (you have to wait because the tunnel is only one way!), we got into the tunnel.  Nick threatened to hold his breath, but I'm glad he didn't because it probably would have killed him.  It was about 10 minutes to get through.

On the other end, we ended up in Whittier.  It's a cute town when it's not raining, which I hear is never. 

Don't worry, people were still out fishing.

The highlight was lunch - I think it was the best fish and chips I've ever had.  I will definitely be back just for the food!

After all our running around, we headed home and when we got there, we found a big surprise in the yard.  You have to wait until tomorrow to see what it was!

Back to Hatcher's Pass

On the way back from Talkeetna, we took a drive through Hatcher's Pass to see the sights.  It's no wonder you can't go all the way through the pass until July, it was full of snow!  This post is mostly about showing off the scenery since we couldn't even get up to the mine.

Ripley didn't care about the snow at all.  

It was all mountains and blue sky.  Can you believe this weather?

Andy took a picture of me up my nose, which is obviously my best angle.

The gang:

I think if you look really hard you can see Andy's photography skills at work in Nick's sunglasses.

After our quick trip around we headed back to Anchorage. The saga continues!

Talkeetna

After introducing the Woods to the marvelous "Moscow Mule" (a delicious and dangerous cocktail served in a copper mug) at Simon's we made them get up early for a road trip to Talkeetna.  Nick was super happy about that for most of the day.  I was just happy that we didn't get a call from someone in Talkeetna letting us know that the town was evacuated like the last time we tried to take this trip.

Here was my view from the backseat for the two hour or so trip:

After winding north from Anchorage through Wasilla, which has nothing worth taking a picture of, we got up to Talkeetna.  It's about the closest town to Denali and it's adorable.  Here's the view from the road into town:

That's the base of Denali...you can't really see the top of the mountain in this picture.  We got better ones later.  The mountain is ginormous.

Andy and I dressed alike for the trip.  Isn't that cute?

Miranda wore a shirt we bought her for Christmas as a joke.  It was pretty incredible.

Shortly after checking into our cabin, we headed into town for lunch.  From our seat at Denali Brewing Co., you could see the whole town.

Here's the other half of town:

A perfect day to eat on the patio.  No clouds!

  
Ripley was pretty much over it once we sat down.  About 30 seconds after we took this picture, he noticed those curly fries just out of reach and then he was on a mission.  Good dog.

Pretty much all of Talkeetna is historic.  You know because they tell you on the signs:

This is the Talkeetna Roadhouse.  It's famous for its food.  We tried to eat there but there were no seats.  On the bright side, it's mostly known for its breakfast and we weren't really there at breakfast time.

So after we tortured Ripley by keeping him away from the discarded curly fries, we headed out to do some hiking.  We finally found a trail that seemed only sort of closed due to breakup and went exploring.  Ripley was happy about that.

And then he tried to run onto the semi-frozen river!

After we got to the river we quickly discovered that mosquitoes love Miranda's greek blood.  She almost got carried away by them!  We doused everyone in Off (and let Miranda lead the way back to the car) and went back to our little cabin to relax a little.

The ADORABLE cabin:

The inside was surprisingly (and awesomely) un-rustic.  We'd stayed in these little types of cabins before, but none of them was decorated.

It even had satellite tv, which we didn't really need or want, but still pretty nice.

Even the bathroom was fancy!

Andy did a great job of picking out the spot.  If you're ever in Talkeetna, go check out the Talkeetna Chalet Bed and Breakfast.  In addition to the cabins, they have a main house which was beautiful (very chalet-like indeed) and came with the friendliest host and an excellent breakfast, complete with a great view of Denali.  We absolutely loved it and will definitely be back!!  If you're ever in Talkeetna, go give them your money!  Here's their website: http://www.talkeetnachalet.net/

After playing some board games and relaxing in the cabin, we went back into Talkeetna to check out the beer garden at the Denali Brewing Co.

They make some tasty beer in Talkeetna!

It was so nice to sit and enjoy the 70+ degree weather and the sun in the beer garden.  I found a cloud!

Andy found some kind of crazy blueberry beer that was amazing:

and Ripley found a friend.

Her name was Tally and she was only 8 months old.  All she wanted to do was wrestle, which Ripley loved.

On the way back, the clouds had cleared up at the mountain.  What a day!

Andy even caught a picture of one of the zillions of little planes flying around the mountain.  Someday I'd like to go on one of those flightseeing tours. 

We ended the day with dinner at the Flying Squirrel Bakery, where they do wood-fired pizzas on the weekends.  It was probably one of the best pizzas I've ever had and I promise that's not the beer talking.

Another great day! Don't you all want to come to Alaska so we can show you around?  Just promise us you'll be nice like the Woods and bring all the sunshine with you.

More of our fun trip tomorrow!