Into the Wild

We're finally here...Anchorage, Alaska!! For those who may not know, Dane's dad lives in Alaska along with grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. Dane's been here a bunch of times, but this is my first time (as well as Libby and Ty).
We had a pretty good trip here. Originally we were to leave Syracuse at 10:45am, going to Cincinnati. Then, have a 4 hour layover in Cincinnati and then off to Salt Lake City at 4:50pm. Then leave Salt Lake City for Anchorage at 9pm (local time) and arrive in Anchorage at midnight (local time) which would mean about 18 hours of travel time plus a four hour time change. No fun. However, when we arrived to the Syracuse airport, our flight was already delayed and scheduled to leave around noon. Fine for us, Syracuse actually has a pretty good play area as well as some really neat stuff about airports/airplanes including the cockpit of a real airplane. So we let the kids play around a bit and then we were off to Cincinnati.
When we got to Cincinnati, we ate lunch and then went to a play area (way less cool stuff than Syracuse) but the kids still had fun and got to run around. When we finally went to our gate at about 4pm, we found out that they had overbooked our flight. We asked them what we could do to help but hesitating when they said that we leave later or the next day if we got bumped...but then they found out that there was a flight leaving directly for Anchorage at 4:40 (10 minutes earlier than our flight for Salt Lake City). We had heard that that flight was overbooked too, but I guess it didn't turn out that way, because they got us on the flight directly to Anchorage and we all sat together!! This was great news...we now would arrive 4 hours earlier!
When we got on the plane for Anchorage we were in the 43rd row of 45 rows. I must say I was a little apprehensive at boarding...we got plenty of looks from many retirees (I guess Alaska is where they all go to) looking at us and our two small children. Yeah, we're the family that you hate - or so I thought. The kids happened to be really good. Ty slept for the first 3 hours, Libby slept on and off, too. They fed Dane and me a hot meal, and we had a lot of people play with the kids. They got a little cranky at the end (I think I did too), but I'm proud to say that we arrived intact.
We spent yesterday just acclimating ourselves to the time change, cooler weather (everyone we meet reminds us that this is an unusually cool summer and that they are pro-global warming!), and seeing sights and family. Today, we're going to Portage Glacier and Aleyeska Resort, where Dane used to work when he lived up here. We're taking many pictures, but have yet to find a way to download them here...maybe I'll just end up posting all my pictures when I get back home.

Oh yeah, Dane's also feeling better. He's able to eat, but nothing too harsh on his stomach, i.e. no seeds, nuts, whole grains, fiber, etc. He's still on some pain medication and antibiotics, but doing better. He'll see the doctor again when we get back to Syracuse, but we're glad he could come to Alaska with us!!