So Long, Farewell...

Well, the time has come for us to say goodbye to Alaska and go back home to Syracuse. We've had a really great time here - have had the chance to see some beautiful sights, see family, and eat a lot of great food!

To update my last post: Dane's dad came home from the hospital on Sunday and is doing much better. We're glad that it was only a one night stay. To respond to a few people's comments on the subject of hospitals: Yes, we're sick of going to them. I think we've had our fill for at least the year.

As I write this, we're all packed up and ready to go. I got to stay and pack (really, I like doing it...it's the Downing in me!), and Dane and his dad took the kids to go to the Alaska Zoo. It doesn't look very big, but I've heard that there's a lot of bears and animals native to Alaska. Should be fun for them.

We fly out tonight around 7pm, and are supposed to arrive into Syracuse aroudn 12:30pm. It'll be a long time, but we'll be glad to be home. Hopefully we can "pull a Trefflich" and get bumped so that we can get tickets for another vacation! See you all soon!!

Here's some more pictures of Alaska to enjoy before we can post all of ours (I think we have somewhere in the neighborhood of 300!).

Unfortunately...

Well, apparently we were all having too much fun and no one had been to the hospital in a while...so it was Dane's dad's turn this time. He has pretty bad respiratory issues (asthma and the sort) and he's had a cold that's turned into bronchitis. Now, for you or me, bronchitis would be a couple of days in bed laying low. But for him, it's a one-way ticket to the hospital (do not pass go, do not collect $200). This happens to him a couple times a year, but it sucks that it happened on his vacation. He went in this afternoon, and Dane and I visited him later on this evening and he's doing a lot better. In fact, he insisted that Dane and I go on our planned date...so we did.

Dustin and Ashley watched Ty and Libby and apparently they all had a blast. Dane and I went to Golden Corral (oh so good...why don't we have one in Syracuse?) and then went to Earthquake Park - a trail that remembers the earthquake from 1964 that measured 9.2 (worst in North American history), lasted over 4 minutes, and reshaped much of Alaska. It was really neat to read all of the information on it, and it was fun to take a walk without children and just with my husband!! Hopefully Dane's dad will get out tomorrow (today?) from the hospital.

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

We finally did it! We've been looking forward to riding the Alaska Railroad train to Seward, Alaska since we first decided we were coming to Alaska (3 years ago!). We woke up at 4am to make our 6:45am train. (Ty was a little confused because it was still dark out, and he was promised that he would be going on a train when it was light out.) Ty was really excited and got to wear a train engineer's hat that Grandpa Flansburgh got him. We finally got aboard the train at about 6:15 and finally started moving at 6:45. It was a really fun way to travel - a lot more room to move around than any other form of travel, plus no car seats or seat belts! However, it kind of backfired because that's all Ty wanted to do the entire ride: MOVE! It was exhausting, but also really nice to see all the scenery that you can't see otherwise because only the trains go through all the back country. Ultimately, though, he fell asleep (after screaming for about 10 minutes). But, he fell asleep with his body on the bottom of the chair and his legs standing on the floor. When I tried to move him he just whined, so I left him!

It took about 4 hours and we finally arrived to Seward. We met up with Dane's brother, Dustin and his girlfriend, Ashley. (They didn't want to ride the train because by car it's about 2 1/2 hours and not so "touristy.") We ate lunch at a nice restaurant, Christo's, (I had a salmon quesadilla - delicious) and then went to the Alaska SeaLife Center which was set up after the Exxon-Valdez oil spill to help rescue wildlife sea animals and also educate people about them. It was really fun and neat to see so many animals I've never seen (for instance, sea lions are HUGE!). Ty got to run around (some more) and Libby loved looking at all of the fish and animals. She was in the stroller and would go from one exhibit to another clapping her hands in approval!

After we were done there, we found a really fun playground in town and just let the kids get off all their energy there. It was a great place to relax while letting the kids run off some steam. Finally, we sent the kids home with Dustin and Ashley so that Dane, his dad, and I could enjoy the relaxing train ride back, sans children!

It was so beautiful. We saw 3 or 4 glaciers, numerous mountains and waterfalls, a black bear, moose, and more scenery than you can shake a fist at! I definitely recommend doing this at least once in your life!

When we got home, Ashley had done a great job babysitting the kids - they had slept most of the way home in the car, but she and Dustin got pizza for dinner and fed them, and then tired them out again so that when we got home we could just put them to bed! It was great! (I mention mainly Ashley, because Dustin was asleep on the couch when we got home, tired from all the driving I guess.) It was a beautiful day that I'll remember for a long time.

This is the route (in black) that took us from Anchorage to Seward.

More information on Seward: http://www.sewardak.org/history.htm

More information on the Alaska Railroad: http://www.akrr.com/arrc119.html

Climb Every Mountain

On Tuesday Dane and I got to get away from the kids for a few hours and we climbed Flat Top Mountain. As you can see by the picture, it is aptly named because of its flat top to it! It was a lot of fun. The only other mountain that I've climbed was Mount Timp. in Utah. This was was great because it was pretty gradual for a long time, then right at the end we had to do some rock climbing. So fun. If I didn't get so many blisters (really bad ones) then we would be climbing Wolverine Peak (another harder mountain here) on Saturday. The only thing that was a disappointment about reaching the peak of Flat Top was that I was promised, by Dane, that the huge payoff for the climb was the incredible view. Well, being the mountains that they are, they were enveloped in clouds when we got up there. Kind of neat to be in a cloud, but no view of Anchorage. The cloud did go off to the side for a while so we did get to see some more mountains on the other side of Flat Top (opposite from Anchorage), but I was a little bummed that I couldn't see for miles and miles. Oh well!

The descent was supposed to be easier than the climb, but I almost felt it was harder because I just wanted to run down but wouldn't be able to stop if I did! Plus, thanks to the cloud, we got off the trail for a little bit and found ourselves on some really unsteady rocks. One wrong move and it would've been all over...thank goodness we got off of that alright! It was a fun little date...too bad Syracuse doesn't have mountains like this right around the corner!

Short, but sweet

Since we didn't really get out of the house yesterday, being laundry day, I don't have many exciting adventures to relay to all of my devoted readers. However, I thought it would be a great opportunity to inform all of you about Alaska. http://www.anchorage.net/686.cfm provides some nice little fun facts about Alaska, and especially Anchorage. It's such an interesting state, and so young - it turns 50 next year...can we say "mid-life crisis"?

By the way, these aren't my pics of the Northern Lights, aka Aurora Borealis. They show up in the winter time so, unfortunately, I won't be able to see them. But they are beautiful.

Baked Alaskans

Since I can't upload my own pictures until I get home, I thought I'd add some from the web, like this one that shows truly how large Alaska is. I don't think that people really understand how big it is, because it's usually placed in the Pacific Ocean shrunk down and next to Hawaii.

Anyway, Friday was a "lay low" day. Since we've been here, our children have been overstimulated so we just had a day to hang out around the house. Later on that day, we went to Dane's grandparent's house for a birthday party for him and his younger brother, Dustin. (They share the same birthday - July 26). It was a lot of fun, and fun to see all of Dane's aunts and uncles on his dad's side. Also, Ty loved hanging out with his cousins (second cousins?) and definitely didn't want to leave when it was time.

Over the weekend, we went to the mall where they happened to be having a bunch of promotional tables. We got to dress up in sumo outfits and wrestle (Dane won each time), play a ring toss where Dane won a soda, and Ty got to catch a rubber duck with a net and won a couple prizes of crayons, pencils, ruler, etc. We also got some coupons for free cookies from a bakery. We also got free tickets to go ice skating in their ice skating rink inside the mall, but Dane and Ty didn't have any socks on and by the time we got around to it, we were all too cranky! We also got to go to the downtown market and do some touristy (word?) shopping. We went to church yesterday, which was held in Dustin's old high school, because the building that it's normally held in (the stake center next to the Anchorage, Alaska temple) was in a bad fire and is being renovated. Man, did I miss carpeted floors! We were in the "auditeria" and wearing heels was a big mistake - you could hear every step taken! But it was fun to go and know that the church is true regardless of where you attend!

We finished our weekend of fun with a trip to Chuck E Cheese (where bad food and cheap thrills unite). This was a big one - 2 floors of cheap excitement! Ty loved it, though. He just kept running around like a maniac going from game to game to slide to game (you get the point!). But he had fun. Also, we were driving around last night (trying to get the kids to go to sleep, something with which they never have a problem, but I guess all the stimuli and daylight are getting to them) and we saw a couple moose (goose->geese; moose->meese?). There they were, just eating some tree leaves on the side of the road. Craziness.

On another note, we've been spending our evenings playing lots of card games - well actually just Hawaiian Rummy and Cribbage (which I just learned how to play). It's been a really fun way to bond and hang out.

Today is going to be another chill out day, and also a laundry day! The thrills of Alaska!

The Real Alaska

Yesterday we went out of Anchorage and experienced a little of what the "real" Alaska is all about. We drove down to Portage Glacier with Dane's dad and met up with Dane's 3 cousins, 2 aunts, and Grandpa Dalzell (and a partridge in a pear tree?). It was beautiful to see so many mountains while we drove right on the edge of the inlet. We saw the Alaska train on our way (Ty can't wait to ride on the "yellow and blue train") and many beautiful wild flowers. Portage glacier is one of many glaciers that we saw and it was beautiful with the aqua blue hue that it emits. After a visit to the visitor's center (where I took a nice little nap during the informational video), we went back and saw Girdwood and Alyeska Resort. Girdwood is a little hippie town that turns into a great skiing place in the winter. We ate lunch at Chair 5, a nice little restaurant that's first rule on the menu is "No gunfights, beer brawls, or cursing." I guess the dark winters tend to take their toll on the locals! We then saw Alyeska resort, where Dane used to work when he lived here in 2001. It was beautiful. We ended the day with a great bar-b-que with steaks made by Dane and his dad. Then we stayed up too late playing Hawaiian Rummy (if you've never played, I'll have to teach you!).

Today we plan on laying low...we have a big family dinner tonight at Dane's grandparent's house to celebrate his and Dustin's birthdays and also to say goodbye to his 2 aunts and their kids.