Salty's Note-o-the Day: Thursday, June 20th, 2024

Wow. We just got home from an amazing vacation to Alaska! We flew from Minneapolis direct to Anchorage on the 13th, and we flew home yesterday evening. We didn't arrive back in Ames until after midnight, so really we got home this morning. We went out there with the whole GLEKS group (Gleasons, Lacinas, Easleys, Kyhl, and Saltons). Grandma Becky was very generous, as she paid for everyone's trip!

During our time in Alaska, we all stayed at two air B&B houses that are next to each other, and we took day trips out of Anchorage. The Salton crew's day trips included hiking on Matanuska Glacier, riding the train from Anchorage to Seward and back, and driving to Whittier where we took a glacier cruise (or we were supposed to anyways). We also spent a couple of days just checking out things to do in Anchorage.

For our glacier hike, we had to drive a couple of hours Northeast of Anchorage. During our drive it was a very clear day, and for a moment we were actually able to see the peak of Denali! I would guess that we were about 120 miles away from Denali at the time we saw it, which is pretty crazy. Once we got to the glacier tour, they had us all change into waterproof boots, helmets, and we strapped spikes onto our shoes. The glacier was more muddy or silty than I expected. We were able to break pieces of the glacier off and eat the ice, and we could drink the water that was melting off of it.

During our train ride to Seward, we took the regular "Adventure class" on the way down, and we upgraded to the "Gold Star" service on the way back to Anchorage. In Seward we mostly just walked around and checked out different shops and restaurants. We enjoyed lunch at a nice seafood place called Ray's Waterfront. We had a nice view of the harbor, and we were able to watch some sea otters while we ate lunch. I had the Halibut and chips, which was yummy. The fries were especially good. We had great views of the scenery while on the train. We also saw a grizzly bear during our train ride! It was on the tracks, and as the train approached it jumped into the water and started swimming away.

Our trip to Whittier did not go exactly as planned. It was kind of cool to go through the two and a half mile long tunnel into Whittier. We took a cruise from there, which was supposed to be a 4 hour cruise to see glaciers. However, about an hour and a half into the trip our boat started having mechanical problems. It was unable to steer, so we were kind of stuck in one spot. It took a couple of hours for a mechanic to come out to the boat and get it working, and by that point our boat just returned to port. They did give us a full refund of our cruise, but we missed quite a bit of what we would have normally seen. After we got back to port, the Saltons went out to eat at a restaurant called the Swiftwater Seafood Cafe. I had the Halibut and chips, and it was my favorite meal of the trip! The fish had to be freshly caught that day. It reminded me of walleye or perch that we would catch with my dad up in Minnesota during a fishing trip, just to fry them up and eat it the same day.

During our time in Anchorage we were able to check out the downtown area, we spent some time in Kincaid park, and we took the kids to the Alaska Museum of Science and Nature. The kids and I enjoyed reindeer dogs from a food cart downtown. Elizabeth, Christian, and myself took the kids to 49th State Brewing, where we enjoyed some good craft beers. My favorite was the Solstice IPA. We also took the kids out for ice cream at Wild Scoops. Maxwell enjoyed a birthday cake ice cream with a "baked Alaska" top of torched marshmallow fluff. Nolan had his usual vanilla ice cream. One day for dinner the GLEKS crew ordered pizza from Moose's Tooth Pizzeria. We ordered about 9 different pizzas, but my favorite was some kind of Apricot pizza.

It was fun to see the entire GLEKS crew, but it seemed like our time there went too quickly.