First Month/ Trip to Seward

Well its been just over a month since we pulled into anchorage! It has gone by really fast, and not fast enough in the case of living behind KOOT's. That has pretty much become a nightmare, mainly on Friday and Saturday nights when the bass thumps until three in the morning and then 200 drunks file out and yell at each other for whatever reason. But that is all over now for us, as we are moving into our apartment this weekend! We are so excited about being able to finally unpack everything and have more space, and a full kitchen! We have pretty much furnished the place already(its all packed in a storage unit we have right now) with a lot of great garage sale/craigslist items and are really looking forward to being able to settle in (for a while at least, we have a six month lease. We are hoping to find something better at the end of the summer).

There has been so much change from when we first pulled in, break-up is all but over(meaning all the snow has melted in the city) and the street cleaners are working day and night to sweep up all the rocks and sand used for traction during the winter. The days are already getting really long. The sun is up and at 6, and doesn't set again until 10! And its only getting longer! We have had mostly good weather in the past month, which is really exciting for everyone who had to suffer through last summer up here( its sounds a lot like the non existent summer Seattle had last year too). We cannot wait to bust out our hiking and camping gear and hit the trails. And just in case, we took a bear aware class at REI, which pretty much told us to talk in a gentle reassuring voice to the bear, letting him know that everything is OK....and if that doesn't work we have bear spray.

We are both gainfully employed now. Chelsea finished her second day today as a hostess at Snow City. It is a really good and even more popular breakfast/lunch place in downtown. They think that she is pretty much the best employee ever, so hopefully she will be moving up to server in no time. One of the best parts about working there is that it closes at 3, so we will both be free in the nights to enjoy the midnight sun. I have been working the past couple weeks as a painter. I got hooked up with a couple of local contractors through my uncle Brian, who then referred me to Ryan, a painter who needed some help. And being that I needed to make some money, it was a perfect pairing. Along with working for Ryan, I have been working towards stating my own business. Ryan is a really nice guy and flexible so I think that it will work out well.

This past weekend was our most adventurous yet. My mom and brother came up for the weekend to visit. One of the coolest parts of the weekend was simply that Brock was here. He told us that he was not going to be able to make it and we thought that it was just going to by my mom coming (which is completely and totally awesome in and of itself). When I got off work and headed to their hotel room I still had no idea(Chelsea was there and had been surprised earlier when they picked her up from our place). As I walked in and greeted my mom he came in from around the corner and it was such a sweet surprise! It was late in the afternoon by then, so we headed out to show them some stuff around town, and get some dinner. It only took Brock, with his eagle eyes, about 10 minutes to spot some moose. They were in a field by a school so we parked and trekked a little through the woods to get a good look at them. It was really fun to be able to see them so soon and so close. We tried a couple of moose calls, but they were pretty uninterested in us, and Chelsea really didn't want them to be interested in us, so we move along. For dinner we went to Humpy's Great Alaska Alehouse. Lucky for us there was some radio sponsored raffle going on, and all you had to do to get entry forms was drink beer. We were going to do that anyways, so we bought the beer that got us double entrys. Not too long after we entered our first batch of forms did our names start to get called. They did drawings about every 10 minutes. But we were really holding out for the grand prize at the end of the night for 10,000 Alaska Airlines miles. We did not win those, but we did walk away with 3 shirts, 2 Sam Adams hats, a pint glass, a beer koozy, and most impressively, a $50 GC to Sportsman's Warehouse. The next day my mom and I both had to work, so Brock and Chelsea were just hanging around until we got done. That evening we went out for a nice dinner and some more moose hunting/exploring Anchorage.

The next morning is when the weekend really got going. We took off bright and early for Seward, AK. We had booked a night in a great little B&B on the beach in Resurrection Bay just outside of town. We got into Seward and pulled into the chamber of commerce, mainly to use the restroom. It turned out to be a good thing though because the woman working there was full of great information on what to do while visiting Seward. The first thing that she mentioned, and what we already knew we wanted to do was a sea life boat tour. She told us that they start at noon and since it was 11:15 already we grabbed a couple more brochures and headed down to the harbor. Now unfortunately this weekend was pretty much the only time since being here that we have seen rain, but hey, were all from Seattle, so we put on our raincoats on hopped aboard. It was a four hour tour of Resurrection Bay that included, seals, sea lions, dahl porpoise and sea otters. Unfortunately it was pretty rough seas that day so we didn't venture out far enough to give ourselves the best chance of seeing any whales, but it was still really fun and amazing.

After the tour we headed to our room to check in and dry off. Once we got there and saw how awesome it was and that it was right on the beach, we decided to keep our rain gear on for just a little bit longer and walk to beach for a while. There were some of the most perfect skipping stones that kept us quite entertained as we all tried to see who was best. Once we were sufficiently soaked to the bone we headed in to change and get some food. We had a delicious dinner at a seafood restaurant in the harbour. After that we strapped our party hats on to see what kind of fun we could conjure up at the local watering holes. We went on quite an adventurous pub crawl in downtown Seward. First we started at a nice quite pub with a couple of pints of a delicious raspberry beer that the bartender thought Brock ordered. After that we headed across the street to another bar, but after walking in the front door and seeing that there was nobody inside we headed back across to yet another place. Yukon Bar, a fine establishment, that unfortunately still allows smoking. But it was packed with people and had a one man cover band, so we knew we had found what we were looking for. After looking around for little bit for a place to sit, we were offered space to sit at a group of young partiers table. It was a group of military men celebrating the 21st birthday of one of their wives. It turned out to be quite a night with this group. They were very nice and interesting, but they were also there to party. One of the young men took an especially strong liking to us, so much so that he bought us a round of shots. This was fine for us, but for Turd (he started calling himself Turd Ferguson, and so did everyone else) it proved to be the tipping point. He was led moments later to the toilet by his friend so he could call some dinosaurs, he had apparently been drinking long islands before that. All in all it was a very fun and chalk full of excitement evening. We left our mark with a couple of 'tagged' dollar bills and called it a night. In the morning it had cleared up some, so we worked up an appetite with another little walk along the beach. After breakfast we went to the Sea Life center aquarium. It was a really cool place with tons of cool information and animals. One of the highlights was a 1500 lbs sea lion. He was absolutely massive! We headed out of town after doing some souvenir shopping. On our way back in to Anchorage, we stopped by the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center. It's a zoo esque place for injured and orphaned animals. We saw bison, moose, brown and black bears, and elk. The brown bears were the coolest part. There was a momma and two cubs, and they were all running around and playing with each other.

Once back in Anchorage we found a place for Mom and Brock to stay and got ready for dinner. After dinner, we tried to rally to show them how ridiculous KOOTs is. Apparently we went a little too hard the night before and were pretty much over KOOTs not too long after getting there.

It was a really fun weekend and we are so glad that we were able to spend time with family and see some more of Alaska! So now we are just waiting for YOU to come and visit us!


PS- Check Chelsea's blog in the coming days for more pictures of our trip and everything else.
http://www.notourlastfrontier.blogspot.com/

First weekend

Wow, that went fast! Our first weekend is in the books, and it was quite fun. Friday night we got some of our stuff unloaded and got our selves ready for an Alaskan right of passage. Our first night at the famed Chilkoot Charlie's. This place is crazy, and huge. There is so much going on at one time, and no amount of blogging can do it justice. But some of the highlights were the dueling piano(there was only one that night), the ten different bars in which you could get a drink, the multiple themed rooms playing different music in each(strangely the room themed for the 40's and 50's was playing club jams) and a live top 40 cover band. None of that though could touch the level of people watching that can be had at this Anchorage institution. For example the 40 something, leopard print clad drunk woman dancing in front of us that fell right on her butt. Needless to say it was quite an inauguration into Koot's world.

Saturday we headed downtown to walk around some and get acquainted with the city. We went to the Dena'ina center for a free pow wow. There was a lot of native arts and crafts for sale and demonstrations of native dancing, songs and drumming.

After getting our culture on we headed right across the street to another famous Anchorage bar, Humpys Great Alaskan Alehouse. This place we very cool, they have tons of beer on tap and good food. That night we had plans to go see a show at another place we had heard about that has live entertainment, but when it came time to go, we were just too exhausted. The long week of driving and instant immersion into the night life must have finally caught up to us.

Sunday morning we headed to my aunt and uncles house to do some cross country skiing. My Uncle Brian is an avid cross country skier and offered to show us the ropes. After some quick reuniting with an uncle and cousin I haven't seen in years, we headed off to a local park. My cousin Brandon's adorable daughter Alanah come with to do some sledding. We got our boots on, strapped them in and were off. At certain points it seemed pretty easy, right up until one of your skis just shoots behind or in front of you and feel completely our of control. All in all it was very fun, but tiring, so after just one lap around the park we opted out. That was OK though, because that allowed Brian to do some skiing, and us to do some tubular sledding with Alanah. After we were all pooped out, we walked across the parking lot to a little building that was advertising a model train exhibit. This was quite a surprise, inside was a whole room devoted to the art of recreating tiny towns and the trains that run through them. It really was amazing what they had created and it was all captivating to Alanah, which was quite the reward for the old dudes that had put it all together.

After our outing we headed back to the house for a late lunch and catching up. It was really fun seeing Brian, Cindy, Brandon and Alanah, and we are really grateful to have them here for support.

It went by fast, and was full of fun. Now we are getting our serious on and diving nose first into job hunting. Tomorrow we are headed down to Soldotna for a job fair and to check out the town. Stay tuned!

Tok, AK to Anchorage, AK

We made it! Wow, this has been one of the most rewarding experiences of our lives, and it has only just begun!We allowed our selves to sleep in just a little bit this morning knowing we weren't going to have to spend any time finding a place to stay in Anchorage. After having a very good breakfast at Fast Eddy's (the restaurant at our motel) we headed out. It was a short 328 miles to Anchorage from Tok and it was absolutely gorgeous the whole way. We saw three different glaciers, multiple mountain ranges and awesome river valleys. Not too long after leaving Tok it happen, we saw moose!! Two of them! They were huge and just eating some branches or something, either way it was awesome!

It was very rewarding to see some moose after hundreds of signs warning us of their existence.

We stopped for a late lunch in Palmer, just about 40 miles north of Anchorage. We found ourselves a nice little deli to get some sandwiches. Palmer looked like a nice town and it was surrounded by mountains which made it beautiful.

We pulled into a pretty dirty Anchorage. It hasn't snowed in a while and all the dirt on the road collected on the sidewalks and cars. It didn't really matter to us though because we were so excited about finally being here! We got to our place and noticed that the key we found in the lock box was broken. This actually turned out to be a good thing because the owner showed us into our place and gave us the lay of the land. After telling about some great restaurants and a few bars and such he failed to mention anything about the place right next door, which was accompanied by a sign that reads "Bar/ booze, bras and business cards". So we asked, whats with the place next door? Turns out its part of Chilkoot Charlies the largest bar in all of Alaska! Needless to say we are going to be checking that out tonight!

We are very glad to be here now, and have a place to settle, at least for a while. We are going to allow ourselves the weekend to be tourists of our new city before we really get to the job search.

The adventure has just started for us, and ill keep posting our experiences for whoever is still here to read them. We really appreciate all of your support, and we still maintain that we would love to host who ever would like to make it up here to experience their own bit of northern exposure!

Haines Junction to Tok, Alaska USA

We woke up again to a clear and beautiful day. The mountains outside our window were just as awesome as last night and it seemed to us like Alaska was just on the other side. As we set out of town we read a sign saying something to the effect that they were improving the road, and to expect construction. Well we didn't see all that much construction, but the road definitely needed improvement. It was full of bumps and humps and dips and pot holes. Luckily there would be stretches of newer pavement which allowed us to admire the scenery around us for a while before we had to go back to focusing on the every changing road conditions. Somewhere between Haines Junction and the Alaskan border is a small town named Burwash Landing. This town would have held no significance to us(especially because everything was closed) if not for one key feature...it claims to have to worlds largest gold pan! And as you may remember, our earlier travels took us through Quesnel BC, the gold pan city, which also claimed to have the worlds largest gold pan! Well you be the judge.

Tough call!

The highlight of our drive today was crossing the border into Alaska. And really everything that followed that, like seeing signs posted in miles per hour and everything else that is awesome about America! Our last stay on the road is tonight, and we are only about 320 miles from Anchorage, in Tok, AK.

We are really liking Tok, mainly because of the place we are staying. It's nothing special, except for it is about $40 cheaper from what we have been paying (and just as nice) and it has a really good restaurant attached to it(with cheaper than we have been paying prices as well). I got my self the Alaskan burger with an Alaskan Oatmeal Stout beer, and Chelsea got lasagna with an Alaskan Amber. It was by far the best meal we have paid for on the trip and much anticipated. We are very excited about arriving in Anchorage tomorrow and finally being able to go to bed knowing that we don't have a 5 plus hour drive ahead of us in the morning.

Watson Lake YT to Haines Junction YT

BRR! This morning was by far the coldest. If the little thermometer that we tied on to the roof was still working it would probably have said it was in single digits. That's OK though! Its not like we weren't expecting it to be cold, plus it was a clear morning, so there was nothing to complain about. On our way out of town we stopped to put our license plate in the sign post forest. It was fun walking around and seeing SO many signs. There were all kinds of different signs from all kinds of places. You could tell that some people were planning on placing a sign and had one made in advance, while other people just made signs out of whatever they had (Tupperware lids, plates, scrap wood, really anything.) It was fun to see some familiar signs pretty much right as we started walking around (Sequim Senior Center was placed right above a Fremont sign, we just pretended it was Fremont, Seattle)

We were once again treated to clear blue skies for our drive today, which made it really easy to spot all the caribou that were on the road! The caribou were pretty big and cool to see. We probably saw ten of them today in little 2-3 caribou groups. Every time we saw a group they were standing in the middle of the road, but as the car approached they would dash away back into the trees(which made them hard to photograph). We also saw a little fox looking guy right as we were pulling into town tonight.

We had lunch today in Whitehorse, YT. It is the capitol city of the the Yukon and by far the biggest(22,000 out of 32,000 people who live in the Yukon live in Whitehorse). On our way into town we stopped at the SS Klondike, which was at its time the biggest ship in the Yukon river. Tours of the ship only run during the summer so we just kinda wondered around it. There was a large window on the side of the ship that I wanted to take a look in. As I literally placed my hand on the side of the boat an alarm started to sound, so we got the hell out of there. Not fast enough though that a tour guide with a group of Korean tourists got off the classic and sarcastic "Nice job man". Other than that fun little stop, Whitehorse didn't really do much else for us (besides a stop at Starbucks).

After just a couple more hours of driving we pulled into Haines Junction. Its a little town of about 800 people. We got a nice room in the AlCan Motel. Just out our window is an incredible view of a mountain range.

 

There was a licensed lounge at our motel, so we went there after dinner and had a couple of drinks, played pool and rummy and had a nice time talking with the bartender and some locals. It was a really nice last day in Canada. We are excited about finally being in Alaska tomorrow!

Muncho Lake BC to Watson Lake YT

We woke up this morning feeling very refreshed and relaxed. We only had about a 3 hour drive to our next destination so we were in no rush. The Northern Rockies Lodge and surrounding area was just as pretty in the morning as it had been at dusk last night so we took another walk around and worked up an appetite for breakfast. We missed the breakfast buffet in the dining room(that's OK because it was $14 per person) so we just made our selves some PB&Js which were quite good. We had to deal with our first bit of car trouble this morning...thankfully it wasn't on our car! A woman approached Chelsea literally as we were getting into the car to pull away and asked 'could your um boy....um husb...um..um... partner help me change my tire?' Of course we helped her, but it really turned out to be quite an ordeal. She was driving a newer ram pickup, which I have changed a tire on before so it was no sweat getting the spare down and the car jacked up. The problem arose after I took the lug nuts off, the wheel was frozen on! It literally would not budge. I did as much yanking on it as I felt comfortable doing, knowing that it was up on a scissor jack on ice. We employed the help of a trucker that was in the parking lot. He got his hammer and whacked on the wheel a whole bunch and it still wouldn't budge(he dented the wheel quite a lot, but the owner didn't seem to mind). Then the trucker had an AH-HA moment and ran back to his truck. He returned with a butane torch and set it to the wheel. We were very lucky he had this tool because it took about 2 solid minutes of flame to wheel to heat the metal enough so that we could get the wheel off. After that it was just a couple more minutes and then we were all on our separate ways.

Our big adventure today was the Liard River hot springs (the #1 most recommended destination of previous AlCan travelers we had talked to). Their recommendation did not disappoint. The hot springs really were phenomenal, and such a nice contrast to sitting in a car driving all day. The springs are about a 1/4 mile walk from the parking lot. There were signs telling of the unique micro ecosystem that the springs create and all of the different plants and animals that thrive in it. When we got to the springs there were a couple of other people there, but they left after a short while. The water was crystal clear and quite interesting to be in. It was only about 3-4 feet deep and the top of the water was probably twenty degrees hotter than the bottom. The pool ranges in temperature from about 115* F at the hot end near the source of the heat to about 85*F as it begins to flow away. There would also be waves of heat that were almost unbearable, followed by cooler temps which felt really nice. When we were done with the pools we made ourselves some sandwiches and had lunch. It was a very nice and well deserved relaxation time.

As we have gotten into the Northern Rockies we have been seeing more and more signs warning us of all kinds of wildlife. We have seen signs for moose, buffalo, sheep, and even horses(pretty weird). Well today we were finally treated to our first view! As we pulled around a curve and began to descend a hill we both saw in the distance and large brown spot against the pure white snow. As we got closer it appeared to be larger and larger, but we still couldn't quite make out the object. Not until we were about 100 yards away did we both yell out "buffalo!" We were so excited to finally see something, and it was quite a magnificent creature. It was huge, and just laying down near the road.

Little did we know that this was not the only buffalo that we would we seeing, but it was fun to finally see something. (Chelsea's "job" has been wildlife look out) By the end of the day's drive, we probably saw 150 of the 250 buffalo living in BC.

We got to our destination of Watson Lake at about 4:30 and made the rounds again. Things here are also a bit pricier, but there's not much you can do when you're in the middle of nowhere. We found ourselves a nice little motel with cool cabins. On recommendation from the motel staff we had dinner at Bee Jays cafe. It was in a truck stop, so we were a little skeptical at first sight, but we went for it. We had our first taste of Poutine(a Canadian dish of french fries covered in cheese and gravy) and some burgers. It was all really good. Then we headed to the Sign Forest. It is a collection of wood posts with all kinds of signs on them. (it was started by an American GI who, while building the highway, posted a sign stating the mileage back to his home town in Illinois) There are now over 70,000 signs in the sign forest. We wanted to go look around, but we were not properly equipped since there was a good 2 feet of snow throughout. So we decided we are going to visit it in the morning on our way out of town with some better snow gear. We also took the front license plate off of Falcor (I think well be alright with out it) cleaned it up and tagged it with our names and mileage from Seattle to Anchorage. It was a very nice relaxing day which is good, because the rest of our days are going to be long hauls.

Fort St. John to Muncho Lake BC

As we woke up this morning we had our eyes set on Fort Nelson BC. After a nice breakfast of cereal and toast that was included with our room we headed out. Once again it was snowing as we woke up and left out of town. That let up after a while and it turned into a good day again. As we get farther and farther north the towns become fewer and father between, so we pretty much just pulled off the highway and had lunch in a 'closed for the winter' gas station. We pulled into Fort Nelson early in the day and began our rounds of the motels and motor inns. We were finding that they were all much more expensive than we have been paying for the same room or better. Being that it was still early and there was nothing  to do in Fort Nelson besides sit in an over priced room, we decided to keep going. We made a call to Norther Rockies Lodge on Muncho lake(about 3 hours from FN) and reserved a room. This leg of the trip was by far the most beautiful scenery we have seen on our entire drive. We were winding up and down the northern Rockies as the sun began to go down on a clear blue sky. We were treated with constantly changing views of amazing river valleys and mountain peaks.

We pulled up to Northern Rockies Lodge at about 7pm. It is a large log lodge right on the banks of Muncho Lake. We checked into our rooms and changed into our snow pants so we could take a walk around the compound and play in the snow. The lake was completely frozen over and they had cleared out a little ice skating area. It was pretty amazing to see a big lake completely frozen. After playing around we took a peek at their dinner menu. It was pretty pricey so we ate some snacks so we could just share one entree. The lodge is Swiss owned so their specialty was Wiener Schnitzel, which is what we got. We read on the place mat that by the time the food gets to them from Edmonton there is a 60% mark up, which is why their prices are so high. The food was good though and a very large portion, so it was good that we shared. We were very glad that we made the decision to continue driving and not stay in For Nelson, especially because it made our next drive that much shorter and gives us much more time to play at Liard hot springs!