Back from Alaska!!

Wow, what a wonderful trip!! I think I will break this down into a few posts starting at the beginning (a very good place to start).
We left the house at some extremely early hour like 4:45 am or something. We had set the alarm clocks but of course we were both so excited that we didn't need them and got up even earlier than we needed to. Paul had arranged for a towncar to pick us up instead of the van so we had a straight shot to LAX.

The plane trip up was non stop and so smooth that we would forget we were even on a plane. I got to sit in the window seat and although there were a few places that were covered with clouds over all I had great views of the trip. It is like looking at the ultimate map when looking down and you know how much I love maps! Next trip we take I think I will bring a map along with me to double check where I am.

The picture above is of the first views we had of Alaska from the plane. What a cold looking area! We were wondering what we got ourselves into!!! Luckily that isn't what the rest of Alaska looked like in September.

We landed, got our rental car and headed out of Anchorage to Wasilla. I can tell you, coming from weather in the 90's to upper 50's it seemed cold!! We kept trying to remember it was still summer and wasn't really winter already!

What surprised Paul was all the trees. He wasn't expecting anything like that. For me it reminded me a lot of New Hampshire where I grew up. Lots of birch trees and some spruce. It is beautiful. Another thing that we hadn't thought of was that we got to see the fall colors! We got two trips in one this way. The trees in Archorage/Wasilla area were just starting to turn colors. The birch and aspen a golden yellow. Not much of any reds as they didn't have the maples etc. but the yellows were wonderful.

We stopped in Anchorage and got Birds of Alaska by Armstrong http://www.globecorner.com/t/t34/17050.php so we could ID any of the birds we saw. I figured that way I wouldn't be trying to ID something as a bird that never ever gets up to Alaska!! It would limit the amount of mistakes I could make. I will be posting the bird list on http://plymouthgardens.blogspot.com/ soon. (Hopefully!)

Our cabin in Wasilla was great. We were a little surprised that it was right off a main road as the web site had it looking like it was out in the woods more but the traffic wasn't anything like the freeway we have here at home. It was set back from the road with trees between so wasn't bad at all. I guess everything looks like it is in the woods as there are woods everywhere!
The cabin had everything we needed with a kitchen, bathroom and what we really needed that night.... a bed!! We called the kids, told them we would see them in the morning and sacked out for a long winters night nap (in the summer). If we thought the added evening daylight would bother us we were wrong!!! It didn't get dark until 9:30 while we were there but we were fast asleep long before that.

More later.