Bears, bison and beers

After that fantastic week in Whittier, Seth graciously invited me to spend the weekend at his family's home in Anchorage. This gave me a great oppertunity to explore the city while Seth worked on his bike in the garage. We did some must-do Anchorage things, including Moose's Tooth pizza, The Great Alaskan Bush Company, and a rockstar night of dancing and cocktails downtown.

Doug flew into Anchorage on Sunday night, so his big Alaskan adventure began first thing Monday morning. We packed up the car and headed down to Whittier. At one point right before heading through the tunnel, Doug and I noticed we could see mountains, blue water, glaciers, a rainbow, waterfalls, snow and icebergs! When we finally made it through the tunnel Doug and I weren't sure when Seth would be off work, so we headed up to the creepy abandoned army compound at the edge of town. The place is totally wrecked, and scary as it was, Doug and I had a good time exploring the small dark rooms and muddy hallways.

On the way to Whittier, AK

It felt like ages, but after about 20 mins in that creepy building we stepped out into the sun light and headed down to meet Seth.  I introduced the guys and we quickly walked down to the marina to get started. We pulled mounds of shrimp from the ocean; more than I had seen all last week combined! We checked out the seagull nesting area while the guys fished for Halibut off the side of the boat. While amusing, the fishing was not too successful that evening, so we headed back to the garage to grill up dinner. Doug and I traded giddy smiles all evening, I was so excited to share this amazing experience with him!

Prison cell in the old military compound in Whittier

We spent one last night in Whittier before heading back out on the road. I really wanted Doug to see Mt. Mckinley, so we drove up to Talkeetna for the day. The view of the mountain was pretty great - I've heard that due to thick clouds, it is only visible about 30% of the time, so we were pretty lucky to see it. After that we found a campsite by a river on the way out of town, made a fire and shot the shit till it finally became dark enough to sleep.

Canada was a blast, there isn't much to do but look out the window, but the views were incredible! The last time I was in Canada everything was covered in snow so I had no idea how much I missed! It felt like we constantly had water and mountins around us on all sides. The wildlife was AMAIZING too! In one day we saw moose, porkupines, elk, caribu, bears, fox, mountin goats and huge heards of bison. Oh, and yes, you read that correctly, we saw bears!! There were black bears and grizzly bears up there, we saw 15 in total from the car and Doug had the fortune (misfortune?) of seeing #16 on his own, face-to-face on his way to a restroom!!

A well earned flight in Whitehorse, Yukon

One silly one....

....and one pretty one.

Super HOT hot spring in B.C.

My attempt at a family portrait, B.C. Canada

Held the camera facing backwards out the window and clicked

Doug looking a little too comfortable in our current condition

Seriously??

For you, mom :)

After driving all day, we had to jump in!

Does this make me a bad person?

Vancouver, post-riot

We finally pulled into Seattle last night, stayed at a hotel for the first time in a week and are now feeling showered and recharged! We've got lots planned for the next few days, I hope to be able to hop on to update fairly often now that we're back in the US.