Our Trip to Alaska!

Last week April and I, along with my Mom and Dad, made a visit to Alaska. The main reason for our trip was a bicycle race (see post below), but we also had a few extra days to enjoy the vast landscape of Alaska. What a beautiful land this is... truly vast, almost completely mountainous, and full of wildlife everywhere.

We started in the city of Anchorage, which is really more of a small town- but a nice town at that. We ate great seafood (and pasta for our ride), and spent time touring Anchorage on foot. The flowers are amazing there, most growing twice as big as we have in the "lower 48". I guess this is because of the 18.5 hours of sunlight in the summertime, which was something I couldn't really get used to.

After our bike ride, we spent a day in Valdez (you've probably heard of this town from the Exxon-Valdez oil spill almost 20 years ago). This was an even smaller town mostly based on its oil exportation, fishing, and tourism. The highlight of our visit was our 6-hour cruise to the Columbia Glacier, during which time we saw some wonderful wildlife- whales, sea lions, eagles, puffins, and other various creatures. Our last day was spent driving 300 miles back through the beautiful mountains and glaciers, enjoying the scenery and visiting small outback cafes along the way. What a trip!