It turns out that I was in Alaska when I was about the same age as Rudy. I actually have no idea how old I was, I just know that I could walk, and that I was there. All I have is some pictures of that trip, but don't know much else.
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| See, I was there. |
Well I would be remiss if I left out our pre-vacation vacation. I managed to get myself a sweet truck from work for a pretty good deal, but it ended up sitting in our driveway more than it was ever getting used. Well that truck is what more or less enabled the whole trip. Tina's nephew, Justin, was in desperate need (or want I should say) of a truck, having aspirations of becoming a hunting guide, and his little 2-door mustang not being the best family car out there. So we worked it out that we would sell him the truck, but we were going to dive it from Texas to Utah for him. We started to wonder how much it would be to fly from Utah to Alaska, and if it was any cheaper than flying to there from Texas! It was, and thus started our adventure. Just a note to my kids: I had been working at BTI for almost 7 years (now more than 7) and so between my hard work and dedication, I had not only amassed enough time off to take the vacation, but also enough trust that things wouldn't break while I was gone! Just remember, don't think that you can off and take a 2 week vacation after working at a job for just a few months.
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| All in the back seat of the truck! Very close to the front seat! |
On Aug 7th we packed up in the 4-door truck, said a prayer and headed on out. A family of 5 in a crew cab truck is a little cozy, but as always, our kids were great on the trip. The second day we didn't even have to break out the iPads! It was awesome. We have always tried to stop in Albuquerque, NM on the way out, and it makes the second day fairly enjoyable because we are in the mountains for most of the day. We arrived early afternoon on the 8th to Amber's house. Let me tell you, they were patient and gracious hosts. Compared to my family growing up, we are super quite, but I'm sure Amber's house always takes several months to recover from all the noise that happens when we come to visit (or campfire smells!). When we got there, one of the first things that we did was go outside. The weather was sooo beautiful that it reminded me of being a kid and going with the family up the canyon near Mt Pleasant with Grandma Jodi to the dam and having a picnic there. I asked Tina on a whim if maybe we could try to go up a canyon and have a picnic the next day. Amber suggested bridal veil falls, and it happened! We got there, hiked a super easy path up to the falls. We did a little climbing and fed the fish a bit, and then walked back down to a grassy area and had a nice little picnic (no fire ants!). All in all, it was a great time. I have to mention, Rudy had an eye infection, pink eye or something of the sort, so he looked like a little demon child, and he was kind enough to share it with me during the trip. Me going through it too, he was in an amazingly good mood for how much my eye bothered me, and Rudy had it in both eyes. While we were there in Utah, we met up with Grandpa Gert to take him to dinner at his favorite place, Chuckarama. Sunday we spent sleeping in, and then that evening we spent with Nicole and her family. She made an amazing garden salsa and we had some great barbecue chicken. We didn't get to spend very much time with Nicole and family but we did get a chance to go to lunch with Nicole on Monday before we drove up to Taylorsville to spend the night with Tupou and her family. That was also a great adventure! The kids always love spending time with Tupou's boys, so there was always something going on there. Tina especially liked the ride up to her house (having sold the truck to Justin, we had to get a ride up). At both Amber's and Toupo's we stayed up late having a great time just talking and hanging out. On Tuesday 8/12, Ron gave us a ride to the airport after we said goodbye to Tupou and the other kids.
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| Bridal Veil Falls! | Abby | Rae |
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| Bea | Rudy | Friends |
So this brings us to the first day of our official arrival to Alaska. Luckily I went ahead and started booking and reserving a car and a places to stay a few months before this time. Now we realized that when we finally got to where we weren't worried about having everything packed, that we didn't loose any kids along the way, that we had all our tickets and something to eat, that I had focused so much on the logistics that I hadn't spent a ton of time thinking about the itinerary of our trip. We had discussed a lot of ideas of what we wanted to do, but hadn't made very many decisions. Oh, another thing was that for the 4th of July weekend we went out and visited Summer in Austin, and I picked up a totally awesome child carrier backpack from craigslist and a portable scanner to try and scan pictures while were were at Grandma Shirley's house. The backpack was a lifesaver! Never again will I travel with a little one without a child carrier backpack. Thinking about it before we left, I thought it was going to a awkward or a hassle trying to get through the airport with the backpack, but since Rudy enjoyed it so much, it made it almost easy to make it through the airport.
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| Riding High! | High Density Travel! | Thats the Ticket |
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| Pose! | Cool Plane | These are great seats! |
8/12 Our plane tickets were chosen based off of budget and least number of layovers. On the way out we flew JetBlue, probably one of the nicest airlines (family friendly) that I have flown in recent years. I don't know if we were all so excited to get to go Alaska, but it was one of the best flights that we have had with our family. We had a layover in Long Beach, CA, and it was such a small airport, that we got use the stairs and walk around outside to exit the first plane and board the second. Mommy got some fun pictures of that. Also, our flight had us landing near midnight, so really, we only spent about 20 minutes in Alaska on the 12th. I don't even think we made it to the hotel in Anchorage before it was the 13th. One of the best things that happened for us on the trip was that Grandpa was able to get himself a ticket out to Alaska to enjoy the trip with us. His flight had landed probably 2 or 3 hours before us, and he had prepped the hotel room for us so all we had to do was change into our PJ's and jump into bed. The nice thing about the flight being so late, all the kids went to bed fairly easily.
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| Sleepy Heads! | Hotel Shuttle | Hibernating |
8/13 We all woke up pretty early for having been up so late the night before. We went down and had some of the free breakfast. Luckily it didn't seem like too long before the rental van showed up. After we got that all taken care of, we began our 3 hour road journey around Turnagain arm towards Kenai. Unfortunately it was rainy while we were driving out, so you couldn't see super far. Apparently I was getting a little worked up about no one taking pictures, so Tina made me and Dad switch so he could drive and I could take pictures. The kids were already a little bored cause we had spent so much time in vehicles and traveling and a little too young to really appreciate the immense size of the mountains or that we were driving around the ocean to get where we were going. Tina and I were so excited though, the kids boredom didn't seem to bother us too much. I ended up seeing some beluga whales! Totally awesome, I had never seen any before, and it got me pretty excited. The kids were too occupied with their activities to be excited enough to look outside. I also didn't realize what I was seeing until it was almost too late. I got a slight picture of them, but you can only just see the top of the whales. About an hour into the drive, Tina fell asleep, primarily because the clouds and rain had made it pretty hard to see much of the landscape. Just like the last time I had been to Alaska, the rains had swelled the Kenai river pretty high above normal, so I was getting a little disappointed as that had made the fishing pretty poor the last time I got to go. Once we made it to Soldotna, we stopped at a second hand store to see if we could pick up some supplies. Unfortunately they were fairly picked over, and we ended up heading to Walmart and got loaded up with some food and fishing supplies. We headed over to the Goggia's who rented us their basement apartment for our time there. The first thing that Grandpa did while the rest of us were unpacking was get the fishing poles rigged up for the rest of us. A little to Tina's dismay, the first thing we did was pack up and head over to Cunningham park, Grandpa's favorite easy access fishing spot. We spent some time there casting out our lines and failing to catch anything but attitude from the little ones! Luckily it was a pretty enough place that they weren't too upset to try and catch fish with Dad and Grandpa. We did have a couple of seals swim up the river to keep us company. After getting back to the apartment, Tina and I sat down to try and figure out what the rest of our itinerary while were there. Tina let me take Grandpa and Rae back to the river to fish a little bit more. No luck again, but we had a fun time with Grandpa and Rae worked on her casting.
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| Run Grandpa! | Cheese | Dimple | |
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| Rae | Yup | Finally Here | Oh Yeah |
8/14 We started the rainy day off by going to the Kenai visitor center. We got to see a lot of cool stuff there, and they had the museum open, which I had never gotten to see before, I think it was relatively new. The kids also thought it was pretty cool too. Then we drove over to look at the lots that Grandma and Grandpa owns up there and we saw the house where Grandma grew up in. After we finished there, we went over to Grandma Shirley's house so the kids could meet her in person for the first time. Grandma Shirley was fairly pleased with the girls and Rudy gave her plenty of entertainment. The girls got to know her puppies really well and some of their cousins came over and they got to play outside a little bit. We also found out that Grandma Shirley's first marriage happend in Seldovia. After some time there we went over to visit Great Aunt Ginger. We had some fun times there and let the kids get to know her a little cause she was going to watch them overnight for us on Saturday so we could go out on the river to fish.
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| Awesome Quilt | Old Stuff | Which way? |
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| Nice to meet ya! | Grandma Shirley | Love at first sight |
8/15 This was the day of our trip to Homer and Seldovia, and it was also part of a wildlife tour, but we got to see so much more wildlife than we had expected to. Tina was really excited because we would be going around Kachemak bay, which has been featured on one of the shows we have been watching about Alaska. We woke up early and drove down to Homer, it was rainy the whole way, which was kind of a bummer cause there are a lot of beautiful vistas on the way, but they kids all got to nap a little bit. Once we got to Homer, the weather started to clear up and we got to see our first bald eagles of the trip. I'm always impressed about their size when we see them up close. We set sail and headed over to seagull island. At the island we saw tons of seagulls. We got see a few puffins which are pretty cool looking birds. Right as we were finishing there, we got word that there were some humpback whales in the bay. We motored over to see them and actually got to get some pictures. After that, we sailed the rest of the way to Seldovia, we got to see another eagle and bunch of cool rock formations. While there, we had lunch and we got to walk around the little town. It was really cool to see it, and see how beautiful it all was. We got to play on some wood carvings, and kids can tell every one they know that they have been to Central Park. We got some good pictures with the kids. The boat trip back was a lot of fun, and Rae and Bea made really good friends with the boat hands. They got to help prepare the boat to dock and then Bea even stood and thanked all the other folks for going on the ride with us. We stopped for some Pizza in Homer, but Rudy had had enough for the day, so we ended up getting most of the Pizza to go. On the way home, almost everyone slept, and then we got to see a mama moose and her two calves! The kids were pretty excited as they were right outside the van and we got to take some pictures.
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| Hulk | Yay | Puffin | Rock |
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| Whale | Seldovia | Fish | Ride |
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| Wet | Central | Hey! | Moose |
8/16 We had arranged with Aunt Ginger that we were going to drop the kids off in the afternoon so that Tina and I could go out on a date that night. So that day we went and dropped Dad off at Cunningham park so that he could fish to his hearts content. There were more people there than had been the first time (I guess cause it was Saturday), so we took the kids up to the park in Soldotna that was also on the river. Tina and I let them play for while on the playground, then we went down the walkways to fish some. After that we went back to get grandpa, who had managed to fall in the mud and get half covered in it. He was pretty please with himself that he didn't fall into the river. After taking him home to get cleaned up, we took him and the kids over the Aunt Ginger's apartment. We left the kids and some laundry and took Grandpa to Soldotna park where he could keep fishing and not worry about falling in again. So Tina and I went shopping for souvenirs. We also thought it would be fun to drive around and look at the neighborhoods, and we got to see a bunch more moose! Before we knew it, it was starting to get dark outside, and we hadn't had dinner yet. We went back and collected Grandpa, who still hadn't had any luck. We went to the fanciest Italian restaurant on peninsula, then headed home for the night.
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| Cheese | Great Weather | Lounger | Epic |
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| Creatures | Mud | Better | Lined up |
8/17 We woke up super early so that Tina, Grandpa, and I could go fishing on the Kenai River with Tyler Goggia. We had to meet at the boat ramp and 6 am, then we launched out into the river. Tina caught the first fish which happened to be a rainbow trout, so we got to keep it in addition to the other fish. Tina limited out before I even caught my first fish. Dad caught two silvers, and I only caught the one, and we had to call it a day after staying out some extra time. It was pretty awesome to finally get some fish in the freezer, and Tina loved being able to outfish the men on the boat. After that we went back to Aunt Ginger's apartment. Aunt Ginger made the comment about Bea "You know, she falls asleep talking, and in the morning she wakes up talking!". The kids did great with her, and Rudy had a great time. We went back to the apartment to get ready for our trip up to the Cooper Landing cabin. On our way we stopped at Fred Meyer to get some supplies. We got there and the kids just absolutely loved it. Rudy was especially excited to get to run around and play in the dirt. He was running every which way outside. We took the girls out to the outhouse, and for whatever reason, Rae got thoroughly scared about using it and I guess decided that she was going to hold it until we got back to the apartment. We explored the cabin, and ate some yummy food, and we finally convinced Rae that it was OK to use the outhouse. They had several TV's up there with a bunch of VHS movies, so we setup the girls watching the Jetson's Movie. Grandpa taught Tina and I how to play hearts, while we sat and talked and enjoyed the time there. After a while we climbed into the beds upstairs, and Grandpa stayed on the main floor where it was a little cooler.
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8/18 In the morning we woke up and it was rather chili, so I built a little fire in the wood stove. It warmed things up and really completed the experience of the trip there. Tina and I then spent some time going through a back storage room looking for family history stuff for Grandpa Doc and Grandma Shirley. We found some notes that Grandma Shirely wrote to Doc, which was pretty cool. After we finished that and ate some breakfast, we went to the Cooper Landing Cemetery where one of my cousins, Joe is buried, there was also a memorial that was placed there for Grandpa Doc. We then started to head back down to Kenai. On the way back, we took a detour on Skilak Lake Road which turned out great. We stopped at the first turn out to take some pictures of the beautiful view. There were some informational signs there about the area and one that talked about bears, and that it wasn't a good idea to eat your food outside your car. A few other cars pulled up, and several people got out of them, and got their lunches out to eat and enjoy the area. Maybe they didn't speak English, or couldn't read? We moved on, and passed a bunch of cars parked looking up a culvert, but it didn't seem like anyone could see anything exciting. We continued past and cam on another turn out. We stopped to take pictures, but just Tina and I got out that time. A suburban drove past us just before we got back on the road, and about 60 yards down the road, the suburban had stopped right in the middle of the road. I decided to go around, and as we were doing so, the other driver started waving at us to look to the side of the road. Lo and behold, we saw a mama bear and a cub! The girls were so excited! We got out the camera and took some pictures, but the person that pointed out the bear had a dog in their car that started barking and scared the bear away. We all got to see it though! We stopped one or two more times for pictures then headed the rest of the way back to Kenai. When we made it back, we decided to go back to Soldotna park again and give it another go. Tina and I decided to wander around a little bit, and we found a little hidden spot that had a good little clump of people that were actually catching fish! After watching for a little while, we managed to wedge ourselves in, and Grandpa even got a second wind and was able to start casting and trying to catch a silver to take home. Tina out fished us again, and brought in the one silver that wasn't foul hooked. The girls had a really good time and helped us reel in the fish. We headed back to the apartment and decided it would be a good time to fry up the trout that Tina had caught the day before. It turned out to be delicious, Bea and Rudy could not get enough.
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8/19 Grandpa and I woke up again early for another half day on the river. It seems though that the fish had finally come into the river. Grandpa and I had a great time and limited out pretty quick and we were back to the apartment by 10:30. We met up with Aunt Ginger then for lunch at one of her favorite spots just near her apartment. It was delicious, but more fun to just be hanging out with Aunt Ginger. We decided then that it would be a good idea to take the girls back out for some more fishing! We really seemed to get the rhythm down and the girls really had a good time reeling the fish in. Bea brought in a silver with Grandpa's help. We brought in a bunch of humpies, but Rae brought in the biggest for sure. After we overly exhausted ourselves fishing, we went back to the apartment to cook up the silver that Bea caught. It was too late in the trip to freeze it and bring it home. Tina was gracious enough to cook it up, as I was just really tired. It turned out way better than the trout the night before. Rae even liked it a little bit this time, and Bea and Rudy just loved it. Grandpa was lucky enough to not loose his hand when he was helping Rudy with his dinner. We started packing and just hanging out, and it was a good time.
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8/20-8/21 We slept in just a little bit cause we had a long drive that day. We finished packing up and getting things loaded up in the van. After we got the apartment cleared out, we went over the Aunt Ginger's place again, and left Grandpa there. We went over to Grandma Shirley's again to see her one last time and get some more stories and some family history pictures. I also had saved a trip to the Burger Bus until the last day. I had the halibut burger there before and knew if I had it early in the trip that I would have been back too many times to eat it again. It turns out, they were out of Halibut as their supplier had not been bringing them any!! Bummer, but the burgers were still great, and it gives us something additional to look forward to if we get to go again. Between Grandma Shirley, packing the fish, picking up and extra van for the rental company and Aunt Ginger, we left Kenai at the last possible minute we could and still get to the airport with the right amount of time to get on the plane. The drive back was both long and short. It was a long drive, but as the beautiful view and mountains just flew by too fast. Tina got one of my favorite pictures on the way back. We got to the rental place, and then to the airport right on time. Our flight didn't leave till 1 am Alaska time. The flight home is exactly what a flight home from Alaska would be with a two young girls and a toddler! Long! Hard! Unfortunately we were on the cheapest flight there was, which I guess means that they can have the least amount of legroom out of all the airlines. We made it without expiring. It didn't really feel like we had a night in between the two days cause we landed round noon Texas time. Uncle Bart came to our rescue again cause Grandma was flying back from Washington. We made it home, unloaded our stuff and just slept!
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Overall it was just an amazing experience. As time goes by, it just gets better and better in the memories as we forget about the long exhausting flights and long pizza cooking time. I hope that Rae, Bea and Rudy talk about it for years to come and at least the girls have some good memories from the trip. I know that Tina and I will always remember it, and it will forever be the standard that all future vacations will be up against.
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