Day 2 in Alaska
This morning I woke up at 8 AM before heading to breakfast. We went to breakfast in our group of 7 (Nick, Anna, Kris, William, William’s parents, and me). Breakfast was our first chance to try reindeer. I got Belgian waffles and shared reindeer sausage with the girls. I actually really enjoyed it! We worked out some of our plans for the day while we ate and heard lots of stories from William and his parents.
We brought our cameras with us to breakfast, so we were ready for touring. After breakfast, we went to a hardware store to get some cheap sunglasses for us girls who forgot to bring some. We started driving down the highway in the direction of Seward. We stopped at some overlooks on the side of the road, which was the only thing between the mountain and the frozen inlet. This gave us the opportunity to take photos of the scenery and each other.
The highway followed the mountain coast all the way to the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center. This was a lot of fun. Of course, we came when it was 10 degrees out, but we made it work. We drove around the loop, stopping and getting out to take photos of all the animals. The first thing we came up on was the musk ox. This was a new one for me; besides seeing them online, I had never seen a musk ox. They were a lot of fun to watch as they pushed on each other. They were basically just big, shaggy cattle, which is very normal for me. I took lots of fun photos and videos of them.
Our next animal in the loop was some elk that we saw from a distance. We were way too far away to get photos of them, so we moved on to the wood bison. They were right through the woven wire from us at their water tank. They were smaller bison, so very similar to cattle as well. I got some of my favorite photos from the day of them, as well as some fun videos. Our hands started to get very cold from the air and the breeze, so we had to jump back into the car to warm up with some hand warmers.
As we drove back the way we came, the moose were out! When we passed their pens the first time, they weren't out and we didn't even see them. The moose were very curious and walked right up to us at the fence. I got some very close up photos of the one that kept coming up closer to us. The girls and I were about to get a cute selfie with him standing right behind us.
We drove up to the gift shop and parked out front. I did, in fact, buy some souvenirs, a snow globe for my collection and a few other goodies. Out back of the gift shop, we saw a lynx, an owl, and some coyotes. As we drove out of the conservation center, we also saw reindeer and wolves. We then started our drive back to Anchorage.
There was a cute little bakery that we stopped at to get some sweets. Once back in Anchorage, we stopped at Moose Tooth for lunch/dinner around 3:30. I had some of the best pizza I have had in a while there. I got a garlic lover pizza, which was very, very good, and I ate way too much of it. We were all getting tired from the long day and stopped at Walmart for some snacks before heading back to the house.
We brought in all our gear and newly acquired goodies. The girls and I got in the hot tub for a little bit, which was very weird to do surrounded by snow and 10-degree air. I uploaded and edited my photos from the day and got ready for tomorrow!
We had a full, fun day, and this was only the first day of truly doing very much here. I am loving it so far, and I am excited to get to see even more of the Anchorage area!
All the photos I have attached to these blog posts will be photos I have taken on my phone during the day. I am working on a new tab in my website that will be a gallery of my favorite photos from this trip!
