Day 4 in Alaska!
We were all down in the living room around the same time we have been, about 9:30ish today. Anna was still not feeling the greatest, so she wanted to stay back at the house this morning to try to recover some more. Kris, Nick, William, and I drove out to Kincaid Park to hopefully see a moose.
Once we got there, we started walking down the snowshoe trails toward the sand dunes and walked through the gorgeous woods. I loved it, and it looked like walking out of the wardrobe into Narnia. We walked along the trail for probably two miles. It was all covered in snow, and we saw some moose, snow hare, and fox tracks.
Just as William told us to keep a lookout for some moose because of the tracks going down our trail, not even ten steps later Kris stopped in front of me and said, “She’s right there!” Laying down between some evergreen trees was a female moose. So I officially get to say I have seen a moose in the wild now. We took some photos but moved on fairly quickly so we wouldn’t bother her.
I had decided at the car not to bring my longer lens out on our hike, which I regretted after seeing the moose. We kept walking down the trail some more, seeing some young moose tracks going the other direction, but we didn’t see any more wildlife after that. We continued down the trail, getting very tired at this point. According to Nick, William got us lost and got our directions all screwed up when we tried to take a shortcut on a ski trail back to the car. We made it eventually; we totaled a three-mile hike.
The four of us went to Alaskan Burgers & Brews for lunch. I got a burger and fries, which were very good. After hearing more stories from William and Nick, we headed back to pick up Anna from the house. From there, we went to the Anchorage Museum. We spent three hours roaming through the exhibits and reading all about Alaska history and culture. William’s brother joined us again for the museum.
We went to the Lucky Wishbone for dinner, and I got soup and salad. It was also very good. The five of us talked about the best parts of the trip and which things so far we want to include in the next summer trip and for future winter trips. We stopped at Walmart to souvenir shop, where the prices were a little cheaper. Walmart actually had a big section of Alaska items, which was very cool to see.
Back at the house, the girls and I got to know each other even more, talking for a few hours. Before playing Uno... Eventually, I edited my photos from the day and started writing my blog post. We had a lot of fun today and definitely had a lot of laughs. There has been lots of teasing and picking on each other, and no one has been able to stop smiling while we’ve been here.
I am loving my time here so far, and being able to help plan and eventually be staff for summer trips and future winter trips with other students will be very exciting. I love the new friends I’ve made in the other girls, and I’m looking forward to the next couple of days!
The bear photos at the bottom were a joke we had the guys do, which they were good sports about. When they told us it was our turn, we had to do it too!
