Visiting Alaska! Part 1

When Scott and I celebrated our 25th anniversary by visiting several Southern states, we decided to visit Alaska for our 30th. Our goal was to visit all 50 states and that was going to be our last one. So last week, we did it!

We left early Friday morning, arriving in Anchorage about 11am. We used Turo to rent a little Chevy Sprint hoping for better gas mileage. That afternoon we rented a tandem bike in downtown Anchorage and rode about 22 miles on a coastal trail that was quite pleasant.

Afterwards, we bought some groceries, had dinner, drove to our Airbnb and then went to the Anchorage LDS temple.

On Saturday morning, we drove to Seward on the Kenai Peninsula and did a boat cruise through Major Marine Tours. It was pricey but I think it was worth it. We were able to see a lot of really cool sights including lots of wildlife and an active tidal glacier. Before the boat tour we did a little walk around an old park with cool vegetation including this large uprooted tree.

Bald eagle.

Humpback whale. We didn't see a lot of the body but we did see his tail at one point.

Seals

Seals at the bottom of the glacier.

Scott in front of the "active tidewater glacier". I don't know if we saw real calving of the glacier but we saw a few avalanches.

Seals on ice floes

It's a little tricky to see him but there's a black and white puffin flying through the air in the lower left quadrant of the picture. We saw a lot of little puffins but it was hard to get a good picture since they're so small and fast.

I think this bird was a cormorant. We saw lots of birds who make their living from the water--about 5% of all birds do this.

Sea lions--this might have been my favorite.

Comments

Visiting Susquehanna: The Priesthood Restoration Site

On our way home from Palmyra, we decided to go a couple of hours out of our way to visit the recently opened Priesthood Restoration Site along the Susquehanna River. This is where we believe that Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery received the keys of the Aaronic Priesthood from John the Baptist which gave them the authority to baptize. This site also has the restored Isaac and Elizabeth Hale home where Joseph and Emma lived for a year as well as the home where Joseph and Emma lived on their own. We spent a couple of hours there and I wouldn't have minded a few more minutes but we had a long way to go that night. It's a beautiful setting, very much in rural Pennsylvania. However, on the day we were there, cars at a racetrack nearby were detracting from the peace and quiet. I'm guessing that's not as big of a problem on weekdays. The Hale Family was quite well-off for their day so their home was probably nicely decorated with wallpaper and carpet. ...

Book Review: Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper

This is a juvenile fiction book about a young girl named Melody with severe cerebral palsy. Her body doesn't allow her to feed herself, speak, or do much at all. She's very intelligent with a photographic memory but she can't really communicate. Finally, in 5th grade, she gets a "Medi-Talker" which is a computer that speaks what she types in. Finally she has a voice. This book explores what it is like to be severely physically disabled but not mentally disabled. It seems like one of the most frustrating of all scenarios. She is completely aware of all the cruelty (subtle and otherwise) that her classmates inflict on her because they don't really want to include her in their activities. One of the saddest moments in the book comes when she realizes that every one of her special ed classmates is kind, where the "normal" ones are not. Who really has the worse disability? The book was a quick read and fairly enjoyable. Wha...

Do Dots Family System

The original post was written in January of 2015. I wrote an update at the bottom of this post in March 2021. A few months ago, a friend of mine told me about something she was doing in her family to help her family function better. Her teenage autistic son had been struggling a lot so they had been working with behavior therapists to help him and this "Do Dots Family System" had been recommended. As she described it, I was greatly intrigued since it sounded like something I wanted to implement at my own house. I looked into it and decided to purchase it right after Thanksgiving. Here is my review of how it has worked for us over the last six weeks or so. The basic idea of the chart is that children need to take care of their responsibilities before they get any privileges. It strongly reinforces the concept of "Work Before Play" . The chart helps children see in a very visual way that, until they have completed their responsibilities, they are on Le...

Search This Blog