We drove from Tok, AK to Whitehorse, YT today. Not too bad of a drive, especially with a stop at Buckshot Betty’s in Beaver Creek, Yukon! Homemade food & bakery – deeeelish. We had lunch, and got some super fresh cinnamon buns – so fresh, that we had to wait for them to glaze the suckers, and we could=n’t even wrap them up yet 🙂 I also picked up an awesome blue hoodie – that’s right, I said BLUE not black!

Once we got to Whitehorse, we checked into the hotel and then walked over to the local hotspot, “Yukon Salmon & Ribs”. omg. yum. Jamie ordered Muskox Stroganoff, I ordered Caribou stew, Mom ordered Bison Ribeye, and Dad ordered the Arctic Char. Mine also came with Bannock Bread (very different than what I made in school), and a delicious side salad of which 90% of the dressing made it onto my pants. I smelled salad for the rest of the night 😦 Otherwise, another FAANTASTIC meal! After dinner, with a need to walk off the enormous meals, we headed to the Suspension bridge over the Yukon River in Myre Canyon. Not very exciting, but a nice walk nonetheless.

Day 1 for the trek home today 😦  We stopped in Palmer, Alaska and checked out the Reindeer farm. I FED A BABY REINDEER! It was awesome!!! Continuing on through HWY#1, we saw the Matanuska Glacier.

Check out these pics!

today we did a day trip to whittier, alaska – about 100mi just outside anchorage. whittier is a pretty cool place for a few reasons: it has a 2.5mi tunnel through a mountain to access it; it has some cool american military history; and it is the gateway to the beautiful Prince William Sound area.

we hopped onto another wildlife cruise. it was a gorgeous day, although a bit chilly for those of us who didn’t sit on our butts inside the heated cabin all day 😉 to add to our enormous list of wildlife we’ve seen, today we spotted: black tipped kitty hawks (gull family), sea otters and their pups, harbour seals, and salmon near a hatchery – jumping wildly out of the ocean before heading into the freshwater to spawn! very cool! i also need to point out the fantastic highlight of the trip – we saw 3 humpback whales; 3 active humpback whales. the one continually repeated doing full body breaches out of the water! this is a rare sight – most people do get to see a whale do 1 full body breach, but this one little guy was super active and just playing away! jamie got some fantastic shots – i didn’t get any – so we’ll have to share with everyone when the photos are up on his flickr site.

we also checked out a wetland area called Potter Marsh, about 1mi outside of anchorage. we saw more black tipped kitty hawks, but also artic turings feeding their babies and a muskrat 🙂

wow, it has been an amazing few days! we have been to Seward and Homer – both on the Kenai Peninsula in Southwest Alaska. Absolutely gorgeous and breathtaking

Homer offers world class Halibut fishing and Bear Viewing tours. Mom and I headed off to a small artistic community via Ferry called Halibut Cove; dad and Jamie flew off on a bear viewing tour at Lake Clark National Park. That night, we met up for the BEST DINNER I HAVE EVER HAD. Apparently, Albertans have no idea how to cook fish. Did you know that halibut should be moist and just barely flakey? And did you know that scallops cooked correctly should also almost be flakey? Also, real, fresh, wild alaskan salmon is a gorgeous deep pink/red, full of flavor. Yummmm!

Anyway, here are some of my random shots. You can find Jamie’s on his flickr site – he will upload all 8 million of his when we get back, but he has a few up there already: http://www.flickr.com/photos/albinomuppet/

Today we did the minor 2 hr drive from Anchorage to Seward. We checked out the Exit Glacier along the way, but didn’t take any photos. However, we did check out the Alaskan Sea Life Centre – very cool!

everyone is asleep and i am desperate to get a relatively coherent blog in, so here i am @ 1am.

the trip has been absolutely fantastic, despite a few minor downfalls: bb is dead, mom and dad snore, limited internet access, we cannot send/receive text messages up here, and looooong hours in the car (which we expected, but it is still painful).

however, the good far outweighs the bad. the scenery is breathtaking. everywhere we go there is some kind of grandiose landscape that keeps blowing us out of the water. the wildlife is ridiculously abundant – i have never seen so many bears, moose, hares, dall sheep (mountain sheep) in my entire life! Jamie and dad have been taking a plethora of photos – most of which won’t end up on my blog, but on Jamie’s flickr site.

scroll down to my previous post, and you’ll find a bunch of my random “less professional” photos from the trip 🙂

tonight, we are sleeping in Anchorage. Tomorrow we will drive about 4 hours to Seward Alaska. Hopefully we will have internet access and will be able to give another update!

Ciao for now.

Jen