No, We Didn’t Win the Lottery

After reading about all of the adventures we’ve had this summer, you must be thinking we hit the lottery. I mean, really, who could afford to do all of those things?

Links go to the blog post I wrote about the adventure.

Two glacier cruises…

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Our cruise with Kenai Fjords Tours
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Our cruise with Major Marine

Two Helicopter tours…

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Marathon Helicopter tour
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Seward Helicopter Tours

Dog sledding…

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Turning Heads Kennel

Rafting…

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Rafting with Alaska River Adventures

Took the tram…

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Riding the Tram

Visited the wildlife center

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Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center

And did sight seeing on our own…

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Kenai NWR-8737

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11 1/2 week old eagle in Homer

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One thing I haven’t written much about is the fact we are working. For May, June and most of July, we worked full time, 40 hours a week. We are the “On Site Hosts” at the Spruce Moose Chalets in Moose Pass. What does an on site host do, you ask? Well, lots of things. But one of the major things we do is be an ambassador for the area. Chalet guests come from all over the world and want to have the best experiences possible. But how can we recommend an excursion if we haven’t tried it ourselves? Would you recommend a restaurant you’ve never eaten at? No! So what I did was contact all of these businesses and explained to them we would be here for the summer and wanted to be able to tell our guests about our adventures. I asked if they would be willing to give us a discount in exchange for our testimony. Simple as that! Nearly every place I contacted offered us a deal and discounts varied from place to place.  We never would have been able to afford to do all these things if I hadn’t been able to leverage our position as the on site host.

I still have one more post to write (maybe two) about our time but I am pretty much caught up. Finally!

Our job contract here is almost up. We will be leaving Moose Pass on Sept. 4th, but our adventures are far from over! We are heading up to Denali for a week (where we have an interview for a job next summer), then we will be heading down to Haines for 4 days. I have mapped out a pretty ambitious trip back to Florida, 4 National Parks and lots of cool sights along the way. I hope you continue to follow our adventures!

We’d love to hear your comments!

Our First Day Trip

So we crossed from the Yukon into Alaska on May 1st. Here it is July 1st and I am posting about our first day trip on May 12th. Reminds me just how far behind I am.

We’ve actually been in Alaska for 8 weeks and we’ve been on several day trips now. One thing I have decided is that Nat Geo has been lying to us for years! There is not a moose standing in the road around every bend and there aren’t bears catching salmon in every river and creek. As a matter of fact, I saw my first wild bear just this week. That being said, if you want to make sure to see all of the Alaskan wildlife, you need to take a day trip to the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center.

We drove past the entrance to the AWCC because we had heard there were a bunch of eagles in Turnagain Arm. The tide was out and, who knew that eagles will stand in the shallow waters to hunt…

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It was amazing to see so many eagles in such a small area.

It was a cold, raw day and the skies kept threatening to drench us. We had dressed for it and were ready to explore the AWCC. The conservation work being done there is truly impressive. They have helped re-introduce wood bison and other large game back into the wilderness. Some of their wildlife are movie stars, having been on loan for the filming of Into The Wild.

I loved how much room the animals had and how natural their habitats were. Here are my favorite pictures from our day…

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Elk
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Musk Ox
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Grizzly bears
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Black bear
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Looking for lunch
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Something’s on the wind
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Part of the caribou herd – I think they see the lunch truck coming
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Wood bison with nursing baby
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Learning to walk

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Successful fishing in Turnagain Arm
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Wolf surveying his domain

There were several other species I didn’t get any decent shots of, like moose, lynx, porcupine and reindeer.

I’m hoping to see most of these animals in the wild and if you’ve been following me on Facebook or Instagram, you’ll know which ones I’ve seen so far.

Up next…Kenai Fjords National Park.

Thanks for coming along!