i wish the world was flat like the old days, we could travel just by folding a map... no more airplanes or speed trains, or freeways, there'd be no distance that can hold us back.

for all of you that have been waiting for updates from alaska... here they are! 
i am up here and just working hard... i am nannying for a couple different families and trying to shoot as much as possible... its been a little tough, just because it is so far away... but it will get better... i am sure of this! 


it has also been a busy couple of weeks... so i will give you an overview of whats been going on...

we left minnesota at four am on monday the nineteenth... i pretty much slept the whole first six hours. (i like sleeping!) we drove from minneapolis to fargo for gas... i woke up there for a few minutes, enough time to realize it was super foggy! sorry mom for making you drive through that! 

 

the drive across north dakota was pretty boring... actually really boring. I woke up once we hit the badlands... 

 here is some more of the badlands on the way into montana...

a really awesome piece of art in someones yard in a small town in montana...

It rained a lot throughout montana... actually it pretty much rained every time i drove... seriously, and it was so so windy, seriously the car was swaying, it was hard to keep it on the road, but i got this picture out of the deal, so i think it was worth it!

i drove us over the canadian border and to about twenty miles outside of calgary, which is where i decided to stop for the night, and by night i mean, five am. it was actually pretty painless overall, i thought it would be harder... praise jesus it wasn't. 

we did have some excitement at the home depot in great falls, montana... my ridiculous amount of stuff was weighing down the car, so we had to buy some boards and fix that... two hours and a lot of potty words later from yours truly, we had it all fixed! i didn't take a picture of the car, but i should have... it was seriously intense! packed to the gills, poor mitzy, she had a rough time! 

the drive through the night was VERY worth it, as we were awoken to the beauty of banff national park... i swear i will never get sick of mountains! what a wonderful morning! 

mom and i decided to go to lake louise just to say we had been there... and we decided right away we would hike to the lookout... the picture below is the least steep part of the mile hike... it was pretty intense, especially considering we hadn't really done anything in forty-eight hours... we both were dying halfway into it... 

but yet again, we were rewarded... it was so beautiful... this water is insane... it took me a while to even be able to meter the camera to it... i love it!

wild mushrooms on the way down the mountain by lake louise...

a few more views from lake louise in banff...

the beautiful flowers at the castle hotel on lake louise... complete with islandic poppies, i do love poppies, and these were literally as big as my hand...

then we headed over to moraine lake which is about twelve miles up from lake louise... and honestly, i liked it even more, less people, more trails... so beautiful! i loved the crystal clearness of the water! what a beautiful place to picnic, which is what we did!

enjoying the scenery in banff, so beautiful, i literally could just play there forever! i didn't take any pics of the town of banff, but we loved loved loved it... so wonderful! super fun cute little town... wonderful! 

a massive glacier in the ice fields in jasper national park... 

athabascan falls, this place was beautiful, if you are ever in jasper national forest, check these falls out... the river off of it is what i loved though! we had to redo the top again... that was another two hours of packing and repacking... bouff..

from jasper we traveled along the yellow head highway, which i was told would be beautiful, but i was lied to... it was just windy and long... followed by prince george.... which was a long long night... we stayed at a pull off just north of prince george, b.c. with a few other semis and a couple of big campers... which helped make us feel a little safer...


the next day we plugged through b.c. on the way to the northern rockies lodge in the northern british columbia forest... we had a blast driving that night... the whole way up we hadn't seen very much in the way of wildlife, but we were rewarded in b.c. we saw tons of elk, two different herds, a few moose and some buffalo on the road... we spent the night at the northern rockies lodge which was actually very nice and not nearly as expensive as we thought it would be... not to mention it felt good to shower after sleeping in the car the night before! 

the next morning we started off early to head up to the liard hot springs about an hour before the yukon border... on the way we saw a little brown bear... more commonly called a grizzly! loved every second of that! 

a beautiful morning of fog in northern b.c...

the walkway to the hot springs at liars hot springs... which was a wonderful stop and much needed soak on the way up there... it was really fun with all of the colors and the dew that morning! the hot springs were super hot though! we didn't last long! it felt like we were being boiled! and we didn't see any bears there... which was good... they have issues with that there! 

the walkway to the hot springs...

from liard we continued on to watson lake, in the yukon... where we drove through the sign forest... 70,000 signs... seven people... no joke. 

we spent the night just outside of beaver creek, yt, in another pull out... with some very loud hunter neighbors... beaver creek is a little town, with pretty much nothing in it other than canadian customs... may i add, american customs is over thirty miles away... who takes care of those thirty miles... i might need to research that! 

Anyways, we headed into Alaska about ten a.m. on saturday... a full six days later! and were pretty excited to finally see that sign!

The only bad road we actually hit was the one between tok, ak and glennallen, ak... but it was still beautiful, just like pretty much every other mile of the trip!  

this picture is for e... tok thai food, in glenallen, ak... it is served out of a purple bus and is so stinking good! seriously like pad thai on steroids... yum! 

it was nice to see a familiar sight in glacier view, ak... the gypsum mountains, or sheep mountain... love this sight! we spent some time in glacier view and took in the matanuska glacier before heading out to the beachy family homestead for the night! i am so thankful for the beachys taking us in and feeding us crazy yummy food! (i do love moose and wild salmon!) they are so wonderful! 

we spent sunday and monday unpacking me and buying a mattress at the worlds most ridiculous mattress store... the mattress ranch... this place was pretty intense! i also got to spend some time with some friends in anchorage... it is great to have the schroeders and the reeps here in anchorage, also to have my roommate julie, who i have known since our cbc ecuador days! actually we all went to cbce together, which is kinda fun! or a lot of fun! it is definitely helping the transition... 

since i still had a little work left to be done on my bed, we spent wednesday finishing that... i will post a picture sometime... its pretty intense! thank you so much jamie! mom still had a few days in town, so we went down to seward for the day on tuesday and we took the whittier tunnel, just to say we had... for those of you that don't know... whittier is a small port town in the prince william sound... you have to take a two mile tunnel to even get there by land... seriously, it is like something out of a crazy dystopia novel... which made me really want to go there... at one point in time the entire town lived in one building... (see old building below) now the town pretty much still lives in one building, but it is nicer... and newish... still crazy though! and i loved every second of how creepy crazy this town was! seriously... worms, it made the town in kansas look normal and safe! ya... good thing i was there during the day... haha! 

glaciers... not sure which ones...

dystopian movie... anyone read city of ember... this is what it reminded me of!

jamie and his iceberg... yep, if you look at his pinkie you can see the cut he got from hitting the ice! good one!

i don't think i could ever get sick of this...

on to seward, we went there just because it was another tourist destination... and honestly, i do believe the journey is the best part about a trip... but we saw a jellyfish floating by the shore... that was pretty cool! jamie kept trying to throw rocks to make it move... such a boy!

mom and i spent some time in downtown anchorage, shopping for gifts for people  and just hanging out, this is what we found in a store, appropriately named grizzly's... 

thomas! I found a big grizzly for you! 
mom left on friday... i will admit i cried, a lot... i wasn't expecting that, but it has been a hard transition... not that it isn't good!  i do love it up here! anyways on friday we drove up to denali... so we could see mt. mckinley, but it was pretty hazy, so we didn't get to see much... the lower part of the picture is what it looks like during clear skies, above is what we saw... it was still a good trip...

that is pretty much whats been going on... now i spend my time getting thrown up on daily... luckily by infants and small children... so it's not so bad. then i come home and edit... or go running... 

there is this thing called the tuesday night races here in anchorage, and i did my first one last week... i was told it was a 5k, it was actually a 7k. i got tired pretty fast! it was rough to say the least... but, i plan on doing it again, until i can actually run the whole thing... seriously, it is trail running here, and they have hills the size of minnesotas mountains... 

i think that is it... 

here are my top five favorite things about the alaskan highway...

1. canadian road signs... so random

2. lake kluane... amazingly beautiful

3. the wildlife... we saw so much! lots of moose and elk and sheep and buffalo... so much fun! 

4. mountains... everywhere! 

5. the fact that everyone sleeps in the pull outs. wonderful. so random! 

peace, love, and sunshine

a.