More Alaska….

On our last day in Healy, we decided to go muddin on 4 wheelers. We got to the rental place and had to wait a few minutes for the rest of the tour. While waiting outside, the mosquitoes were terrible. So dad tried to protect his head by trying to suffocate himself. :)
 

We got things settled and had to watch an awful safety video. We had a short instructional on how to turn the 4 wheelers on:

Finally, we could get on our fun machines.

We rode off through mud, uphill, down rocky terrains and on to an overlook. Then we headed to the dried up creek and climbed the sand mountains. Enjoy!

 
        
    

        

It really was a blast. Thank you Mom and Dad! That was the first time I have been “allowed” on a 4 wheeler and I am over 30. ha!

Sadly, our time in Healy had come to an end. While we were sad to go…

we were happy to have spent so much time with Alex…

   

We ate at Rose’s for our last meal in Healy and headed back to Anchorage.  On our way back to Anchorage, we stopped at the Mt. McKinley lookout spot. It was a beautiful, clear day. Typically, you only have a 20% chance of seeing the peak of the mountain, but we had clear visibility. It was amazing.     
        

Once we got back to Anchorage, we ate dinner at Winnie’s and headed to bed. Mom and Dad were flying out early that next morning and we were leaving that next night at 10 pm.

Only 1 or 2 more Alaska posts to go….sheesh! :)

Love and Hugs, Lizzie

The North Pole, Alaska

While in Alaska, we decided to spend a day trip driving to Fairbanks and The North Pole! I was pumped to go to the North Pole. We headed out ON THE ONLY ROAD IN ALASKA to get to Fairbanks. I drove the 2.5 hours there. When we arrived, we headed straight to church at St. Nicholas on Santa Claus Lane…
  

We walked into church right after the homily…clearly we were VERY late, but we stayed and enjoyed the rest of mass.

We met a nice lady from New Orleans (of course) who then escorted us to the Santa Claus House. You can see her above in pink.

The Santa Claus House is where Santa lives. He is there everyday…BUT SUNDAYS…alas..(ka).

   

Then we headed outside to see all Santa’s reindeer!!!   
 

Not exactly sure which reindeer we saw, but they all seemed very nice and about to start training as Christmas is in 6 months! :) They did have a countdown clock in the house that can tell you down to the second how close Christmas always is. That place must be a madhouse during December.

Then we took pictures with the HUGE SANTA out front.    

We drove around the North Pole enjoying all the candy cane decor…
   

And then we finally ate….breakfast. :) It was delicious as we were starving and hangry. We ate at a diner in Fairbanks.

As we were leaving we got a call that someone had run a car into Doug’s house off Magazine. Not much we could to from Alaska, but I will tell you about it later. Everyone was ok and that is the good news.

We headed back to Healy for our last day there.

Next up: 4 wheelers, Anchorage and travel home.

Love and Hugs, Lizzie