Juneau and Skagway - August part 2

Downtown Juneau - the only capital in the US that you can't drive to.

From Fairbanks we headed to Juneau for one last Alaskan adventure before heading to the perpetually-unfrozen South. Our first afternoon we headed to the cute little downtown area and wandered.

Marie and I on our way to the Mendenhall Glacier in 1998.

I’ve talked before about my first trip to Alaska with my Grandpa Josephson when I was in high school. He and my grandma had their catamaran Chili Pepper in Juneau and we

On our Tracy Arm Fjord cruise.

took day trips and multi-day trips from there. I went with my friend Marie Richardson and we were both paying for our own food while we were there, so we were kind of living on a shoestring. In the 10 days we were there, we ate at a restaurant called The Hangar in downtown Juneau probably 4 times. We did this for two reasons - it was in a great location that we could walk to, and they had bottomless hot sourdough bread. We would also ask for lots of lemons and make lemonade with our ice water using the lemons and the sugar packets on the table. This started a grand tradition of making our own “lemonade” every time I went out with my grandparents after that, just for old times’ sake. So of course when I was in Juneau, we absolutely had to go to The Hangar. And I absolutely had to make free lemonade with sugar packets. (I would post more photos from that trip, but I can't seem to locate them!)

This one's for you, Grandpa!

Downtown was fun to explore. Juneau exists as it is because of cruise ships, but it is also sort of ruined by them. Sad, but there you go. It is what it is. 

Scout playing in the space under the hide-a-bed.

I think it’s fair to say that traveling with children is gruelling, on both parents and children. The kids did AMAZINGLY well. Some days (and nights) went better than others, but on the whole I’m completely impressed at how my children handled all the schedule upheavals we put them through. Staying in hotel rooms is especially difficult with young children. Scout’s favorite hotel room activity was

You do what you have to do to survive when traveling!

crawling through the cool tunnel created by the hide-a-bed. Josh loved being able to watch cartoons on tv and got a big kick out of jumping on the beds and having popcorn every night with Dad.

The Mendenhall Glacier, only a few miles from downtown Juneau.

On Sunday we headed out to the Mendenhall Glacier, just outside of Juneau. We visited the fish hatchery, threw rocks in the river for a while, and turned in early for our adventure the next day - we had to catch the 5 a.m. ferry to Skagway at the northern end of the Inside Passage, which meant getting up at 3 a.m. 

Salmon running.

4a.m. on the ferry to Skagway.

The ferry ride was beautiful. It’s part of the Alaska Marine Highway, and the ferries are huge. We watched the sun rise on the Inside Passage, which I think is one of the most spectacularly beautiful places in the world. We wandered around and enjoyed the scenery, the outdoor atrium, the video game room, and our 8-hour ride.

The Inside Passage - unbelievably gorgeous.

A large pod of humpback whales hanging out in a cove we passed.

At long last, we arrived at our destination. Skagway is the gateway to the Yukon Territory and boomed during the gold rush. Someone thought it would be a good idea to put in a train from Skagway to the Yukon in order to decrease the hardship of traveling the route (this route is featured in the famous picture of hundreds of gold rushers lined up to go over a narrow mountain pass), and it was finished just as the rush ended and it wasn’t needed anymore. The old steam trains still run, though, and that’s what we were there for. We got up early to take a bus to Carcross, Canada and then took the train back.

Skagway - yet another morning up at dawn. Vacation is hard work!

Cool bridge- can't remember what it's called.

The bus (we were fortunate and ended up in a small overflow van with one other couple) was pretty fun. We went over this cool bridge - uniquely only attached to the earth at one side because of the huge changes in temperature as well as the fact that it straddles an active fault line (which currently features a beautiful waterfall).

The road to Carcross

If you watched any of the Vancouver Olympics in 2010, you saw their logo, the inukshuk. It’s a man-like figure made out of rocks and is a bit of a western Canadian icon. Many of the travelers to come through this area take the time during rest stops to wander out and construct their own inukshuks. There are a couple fairly extensive gardens of little stone people.

Inukshuk garden.

Crossing into Canada.

From Carcross (shortened from its original name of Caribou Crossing a while back) we got on the train and the adventure continued! A good deal of the first half of the ride was along the shore of a beautiful lake. 







Josh was in heaven. 




 

 

After a pretty disgusting lunch at a little train station in the middle of nowhere that happened to have a gorgeous old driftwood church nearby, we got back on the train for the second half.


 It was completely different. We went through rugged mountains with thousands of little lakes, over gorges, through tunnels, and generally had an awesome time.

Like I said, vacation is hard work!

 

This used to be a snow fence, which they needed when they ran the train year-round.

 

 
 

 
 
 

 
 
 

During Josh’s train phase a few months back, we spent extensive time reading about trains. One of his books, The Big Book of Trains, featured a really cool snow-blowing engine on the cover, as well as this little beauty called The Duchess. And we saw them both. Kind of cool to see the rock stars of the train world.

This very engine graces the cover of Josh's favorite train book.

The next morning we spent exploring a bit more of Skagway before catching the ferry back to Juneau. We visited a local waterfall and found some tourists panning for gold. It was shocking to see how much there was!

Cool old train at the train yard.

Ferry back to Juneau.

From Juneau the next day we headed out on a day cruise to the Tracy Arm Fjords. I happened to have done this same cruise with Marie when I was there 15 years ago (see photos at the top). It was a little crazy to do it again but with a husband and two kids.  

 

And then we caught a flight south to Medford, Oregon. We planned an 8-hour layover in Seattle and took the metro down to Pike Street. 

Thinking of you!

We had a fun few hours downtown and we had an excellent time wandering around the same place where we spent the day we got engaged 8 years ago. 















It was the most beautiful day I’ve ever seen in Seattle. 
 

Josh had a ball running through the market with Mario tagging along behind while I wandered around taking pictures. 

 
Then he chased pigeons for about an hour before we discovered Scout was running a fever of 104 and headed back to the airport for some Tylenol and a long nap for our very tired little munchkins. (It turned out she had roseola and was feeling much better by the next day.) 

Where's Waldo?

 
We had a bit of a rough time getting out of Seattle - we sat on the tarmac for almost an hour and a half while they worked on our plane, which was not all that fun at 10pm with a sick little baby and an antsy 3-year-old. Luckily for us and everyone on the plane, they did pretty well and we finally got out of there.

And then we were back in good ol’ Oregon. We arrived at about 2am and my mom met us at the airport. We stopped at her store for some refreshments of the ice cream variety and then got in our new (to us) minivan (wahoo!) and drove for an hour or so up to Lake of the Woods to meet my dad for a day at the lake.

The adventure continues!

Josh's birthday, and Farewell to Fairbanks! - August part 1

Birthday morning presents!

August is a lovely month in Alaska. We started by celebrating Josh’s 3rd birthday! We celebrated on the day with lots of candles.

To get Josh excited for his birthday, we got a book about birthdays from the library and read it every night for a few weeks. Josh’s favorite part was the page with the cake. I would sing “Happy Birthday” to him and then we would blow out the candles on the cake. Since the candles were also his favorite part of his 2nd birthday, we used candles at every opportunity on his birthday this year.

We started the day with a candle-studded chocolate donut. 

We sang and blew it out more than once. Then we rode the train at the park and got another donut for lunch (also with a candle in it at Fred Meyer).

Round two - donut with candle at Fred Meyer for lunch!

Birthday cars.

For dinner we got a hamburger (with a candle in it) and a movie (Hop). 

Mia helping finish Josh's hamburger.

Then Josh indulged in the chocolate whipped cream frosting of his birthday cake (with a candle in it) and also sampled quite a few of the chocolate sugar cookies I had prepared for his birthday party. 

 

 

 

Scout helping wrap presents.

 

The weekend after his birthday was when we threw Josh his birthday party! We invited a lot of the kids we’ve noticed play well with Josh.

We had a fun little bash with a bounce house (courtesy of Jed and Crystal - thank you!), 

awesome huge bubbles (courtesy of Mario - thank you!), 

two pinatas (courtesy of yours truly, and Josh who took over the painting when he saw me decorating one), 

 

hamburgers and hotdogs, hot chocolate after playing outside (who ever heard of needing hot chocolate for an August birthday party?! Only in Fairbanks!), 

chocolate sugar cookies, 

Chocolate sugar cookies with buttercream frosting. Holy smokes were they good!

 and the coup de grace: the best train cake this chica has ever made!

Happy as a clam - making a mess in the kitchen!

Josh's super train cake. I was thoroughly impressed with myself, I don't mind admitting!

Some wonderful presents from some wonderful little friends.

Mmmmm buttercream frosting!

Next time, instead of making phenomenal buttercream frosting and painstakingly putting together this cake over the space of three days, I will frost a plate and give it to Josh. That’s because the only part of the cake he came back for was the frosting. Over the next hours and days, he would wander over to the counter and take a big swipe of frosting to enjoy.

We kept the bounce house for a few days and used it inside.

Josh had the time of his life at the county fair - he was still wild about farm animals from his Duck on a Bike book, and he got all the farm animals he could handle!

 
 

"You guys know you're crazy, right?"

He was stoked to ride the pony until it was time to actually get on one - then this was as close as he got to riding a pony. 


We paid through the nose to drive these cool little cars, and generally had a great time. 



 

The sheep-goats.

Josh wandered around the livestock barns endlessly telling me what each animal was. His favorites were the pigs and the sheep/goats (see previous post :) ), although he got a huge thrill out of the bunnies and whatnot in the petting zoo.








 

Saying "choo-chooo!!"

Mario stopped working a few days before we were scheduled to fly out of Fairbanks, so between packing sessions while the kids were sleeping, we took advantage of our mornings to visit Chena Hot Springs (twice in one week!), ride the train at Pioneer Park a few times, and enjoy the wonderful puddles!

And then it was time to go.


It was certainly bittersweet to leave Fairbanks. We will miss living so close to Jed, Crystal & Co. 

Natalie, Scout, Collin and Josh.

We will miss living somewhere so darn friendly - Alaskans (especially in the interior where we were) definitely have a village mentality. One day while I was driving by myself, I saw a car stalled at an intersection. By the time I pulled around and found a place to park so I could get out and help, FIVE other cars had already stopped to help. Every time we stopped by the road to switch drivers or whatever, everyone who passed us made sure we were okay. I kind of hated checking out at the grocery store because most of the time the checker would be so chatty I couldn’t get out the door. 

The midnight sun in June.

We’ll miss the fun of going to bed at midnight and not needing to turn on a single light to read a book in summer (although I sorely missed seeing the stars for four solid months - there was a huge meteor shower in July that I got up in the middle of the night to see, but there wasn’t a single star in the sky because it was still too light out). Even when the sun would dip below the horizon for a few hours, it would leave a perpetual perfect sunset for those hours. Amazing.

We will miss the absolutely stunning landscape and the easy access to said landscape (as long as you have the proper insect and bear protection). 

 
We will miss the aurora borealis. We’ll miss the public use cabins. We’ll absolutely miss the comfort and ease of a normal 9-5 job with paid vacation. We’ll miss the urban moose and the general sense of adventure of living somewhere as unique and awesome as Alaska.


We won’t miss -50 degree weather. We won’t miss 20+ hours of darkness. 

The sun at noon in December.

We won’t miss living in a place so small that they announce what’s on the menu for school lunch on the morning news and over the radio, along with what school buses are running a few minutes late. We won’t miss the utter lack (except for Crystal’s Bounce ‘n Play, of course) of activities for children, especially in the winter. Me and the kids would go to Fred Meyer, PetCo, or Barnes & Noble for fun in the winter. Wahoo. We won’t miss the lack of quality, affordable food. (We are excitedly working on making up for lost time in this area here in Austin where the food is excellent and cheap! Just come visit us - we'll show you!) A dinner out for us in Fairbanks typically consisted of a burger from Carl’s Jr. Super exciting.

In short, we loved our year in Fairbanks and we are so very glad to have had such a wonderful experience there. And we are glad it was only for a year. :)
 

From Fairbanks, we shipped all of our belongings to the Outside (as Alaskans call anything that's not Alaska) and hopped on a plane for Juneau to begin the 45-day journey from Fairbanks to our new home in Austin, Texas. Let the travel blogging begin!