A few things on our Alaska itinerary were things I wanted to do when we lived there before, but didn’t get to because we had little kids and my husband traveled for work a lot. One of the items was visiting the Matanuska Glacier. It’s one of the closest glaciers you can get to without going on a guided expedition. It was a bit of a drive, but it was beautiful. The viewing area had a 20-minute hike that offered several different viewing area. It’s an old glacier and stretches 4 miles across, 27 miles long and 13,000 feet high. I was so glad we had the time to see it finally!

We had planned to go on a hike that afternoon at one of our old favorite hiking spots – Hatcher Pass. We drove up to where we had gone in the summer before and it had snowed overnight in the mountain pass! We got out for a few to look around and two of our kids started throwing snow balls at each other. We drove back down to the bottom of the pass for a short hike and for the girls to dip their toes in the stream (it was cold!).

The next day, we drove south of Anchorage with four stops in mind: Potter Marsh, Bird Point, Crow Creek Mine and the Alaska Wilderness Conservation. Potter Marsh is a wetland with boardwalks so you can walk out and possibly see wildlife. It’s a favorite spot for moose, all the brochures said. We walked along one boardwalk and saw one moose from a distance. Then, we went along another one and found a mama moose with two babies just about 15 feet away from us below the boardwalk! It was so neat to have the kids see moose so close! We walked along a bit more and saw an eagle in its nest through the viewing binoculars. 

We stopped at bird point, hoping to see more eagle or possibly a beluga whale in the water, but the tide was out. We did start seeing eagles flying over the water as we drove to Crow Creek Mine.

Gold panning was another item on my list of things I wanted to do in Alaska but hadn’t done before. We got a quick lesson in how to pan and then were sent off to the river. A few of us gave up quickly, but the rest each found a few small flakes of gold. It was hard to picture people spending all day, day after day, using this method to search for gold – but they did. 

Our last stop was the Alaska Wildlife Conservation so that one our children could see a bear. We never saw one in the wild during the three years we lived there, so I doubted we would on this trip. She really wanted to see one and they have a few that need rehabilitation at the conservation center. They also had moose, musk oxen, elk, wolves and reindeer. One black bear was sleeping pretty close to the fence, so she got a picture pretty close to a bear. It was worth going for her smile.

Next (last) post … a river, an earthquake and a last-minute surprise