My Alaska Trip Part 1

I had the best time in Alaska this past weekend. It exceeded my expectations. Dave and I got to see so much wildlife, drove all over Denali National Park, and took lots of pictures and made great memories. So be warned friends, there are a lot of pictures in this post and tomorrow’s. 🙂 Hope you enjoy them.

Thursday August 20th, 2015

Right from work I drove to LAX, parked the car and headed to my flight with Delta. I had a layover in our future home of Seattle for an hour, ate a quick salad then was off to Fairbanks.

I got in late at 11pm and Dave picked me up at the airport in Fairbanks which was small and super easy to navigate.

Friday

Dave and his film crew are staying at the Springhill Suites in Fairbanks.

In the morning I got to see the town a little on the way to the airport to grab our car rental. We also stopped by Starbucks and Fred Meyer (their grocery store) to get a few things for our time in Denali and our mini 2 hour road trip there. We got bananas and nectarines. I also brought dried apricots, Goldfish crackers, dried bananas, coconut almonds, and mixed nuts. Side note I love snacking on road trips.

We got to our motel which was cute and $150 a night.

The receptionist suggested we go to the cafe next door called Rose’s. It was simple diner type food but had such a great outdoor patio.

Right before we went into the park, we stopped by the coffee house and grabbed some drinks. We love going to local coffee shops on our road trips.

Here we are at the entrance of the park. Throughout the day it was sunny, cloudy and rainy. It was about 45 degrees out.

 

There were sweeping views of the mountains and it was really cool to see sheets of rain in the distance.

Here is a fun pic I took from our car window.

This was at Mountain Vista at mile 15, near where private vehicles are restricted and you need a permit to go in your own private car, or you can go in the park buses. Because Dave is currently working with Animal Planet, we were able to snag a permit so we could lug all our camera gear in the car.

 

We decided it would make the most sense to drive through the park since it’s 6 million acres! We wanted to cover the most ground and have increase our likelihood of seeing wildlife. We also had a lot of camera gear that we wouldn’t have been able to hike with.

We stopped at Sanctuary River and did our traditional jumping photo 🙂 And in case you were wondering, Dave is holding a can of bear mace just in case.

The road that goes through the park is 90 miles and around mile 30 we turned around and headed back out and headed to dinner.

And of course on the way out we finally spotted a moose!

We went out to dinner and had delicious oysters as an appetizer, and there was such a nice view from the restaurant. We went to eat at Overlook which is part of the Crow’s Nest Cabins.

It was also cool to see how light it still was at almost 10pm.

The first two days in Alaska were awesome. We had so much fun and it was surreal to be in Alaska together, especially in Denali National Park! Tomorrow I’ll go over Saturday and Sunday of our trip. Get ready there’s a lot more pictures 🙂

Linking up today with Bonnie Rose blog and Sweet Little Ones:

 

 

 

Travel Thursdays: Jumping for Joy!

Dave and I love to travel. We’ve gone on numerous cross country road trips from Chicago to Washington DC, Chicago to Seattle, Chicago to California, LA to Seattle, etc.

We’ve also been to the US and British Virgin Islands, Hawaii, and Vietnam together. And separately we have been to Afghanistan, Peru, Mexico, Germany, England, Canada, and Togo. (All stories for another day!) And of course there are a million more place we want to go to (all over Europe, New Zealand, Australia, Banff National Park, Glacier National Park, etc)

A fun little thing we’ve done over the years, starting in 2010, was the infamous jumping photo. I don’t remember how it came about, but we did it and thus a tradition was born. 🙂

As you will see from these photos, there are a lot of trips we have taken that I have yet to blog about, but intend to. I’ll be going back into the archives to dig up some of the pictures. In the meantime check out the fun places we’ve been.

South Dakota, 2010
Our first road trip together from Chicago to South Dakota (to the Badlands and Mount Rushmore.)

Vietnam, April 2010

Got my cousin and some neighborhood kids to join us on this one.

Washington DC, summer 2011

Starved Rock State Park, Illinois – 2011

 The Orcas Island – Washington state 2011

Grand Tetons, Wyoming- Summer 2011

What a gorgeous park, we can’t wait to go back someday soon!

 Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming- Summer 2011

We took advantage of a beautiful sunset.

I look like a mix between a frog and a super hero 🙂

Denver, Colorado-2012

Maroon Bells  in Aspen, Colorado – 2012

Is one of our favorite places we have ever been.

 Imogen Pass off roading in Colorado – 2012

We took our beloved 4Runner off roading in the San Juan Mountains that connect Ouray and Telluride. We found a really cool old abandoned mining town. I’ll definitely have to blog about this one and show you more pictures.

Some random forest in Colorado – 2012

San Francisco, California – Summer 2012

This was my first time ever in San Francisco and I fell in love with this city. The crooked street, the Bay, the Golden Gate Bridge, the trolleys etc.

Somewhere in Nevada- Summer 2013

I love big, long stretches of open road. It’s also nice to get out and stretch your legs on long road trips.

Somewhere in Utah – Summer 2013

We are obviously wearing the same clothes from the last picture, this was from the same day and same road trip. And again I look like a super hero. Dave is way better at these jumping pictures than I am. 🙂

San Francisco, California – January 2014

Took a road trip with Dave’s parents from San Francisco to LA.

Moro Rock Hike, Sequoia National Park, California- March 2014

We went camping with a group of friends and Moro Rock was definitely the highlight of the trip.

 Horseshoe Bend in Page, Arizona – July 2014

After hiking the Narrows in Zion National Park with two of our friends from Chicago, we road tripped back to LA and stopped here. Dave just edited the pictures from our hike in Zion and it will be up shortly! It’s an amazing hike that I highly recommend.

Maroon Bells in Aspen, Colorado – December 2014

 It was really beautiful to come back here in the winter. We went cross country skiing for the first time here. A place near and dear to our hearts.

Las Vegas, Nevada – April 2015

Went to Vegas twice in one month. Our first trip we visited the Neon Museum which was awesome! Not all our jumping pictures are successful 🙂

For our second trip, Dave was out of town working. I went with my brother and family from Minnesota and my cousin is here jumping with me.

We’ve gone on a few trips this year, we drove to LA to Seattle in March, we drove to Vegas for a weekend in April, went home to Chicago in May, and went to a wedding in New York in May. But I guess we haven’t taken any jumping pictures together this year yet (unless I’m forgetting any.) But we are going camping in July, as well as two more trips home in July and October. We are also planning a move to Seattle in the fall.

So hopefully we will add another jumping picture or two to our collection this year. 🙂

What fun traditions do you all do when traveling?

Day 11 San Fran to LA

I mentioned that before our trip I looked up a bunch of murals I wanted to see in each major city and since we were so busy the first go around in San Fran, so on our last day I wanted to squeeze in a few more murals.

In the morning we went with Jesse and G to breakfast at Simple Pleasures Cafe. She brought along Sequence for us to play over breakfast and it was so fun. We played boys against the girls and somehow the boys managed to win. We will get them next time! 🙂

We walked in the Mission District in Balmy Alley and Clarion Alley, which are both full of fun street art.

After 11 days, 3 states, 34 hours in the car, and 2,300 miles, we were back home with lots of amazing memories. Road trips are one of our favorites things to do.

Day 3 Northern California to Oregon

Day 3 of our road trip started bright and early and we left San Fran and drove across the Golden Gate Bridge. I’ve driven on this bridge multiple times and it is always beautiful to me. It’s a structurally gorgeous bridge and it deserves all the press and popularity it gets in my opinion.

Our drive was very scenic and peaceful. The beautiful open roads and different scenery are one of my favorite parts of going on road trips.

Our friend Jesse suggested we go to Fort Bragg to see Glass Beach. Glass Beach has sea glass that has been created from years of dumping garbage, back in the early 20th century. It’s crazy to think that people used to literally dump their garbage into the beautiful deep blue ocean.

After Glass Beach we went into the town of Fort Bragg and walked into some shops and had lunch. We went to some diner that I don’t remember the name of and had a grilled cheese.

Then we were back on the road again headed to the Redwoods. There are multiple parts of the Redwoods National Park and Forest. We went to the Chandelier tree and drove our 4Runner through it 3 times. We had to pull our side mirrors in or else we wouldn’t have fit! We filmed it and took pics. It was a really cool thing. It was quick, but so memorable and awesome. If I remember correctly it was a $5 entrance free because it’s privately owned by a family and not the national park.

After our quick drive through the tree we continued driving and crossed into the Oregon border! We went for a short hike in the Redwoods and enjoyed the weather and admired the epic trees.

After getting out of the car and stretching out legs, it was time to get back in the car and head towards Eugene where my cousin lives. We had a quick dinner with some fresh scallops and fries then headed to my cousin’s house where we preceded to have brownies with ice cream. We caught up and updated each other on our lives.

Being able to see family and friends while on the road makes the many miles and long hours worth it. We squeezed a lot into our day and it was full of firsts. First time to glass beach, driving through a tree! And my first time to the Redwoods (Dave has been before.) Day 3 of our road trip and we had already done and seen so much!

Tomorrow I’ll share our adventures in Portland and the waterfalls we saw including Multnomah Falls, which I’d wanted to see for years! Happy Monday friends.

Friday Favorite Link Ups

Happy Friday all! It’s been a busy week catching up after our road trip. #firstworldproblems 🙂 Hope you all had great weeks. As usual I’m looking forward to the weekend!

I’m linking up with the lovely ladies at A Little Bit of Everything Blog, Grace and Love Blog, and Momfessionals.

I also recently started linking up A.Liz Adventures, Carolina Charm, Hello! Happiness, and The Good Life Blog. 

And last but not least I’m also linking up with The Farmer’s Wife and September Farm. 

If you want to join the link ups, be sure to check out their websites and grab the graphics and share!

I’m currently obsessed with gallery walls. I have a bunch of art that I’ve been meaning to hang up for months now and have lately been looking to Pinterest for some inspiration and ideas. I love the colors, graphics, and quotes all mixed together.

 Source

I love this shelf which allows for a display of cute things that can’t be hung. I love lots of colors mixed together and I love, love this set up. The pillows, the pictures, the coffee table, everything! 

Source

 I heard about this show online one day and made a mental note that I wanted to start watching it. Then we went on our Seattle road trip and one of our friends mentioned it and said she really liked it. So I had some free time yesterday while I was blogging and decided to turn it on in the background. I ended up watching…6 episodes at once. 🙂 Haha don’t you just love binge watching?

It’s on Netflix, it’s created by Tina Fey. It’s about a girl named Kimmy Schmidt, who was trapped in a bunker for years with other women by a man who tricked them into thinking there was an apocalypse. Now that they’ve been rescued and freed into the world and she decides to take on NYC. It’s really funny to see her exploring New York with such fresh eyes and optimism. One of my favorite parts of the show are her funny old school references since she is so behind on the times and technology. It’s a light, fun, show and a little quirky and I like it.

Another show I just watched yesterday is called Barely Famous. It features Sara and Erin Foster, the daughters of music producer David Foster. It’s a fake reality show about the absurdities of Hollywood, life in LA, dating, and insisting they are normal in a crazy, celebrity obsessed city. It features their famous friends like Kate Hudson and Courtney Cox. They make fun of reality show and reality stars and they are totally in on the joke. It just premiered Wednesday but I’m already hooked.

I know I’ve been talking about my road trip to Seattle all week, but road trips are really one of my favorite things to do. If you’d like to revisit some of our other past road trips head over to our travel page! I’ve blogged about our:

 LA to San Fran trip

 2011 road trip

 Chicago to LA

Lastly, I just wanted to say quickly that I’m so glad Chris picked Whitney from the Bachelor, for those of you who don’t watch it. I think they’re a great match and she’s a Chicago girl (as am I!) Call me crazy, but I hope these two crazy kids make it. Arlington, Iowa is a small town but hopefully they can carve out a nice, quiet life there filled with his warm, sweet family.

Happy Friday all! Can’t wait to read all your Friday Favorites too! See you Monday friends.

Day 1 Road Trip LA to Seattle

If you are just reading this post today, you might have missed that I went on a road trip from LA to Seattle. I mapped out where we went. Today I’m going to start breaking down our trip. We did so much and I want to make sure I do justice to the great places we visited. So without further ado:

Day 1- Saturday February 28th:

Because San Fran is about a 6 hour drive from our place, we weren’t in a rush to leave early in the morning. So before we left we helped a friend with her moving sale in Santa Monica. Afterwards, we went out to brunch and met up with another friend.

One of our favorites places to eat in Santa Monica is Bru’s Wiffle.We always order the same thing their King Waffles which is a single waffle topped with peanut butter and bananas and comes with bacon, that we always put on the side. They also have great chicken and waffles there too! If you’re ever in the neighborhood I highly recommend this place.

If you follow us on Instagram you already saw this picture:

After meeting our friends Erin and Richard for brunch here we headed to San Fran for the first stop on our road trip. The drive up was nice and uneventful. We listen to lots of music and podcasts when we are on the road. Our favorites are: Here’s the Thing with Alec Baldwin, Serial , Off Camera, This is Reality (Jason and Molly Mesnick), Start Up, and the JFK Library also has great podcasts. What podcasts do you all listen to that I should try out? I’d love to hear your suggestions! As soon as we got to San Fran we met more friends at a restaurant for a late dinner. It was a so nice to see our friends from both NYC and Seattle in the same place. After the dinner we went to a nearby bar and caught up some more. It reminded me of this quote, which is one of my favorites: I feel incredibly lucky and fortunate to have friends and family that live all over the US and the world, but I definitely miss them and get homesick from time to time. But that is always one of my favorite reasons for taking road trips because it allows us to see our people all over. That night we stayed at our friend’s house that we both know from high school, who lives in the Sunset area of San Fran. So day 1 of our road trip was a success. A great start to our trip. The first of many memorable nights to come.

California Coast Road Trip : LA to San Fran Part 2

Yesterday I started blogging about the first part of our trip from LA to Cambria, on the way to San Francisco. Today we continue up the coast to Big Sur, which is my favorite part of the California coast and highway 1. It is truly gorgeous, with sweeping views of cliffs and ocean. I’ve driven through Big Sur three times now and each time its beauty never ceases to amaze me!

So after our short but pretty waterfall hikes, we walked to the other side of the Limekilm State Park, which happens to be the Pacific Ocean. 🙂 The bridge had awesome lines and made for a pretty picture.

There was one picnic table and provided the perfect setting for our little picnic. We had fresh strawberries, raspberries, and some dark chocolate. And yes of course in true California fashion, the weather was sunny and warm.  On the beach there were a few rocks balancing upon each other, which I have only ever seen when I went to Virgin Gorda years ago. My friend Toby also likes to do this so it reminded me of him too.

Back in February Dave’s parents came out to visit us and we did this trip backwards (San Fran to LA) and we stopped at Julia Pfeifer Burns State Park to do a long hike. I will have to blog about that trip at a later date, but it was a very impressive hike with awesome views and I’d highly recommend anyone going through Big Sur to stop at this park! You will not regret it!

When you go across the street you will go on a little walkway to this breathtaking view of the McWay Falls, which is an 80 foot waterfall that flows year round (so there’s really not a bad time to go to Big Sur!)

Other than Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, my favorite part of Big Sur is the Bixby Bridge. We stop each time we pass by it, but this time was the most clear. The ocean was pristine, with such deep blues and turquoise.  

After these fantastic pit stops, we drove to Santa Cruz. We are lucky to have friends who live there that we’ve stayed with before, and they happened to be free on short notice. So we went to sushi with them and had mochi for dessert. We didn’t spend much time in the Santa Cruz area so I don’t have any fun recommendations for you at this time.

I was planning to only do two parts of this road trip, but I still haven’t even covered the San Fran portion of our trip two days in.  So as to not overwhelm you all, I’m going to cover San Fran in its own post part 3 coming at you on Monday! Stay tuned friends!

 

 

Travel Thursday : Road Signs!

Coming from the Midwest the only road signs I see are for deer and duck crossings. Not extremely exciting or exotic animals.

So on our road trip last year that we took from Chicago to San Francisco we saw some really fun animal road signs.

This is from Utah. I love the open road! I love that it’s not littered, there are no signs of commercialism and no chain restaurants. Make sure to fill up on gas though on road like this because the stations are few and far between!

This turtle sign was from Death Valley in California.

This was right outside of the Vegas strip.

This was by the Grand Canyon in Arizona.

This was also near the Grand Canyon.

This was right outside of Maroon Bells in Aspen Colorado.

Sadly we didn’t have the pleasure of encountering any of these animals, maybe next time!

Think Summer Thoughts