My other half is finally in Alaska with me! She flew in on June 19th, and we stayed at an RV park in downtown Anchorage near the train tracks. Ideal location if you ask me… She experienced a good amount of jet lag and all around shock in regards to the amount of sunlight up here. Being the Summer Solstice and all, we have over 20 hrs of sunlight, so it’s going to take some getting used to. Shit I’m still not used to it. We were worried about how she’d sleep in the back of the truck with me, but she ended up sleeping better than I do on most nights. Jerk. She brought some dollar store eye masks to keep out some of the light, and apparently they work great for her! I just feel like my face is being held in a slight vice grip, and can’t seem to keep the damn thing on my face. Apparently the dollar store had some other masks with stupid sayings written across the eyes like “offline” and “beauty rest,” so of course I’m disappointed I didn’t get to turn over and read something ridiculous on her face.
The next day, we have planned to get paperwork signed to get married. No big ceremony, no extra people, just us. First thing in the morning we drive to the courthouse in downtown Anchorage. The woman behind the counter is incredibly kind and spends a large amount of time to give us recommendations of where to visit during our visit. After vacation tips, we get very detailed instructions to have an ordained minister sign our marriage paperwork, then have it returned to the courthouse to become finalized. Easy enough!
The reason we got to the courthouse so early is because we have a ceremony scheduled for 11AM at Bird Point just outside of Girdwood, AK along a lonely looking strip of rocky coastline. We get there stupid early, and walk around for a bit. As the clock starts to tick down, we don’t see our guy. Maybe he was caught in traffic? Or maybe we’re at the wrong parking lot? Right at 11, Cas puts in a call to our contact only to find he’s been sitting at the same parking lot right across from us, thinking we were late… We’re dumb.
We scout out a spot near the water, have our expedited ceremony, sign our papers, and grab some photos. We didn’t pay for photos, but one of the guys working for the company offers to spend some camera time with us. We obviously hate photo shoots, but might as well, right?
After about 20 minutes, we decide to leave and try to catch some of the Sweden v. USA world cup game. There’s a bar at the top of a mountain ski slope thing, so we hurriedly grab some tram tickets and head to the bar. Best part of this set up is that we’re staying at the hotel at the bottom of the ski slope, Hotel Alyeska.
After watching USA clinch a win, we head out of the bar to explore the mountain. We wandered a bit, then looked up some nearby hikes in the old crow mine area. The bartender mentioned a trail with a hand cart that allows you to cross a river, so obviously we were curious. We hop in the car for all of 10 minutes and roll up on a beautiful hike with lush forest and perfectly maintained trail. A mile in, we get to the hand cart. It was exciting, terrifying, and strenuous all rolled into one.
After way too much physical exertion, we walk back to the car and head back to the hotel. Finally time to check in! Ok I have to mention, this is the first hotel I will be staying at this entire trip. Hotels and housing in general in Alaska is stupid expensive. Like, $200 for a shitty motel. This very nice ski lodge was running about $500 after taxes, and that was comparable with all the decent hotels in the area. I know. It’s a lot, but I mean, what kind of stories am I going to hear if I made Cas sleep in my truck after getting married? She obviously doesn’t care where we sleep, but I wanted to do something nice.
The hotel was basic, with no frills. Comparable to a $100 room in the lower 48. I’m stoked to be inside regardless, and have a shower and bathroom within walking distance. After a nice dinner (Thanks Dad!) we head to the indoor pool/hot tub to chill out.
The next morning we drove south to Seward Alaska, down the Kenai peninsula. I found a glacier that you can hike to named Exit Glacier within the Kenai Fjords National Park. Before hopping in the truck, we realized that something has tried to get into the back of my truck. I think a raven perhaps? The black plastic has been chewed quite a bit… Oh well, whatever it was did not succeed.
We wanted to see a glacier on this trip, and we definitely came to the right place. I will say, there’s nothing like seeing a glacier that makes you really understand the tangible impacts of global climate change. The National Park Service does a great job of educating people about how the glacier has receded in recent years. It’s very, very dramatic changes. Pictures show a much different glacier just 10 years ago. I do not remember how much the glacier has receded overall, but just last summer it lost 252 feet of ice.
Even with its recession, it was an impressive sight to see. We hiked 2.5 miles straight up to get a birds eye view of the ice mass. We had planned to hike farther, but there was snow on the trail and avalanche warnings everywhere. We were not prepared to take such a risk.
Warning sign 
Cas is ok with turning around
On the hike down, a group of people say they have seen a momma black bear and three cubs. Shit, not what we wanted to hear. Walking as alert as possible, we make our way down, listening to every rustle, and scanning the trail ahead of us with binocs to see if the coast is clear. At one point, we hear a large group of people yelling. We see them staring up the hill, taking pics, being loud, all things people would do if you saw a bear. Shit shit shit. We hike quickly down to the group, and ask where the bear is. “Oh, no bear, just a proposal!” So what we thought was a bear sighting turned out to be some kids getting engaged. Assholes scared us bad!!
Once back at the truck, we notice something that we hadn’t seen before. A damn bear paw print on the back of the truck. It wasn’t a raven trying to get in, it was a young bear attempting to chew its way through my camper top.
After leaving Exit glacier, we head down to the town of Seward to get food, grab a beer at the local pub, then find a place to camp. I just got to say, we got pretty lucky with our campsite. Right on the river along the gravel beds. We made a fire, got some swordfish and corn cooked, and settled in for the night. We haven’t figured out exactly what we’re doing tomorrow, but we’ll figure it out soon enough!
