North to Alaska

It sure seems like we've been travelling a lot recently. This time we joined Daddy for a job interview in Anchorage. It turned out to be fortuitous, as he was offered the job and we'll be moving to Alaska in two months! Hazel thought the three hour plane trip was very short, and she must have flown on the fastest jet ever! I'm guessing this was because for the first time, we brought the portable DVD player with us. A couple books on DVD and we were landing. She also enjoyed the little pretzel snacks very much and wants to get more and save them to put in her birthday pinata next year.
Here we are, on a beautiful sunny day in late April, enjoying a park surrounded by snow. The lake was still frozen, but the locals were obviously enjoying their warm day, as many were in shorts and flip flops. I guess we'll soon think of the mid-forties as warm and toasty! Whoa - steer back to the right and stabilize that ship!No need to play lifeguard today -although perhaps the ice is dangerously thin now, what with this balmy weather and all.While Daddy spent the next day on campus, Hazel and I went to the zoo. It was big enough for us to stay three hours. I forgot we had a camera until lunch time. Hazel grabbed the cookie and said, "Look, it's as big as my head!"Before you think this camel is in the wrong climate, it turns out he's native to locations like Siberia. I guess beavers build custom log homes in Alaska. Yak, yak, yak... Odd zoo inhabitant... maybe he was pardoned by the governor last November?Glad I decided to throw in the hat and gloves. Brr...Most of these pictures are so Hazel remembers the trip. Not always so picturesque through the fencing... After the zoo, Hazel and I headed south of town towards Portage Lake and Glacier. There were just a few mountain ranges on the way. We drove all the way past the mountains on the left - 45 minutes or so. We were a week early for summer season at the visitor center, but fortunately the glacier is always open. That's the glacier there in the middle. Not much calving going on into the frozen lake, and it was unnaturally quiet... at least until Hazel spoke up.Here's a closer shot. There are two black specs right in the middle, on the lake. These were two folks cross country skiing.Hazel was enjoying drawing all sorts of pictures in her little blank notebook and didn't want to get out in the cold. I at least managed to drag her over to the closed visitor center to look at the outdated notices and posters from last season.Don't the mountains over there look like they're topped with ice cream? That would be these.So... now you've all got a reason to visit Alaska. We'll be pretty busy in the next few months, but I'll try to keep you all up to date!