Alaska: Land of the Midnight Sun - Alaska vacation, Twilight

Personally, I think that Alaska should change its motto to either
1. Alaska: Your Own Personal Gym
2. Alaska: Land of the Mosquito
Seriously, I found it very weird that there were so many mosquitoes there.
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It was def uncomfortable, but meh. Anyway, so from my about two weeks, in the beautiful, mosquito-filled land, I can honestly say that I know where I would like to retire. It’s absolutely beautiful. All the pictures that you will see are in the exact colors that you would see in real life. If you ever get a chance to go there, its really magical cause its not touched by people, and you could see it.

(The picture is from the time of Twilight. I will probably get around to changing it tho, later on)

I visited four different cities, Anchorage, which contains about half of Alaska’s population, Denali, which is famous for its National Park, and for us Twilighters out there, it has another purpose, Seward, a small port town, and Girdwood, a tiny tiny town, which I really couldn’t stand for some reason. So I will give a looong rundown of what I did in these four cities. So sit back, and grab a cup of Joe (well not literally, cause it would be hard to put Joe into a cup…and it would be nasty) and umm enjoy o.0

Some pictures will have descriptions…those descriptions will be below the link ^_^

Well the first day was interesting. I guess I will start from before we took off. We were scheduled to fly from JFK at 4:45pm to Seattle, and leave for Anchorage at 10pm. It was planned so that we would have like 2 hours in Seattle, so that our baggage would be transported into the other plane. Of course, as always with my family, things didn’t go according to plan. We were stuck at JKF for two hours because there were 30 other planes which needed to take off. So my mom was going crazy, cause that would mean that we would miss our connecting flight. It was a hassle to get my passport re-done, and now that we were on the plane, we were going to miss our connecting flight, my mom was panicking lol. Thankfully, we got there like 20 mins early, and a van took us to the next plane. I felt important being driven from one side of the airport to the other lol. Anyway, we made it on time and in 3 more hours, we arrived in Alaska. We got there at like 3 in the morning. And it was still bright outside, well kind of. I soon remembered that in Alaska, during the summer, tis mostly Day time and during Winter its mostly Dark (Yea, just imagine me saying that in my sexy accent xP). Its mostly twilight from the hours of 11:35pm to around 5:00am. Its absolutely beautiful. Here are some pictures, the first one was taken at 10 pm and the second was taken at like 11pm. I took them from the window of my hotel room in Girdwood
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I just love the color of the sky. Its so purty. Eventually the sun begins to set at an earlier time, and then it doesn’t rise until the summer starts. Well during the Winter, they get about 5 hours of daylight, but I;m not sure if they see the sun rise. Because I never say the sun literally rise or set. It was first bright, and then the next minuet it turned into that nice color. And I can finally say that I saw twilight, now when I re-read that book, I know what they are talking about hehe.

So onto our first day in Anchorage.
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From anywhere in Anchorage, you could see the mountains. I learned that the mountains are always East, so you could figure out your direction that way. I actually tried, and its true. Its hard when the mountains are all around you tho lol. So on the first day, we went to the Alaskan Heritage Center where we got to learn about the different tribes, I guess you call them tribes, that live in Alaska and how they survive and junk. On the way to the museum, the bus driver said that there was an air show in town. I really wanted to go, but when I saw the cars lined up, I decided that it would be a waste; I could watch it on TV
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Its kinda harsh. They take Baleen, a substance found in baleen whales, and turn it into a string type substance. Then they roll a piece of seal meat or what ever they want into that. Then the polar bear eats the meat along with the baleen, which is now string. As the bear eats it, the juices in the stomach turns the string back into the hard baleen, and so it rips the bear’s stomach, and it kills the bear. Now during this process, the string turning back into the hard baleen, the bear could travel from 50-70 miles, so the people have to follow the bear. Well at least you don’t really risk your life, Like I am here
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Hehe!!! It was pretty cool. So after the museum we decided to walk around the town because they were having a celebration. As we were walking down the street, looking at some funky cars, link
That’s a 1958 Roll Royce Silver Cloud. Here are some specs
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I hear an airplane, so I pick my head up, and I see a Jet, I don’t remember which, flew right above our heads and made a quick turn. I stood there with my mouth open. I love jets, and always wanted to see one, in real life. Heck, its still a dream of mine to fly in an F-16 ^_^; My favorite Jet.. So we decided to go ontop of a roof and watch ths show, for free!!! There were two different groups flying. The first, I am sure were the Artic Thunderbirds, the second, I am not really sire,. I think that it was the Blue Angels, simply because their planes were blue and yellow, but I am not sure. Then as we were about to leave, an F-16 flew literally like 200 feet above our heads. I almost started jumping up in excitement. I never thought that the jet would be so big. It sounded amazing though. I love the sound of planes taking off and just flying, I guess you can blame that on video games lol. Its one thing to watch it on TV, and a totally different experience to see it in real life. Lucky Andrew is going to an air show tomorrow…Enjoy it ^_^

So the next day my mom paned for us to have an ‘easy hike’ where we would be able to see the beauty of Alaska. Instead we got a 12 mile hike to an elevation of about 2000 feet to a place called Hidden Lake. I didn’t really mind the hike, it was fun, clilmbing up hills and junk. There was snow on the ground, which wasn’t supposed to be there, but it was so it made the hike a tad harder. But still it was a blast. When we got up to that lake, I finally got why its called Hidden; its positioned at an angle, so when you are hiking, you don’t see the lake, until you come within like a foot of it. Sadly I didn't get a chance to take a picture from the top of the mountain, but I do have a picture of the lake,
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Its absolutely beautiful there, and breathtaking. When you look from the lake you could see the near by island, its absolutely amazing. And here is why I call Alaska, my own personal gym. Its all hilly and junk, and I def lost some weight…So instead of getting a gym membership for 5$ a day or something, pay $10,000 on a vacation to Alaska for like 2 weeks, and you will loose weight ^_^.

The next day we were done in Anchorage and boarded a ‘chew-chew’ train(I couldn’t spell out the other word lol) to go to Denali. The ride was like 6 hours, but I didn't see time fly by. We saw a bunch of nice things, tons of mountains, Moose, and creeks. Here are some pictures.
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As we got closer to Denali, there were some nice rock formations, but my mom had the camera and I was too lazy to go and get it from her…Sigh,

So the first day in Denali, that would be the second of July, in case you are keeping count. We left on the 27th of June. Anyway, we got on a literal school bus, which had comfortable seats of course, and had a 12-hour tour of Denali National Park and headed to a small town called Kantishna. I keep saying this, but its true, it was breathtaking, the things that we saw. You could see that it is not touched by nature, and it was amazing. Besides the nice scenery, we saw a bunch of animals. Tons of Moose, which are more dangerous then bears. Because you can scare away a bear, but a Moose is very steadfast and if he sees you, he will charge until you are dead. So watch out for Moose; they are all over the place in Alaska, almost as common as the mosquitoes. So we saw some blond bears (they are brown, but since they only eat vegetables, they are blonde, so the locals call them stupid cause they are blonde), Caribou link
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Red Foxes,
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^^That one has dinner in its mouth ^_^
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And most importantly, my favorite animal…The Grey Wolf. They literally just strolled by the bus as if it was the most natural thing in the world for them. I didn’t get a chance to get pictures because they strolled away really fast, but I got to take some pictures of wolves in the Zoo we went to in Girdwood. It blew my mind, I mean it took me a few mins to actually process that these two grey wolves just passed our bus. So after I got passed that, I had a big smile for the rest of the day. We also got to see Mt. McKinley, which was first called Denali. Denali means “The Great One” in the native language. It has two names, Mt. McKinley and Denali. It’s a funny story on how it was named McKinley. But I’m to tired to type that out, so you can google it ^_^
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Its really hard to see the top of the mountain, since it has its own weather system, so the clouds are almost always covering it. But we got to see it two days in a row, its humongous, and absolutely amazing to look at. It’s the highest mountain in North Amaerica. it has two slopes a North and a South slope. They are like a mile apart, but one is 1000 feet smaller.

So when we got to Kantishna, we were told that we were going to see a demonstration about the Iditarod, and that there were going to be puppies. How could my day get better lol. I soon found out the name of the guy who was going to give us the demonstration. His name was Emmitt, he was big, buff and a total joker. Now if you have ever read Twilight, this Emmitt should remind you of another Emmett. I literally laughed when I found out that this guy was going to be telling us about this. I mean here in Denali, where ‘Tanya’s clan’ is supposed to be, I meet this guy who is an exact copy of Emmett from the books, except the guy is human and likes dogs/wolves. So after that, nice and extremely funny demonstration we got to see….PUPPIES!!!
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Hehe, that’s the best picture I could get since everyone wanted to touch the cute puppies. I got to see some more puppies later in Seward. So then, we got on our way home. On the way, the bus driver told us some interesting facts. Apparently Rudolph should change her name to Rudolpha, since only female reindeer have antlers during the winter, the males shed them. And, as a matter of fact, they have white noses, not red…
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And caribou and reindeer are the exact same animals. Reindeer are just domesticated and caribou aren’t.

Hows that for some nice facts for you…You still with me here??
Its gonna be a looooong ass blog…So take a break for 5 mins ^_^

Back now? good…welcome back ^_^
So on our way home, we saw the most amazing rainbow that I have ever seen. It was absolutely bright, it was even brighter then the pictures.
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And I was looking for the Lepricon with gold, but I couldn’t find him =[
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The next day we went horseback riding into the Tundra. My horse, River, was just as unhappy to take pictures as I usually am.
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So we were alike ^_^

So then we went onto our second town, Seward. It was my most favorite town, I don’t know why though, just because. The first day there we went on a cruise to link
Sadly, Solid Snake wasn’t there. On the way, we saw a bunch of animals. Sea otters, link
Stellar Seal Lions
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And Orca Whales
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When we were searching for the Whales we went into some nice waters where the waves were 4-5 feet. That was fun ^_^ I remember when I was in Aruba and on a boat, they also took us out into the open ocean, and I was absolutely scared shit-less…literally, But this time, I was enjoying myself like crazy. When we came onto a small swell, wow I was really enjoying just bouncing up and down with the waves. My mom on the other hand…well she gets really really sea sick, even a car gets her sick, so she took a pill that got rid of the sickness but made her sleep…that’s retarded tho, so she slept through most of the animals. On the way back, I found a very interesting rock formation…
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What do you think it is???
I’ll give you anything you want if you can figure out what that is ^_^
We also visited the Aialik Glacier, its one of the glaciers that caps, and it was def fun to see. The sound of it capping was like a gun shooting, that was fun. I didn’t take a picture of it capping, cause I was to lazy lol. Here are some random pics of the glacier. And its not blue, its technically white, but the way the sun hits it makes it appear blue.
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I took some more pictures, but I will put that at the end of the blog, along with all the other random pictures that I took. It took me a few days to get over the feeling of being in the sea. That night as I went to sleep I still felt like I was being rocked in the ocean, Ha, it was fun ^_^

So on the next day in Seward we went on a little tour where we got to ride in a small car thingy and got pulled by sled dogs, which were preparing for the Iditarod during the summer. They were extremely excited about it. As you can see
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So we took a ride, and it was awesome, we were going like 5mph, but it still felt awesome. And after the ride…we got to see more puppies!!!
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I liked this one more then the other one, it was cuter and kinda more responsive to me. I smelled like dog the rest of the day lol. Then we went to see salmon. We got to see them jump, it was quite a site.
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Then we saw an eagle, which was probably looking to get some Salmon Dinner.
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Then we went around town a bit and just saw some of the town. It’s a small town, but it was nice. That’s maybe why I liked it, it was a small town, but it still had some life. Plus maybe the fact that I had some guys check me out there maybe made me like the town better HAHA!!

I noticed that there is a HUGE amount of Subway’s in Alaska. So we had a lot of Subway sandwiches during our vacation^_^ Yummy!!!

Then we went to Girdwood, its about a 1.5 hours drive from Seward. When we got ther I was like wtf is this lol. It’s a teeny small town. So when we got there we got into this nice fancy hotel. …There was even a phone in the bathroom lol. Hey you never know when you might run out of toilet paper…hehe…NOT a personal experience.
So the first day we just went around town and visited some pottery places. It was kinda boring -_-. So we decided to go home and watch Spongebob and Family Matters for the rest of the night. Thank goodness for Nick lol.

The next day we decided to go to a few places, the Botanical Gardens, and the Zoo. The botanical gardens…well that was quite an experience, when we got there, one of the workers tells us that yeterday there was a Mother bear with her cub in the gardens, but you are free to walk around and if they saw anything, they would blow a blowhorn three times, and that would mean for us to run. So my mom asked the guy, which direction should we run…he looked dumbfounded and told us to climb a tree if we hear the sound…then he said that the bear probably could climb a tree…So at that we decided not to spend much time in the garden…We just walked around and took a few pictures, these are some of my favorites that I took.
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This ^^The forget-me-not, its alaska’s state flower, its real pretty
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So then we headed to the Zoo. Here we got to see more animals…not that much, but still some more. And I finally got to see my nice wolves ^_^ lol
There were a bunch, but the first one wsa a grey and the second was a black. The black wolf was no like duty to keep a lookout, so he kept patrolling so I got some nice shots of him. link
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^^That one was sleeping the whole time -_-

Then we went to eat at a fancy restaurant that was located in on the mountain that was near the hotel. I had the King Crab cause I wanted to see why the people on Deadliest Catch rish their lives to catch it. That’s one of my favorite shows ^_^…And it was really good, hehe.
So while we were waiting to get our table, I got some insporation and took this picture lol
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At least my photography teacher taught me something; how to spot some nice thigns to take pictures of lol.

The next day in Girdwood we went to the Conservation Center. Now here we got to see some more animals. We saw some Moose, they were huge lol. We saw them in the strret in the woods, but they weren’t this huge lol.
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We also saw a coyotee. When we got there I started making a noise with my throat and the coyote came over, so my dad made a joke saying that I could speak Coyote lol.
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Then we went to see the bears. They were cute…big, but cute lol
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There were even some in the trees lol
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Then we went to see the Plain Bison…Wa Wa Wi Wa…those were absolutely humongous, and the smell was interesting also lol.
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Then I saw a pretty cool invention that the Musk Ox ues….BUTT SCRATCHERS!!!
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lol

Then we went home and packed up to leave.
So that’s basically it, that’s my vacation in Alaaska. I don’t know If I missed anything, Im sure I didn't. It all seemed to go by really fast, but I enjoyed it, it wasn’t like I was dreading to go home, and It wasn’t like I wasn’t happy to go home either. Kinda bittersweat you can say. Overall, I relaxed beyond measure during this vacation. It was the best we have ever taken…And I have a feeling its goanna be the last one we take until I get out of college…Sigh why does it have to cost so much lolz.

Once again, the descriptions are BELOW the links
Hmm, that’s about it, here are some other pictures that I took…Hope you enjoy ^_^

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Me in our rented Ford Taurus…It’s a horrible car, when you put it into reverse, the car goes forward -_-

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I thought that the clouds looked like a Dragon flying through the sky. That was taken on our way to the airport in Anchorage

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Why hello there lol

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I feel fabulous!!! Like a queen, now peasents, leave me alone
lol
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Ice, Ice Baby!!! That was taken at the Glacier we visited, some ice

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Another picture near the glacier; Its interesting because that piece of ice looks like the mountain above it ^_^

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Looks like a dinosaur…

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Some random Islands that I thought looked nice, once again, during our boat ride

I wanted to try to do some reflection pictures, here are some of my attempts
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This last one turned out the best I think, no?

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Black Bear!!! once again, on our boat ride

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It was very pointy, but there was like a cushion so I could sit on it lol

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Our sled dogs^_^…We went to Seavey’s Iditaride, incase you are interested

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A reflection picture taken on the train ^_^ I like my reflections lol

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When our train stopped, there was another train there too, so I thought, perfect photo opportunity lol.

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What are YOU looking at??

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Just leave me alone!!!!

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Mountains!!!

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WAVEs!!!

Ok, that’s about it I think. I might have some more in the Album, so check that out, but most of it I posted. So I wish you luck for still being here and reading lol ^_^

I think this is the longest yet lol. Sigh now its time to read it over to make sure I spelled everything right -_-…It took me like 2 hours to write this in case you were wondering lol