Tyler and Em invade Alaska

Our close friends made their first visit to Alaska.  They had less than a week so we knew it would be a whirl wind tour.  They started their trip with the scenic (8 hour) train ride from Anchorage to Denali National Park.  They took a tour of the park, took a jet boat ride, panned for gold and saw a lot of wild animals.  On Tuesday Amanda and I drive 3.5 hours to Denali to pick them up.  

 The weather for the past month has  been cold and rainy.  The forecast was calling for more of the same.  However our guest brought 70 degrees and sunshine with them.

 On our ride to Wasilla we stopped in Talkeetna for some drinks and food in our favorite little mountain town.

 Emily and Amanda

 On Wednesday I had to pick up my sister in-law Tory at the airport.  Tyler took the ride with me, we had some breakfast with Tory before we had to part ways.  Tyler and I went fishing and found it strange we could not get a hold of Emily.  Once we got home we found Em had locked herself out of the house for 2 hours.  She was smiling so we went up Hatcher Pass to Independence Gold Mine and had a blast hiking around.  Then we headed over to Schwabenhof to visit Amanda at work.  We then made a few stops in Wasilla (Last Frontier Brewery and the Mug Shot) before calling it a night.

 Thursday morning we brought Phinn to the kennel, and left the house at 9am.  We drove 3 hours south to Cooper Landing which is right on the Kenai River.

 This is our cabin at Drifters Landing.  Great place with great owners.  We had and afternoon guided fishing trip that had our hopes up.

 Come to find out we were not fishing for salmon, the trip was for trout.  Also, we had to use fly fishing gear which was new to everyone but myself.

 The weather was nice for a 4 hour float.  We had a great guide but we did not even catch a fish.  Guess the weather was too nice.

 We did get real close to a Bald Eagle

This is one of three "bites" we had on the day.  Too bad Amanda did not hook the fish.

 So we got back to the cabin, started a fire, drank some beers, had a sauna, and even jumped into the 38 degree blue water of the Kenai.  Despite getting skunked on the fishing we still had a blast.

 On Friday we headed 40 miles to Seward to visit Exit Glacier.  We did a 1.5 mile hike and had more fun.

 Upper Trail Lake

 Emily proving that our hip boots have holes in them.

Seward 

We left Cooper Landing at 3:30am on Saturday morning so we could get them to the airport in time for their 7am flight.  Sure was a crazy few days but it was so nice to spend quality time with two of our favorite people.