Our First Visitors in Alaska

I'm posting again!  Ever since we decided to move to Alaska we have been telling pretty much everyone we know that they are welcome to come visit us.  It didn't take long for someone to take us up on that offer!  The Brimleys came to stay with us this past weekend and although it was pretty cramped in our studio, it did give us an excuse to get out and do some touristy things here in Alaska.  Amanda and Drew grew up in North Carolina together, and she brought her husband Brad and their 4 month old baby along.  They have some great pictures they will be emailing us, but I didn't want to wait for that to post or my sister was going to kill me!  I took them to the Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage because it has the biggest collection of Alaskan Native art.  That night Drew was even able to get home early enough that we all went out to dinner at Chair 5 and enjoyed their famous deep dish square pizzas and their elk burgers.  It was delicious and a restaurant that Drew and I hadn't had the chance to try yet.

I love how they are able to carve such intricate things all out of one walrus tusk!

We also took a day and went to the Alaska Conservation Center.  This was even cooler than I thought it would be!  They take in animals that have been hurt or abandoned and either help them to get better so they can return to the wild or they give them a safe home if they can't survive outside of captivity.  They aren't in cages, but the animals get big fenced in areas to roam in.  The brown bears have 18 acres to roam! Although it's always more exciting to see these animals in the wild, it's nice to be able to see them from so close without them running away. 

Elk

These woodland bison are bigger than plains bison and have not recovered as well as plains buffalo from being overhunted.  The herd they have at the conservation center are the only woodland buffalo in the USA.  When they have built up the herd enough they will release them into the wild.

Me with a brown bear.

Amanda and I with a muskox.  I don't think I'd ever heard of musk ox before coming to Alaska.  They have horns that lay flat on the top of their head and then curve up and out.

Moose

The girl moose behind Amanda and I.

I love porcupines!  They are so cute!  

This one was domesticated by a family that found it near their home so it gets hand fed peanuts everyday.

A Kodiak bear cub running towards us.

We were lucky to be around one of the trainers at the facility, Scott, as he went around to some of the cages feeding the animals.  He taught us a lot about the animals and we got to watch him do some training with this bear cub.

After the conservation center we went down to the Begich, Boggs Visitors Center and learned about glaciers and wildlife in the area.  The weather was looking pretty stormy so we didn't do any hikes or anything nearby.

An iceberg in Portage Lake.  

We were also able to do a hike on part of the Historic Iditarod Trail in Girdwood.  It was beautiful, but we got lots of mosquito bites.  Overall it was a great weekend and we were happy that the Brimley's had a nice visit!