A Visit From Steph

I hope you all had a happy and safe Fourth of July!!!

We had a fun visit from Steph who came down from North Pole for a few days, so we stayed busy!  More time in the outdoors!  Who can resist when the weather makes it so irresistible?

She arrived on Wednesday night, and we made big plans for PW to come join us, and we went to Matanuska Glacier on Thursday.

From the parking lot to the ice, it's about a 20-minute hike, and as you keep going, the ground gradually turns from gravel to mud to ice.

 Before you know it, your surroundings all make you begin to question if it really is July.

It looked as though we should've been wearing winter coats and carrying winter gear.  It was a little chillier next to the glacier, but we really didn't need anything heavier than a light jacket.

In some places you had to be real careful where you stepped.  There were deep crevasses everywhere - lot of places to get your feet or a whole leg stuck, or worse yet, just fall in entirely.

We were fascinated by the marbling of the silt.

On the way home, we stopped at the King's River to eat our lunch.

It was the first time the girls were at Matanuska Glacier, so I was glad we had that day with them.

On Friday, we did more hiking with Stephanie.

Close to our house there is a big area where they have a network of trails that can go on for miles.

Most of the trails that we were on went through the woods like this:

A little ways in we saw this ptarmigan:

Pretty soon we came to the UAF Experimental Farm.  The trail looped around it and broke off to loop around a lake, but we stayed on the loop that went around the farm because it was HOT out and we were getting tired.

Apparently they were drying out some hay.

We didn't see no bears.....

but we did see these two ravens having a conversation in the tree.

 And we saw a toad.

 We walked at least 6 miles total that day, and it was such a nice day out, but it did feel HOT, so we were ready to stop, even though there were so many more trails there.  

We'll just have to save them for another day.

Then on Saturday, we went to Eureka and went ATVing with some guys that Chuck knew from work.

This time, instead of walking all day, we sat all day.

One of the guys had an old dog with hip problems, so she thoroughly enjoyed the ride, sitting in the back of the ATV with her head bobbing around through all the bumps.

Sometimes we went through water and sometimes we went through mud.  Some of them were quite challenging, but we all made it.

Eventually we came to this "heart" tree, and by that time, some people were talking about finding a place to stop and eat.

So we kept going until we came to the Little Nelchina River.

After we ate and rested a while, we started heading back.  And then someone had to stop and do some maintenance on his ATV.

And while he was doing that, it started sprinkling, which means we started to feel chilly.  I'm glad I decided to wear jeans instead of shorts.

I was fascinated by the trees there.  I liked the way they were so spread apart from each other in such a big open area.  I imagined it would look really cool in the wintertime.

On the way back, the sprinkles turned into a light rain, which made us wet and colder, but it wasn't too bad.  We were just glad that it wasn't a downpour.  After about an hour, we were out from under the rain cloud and began to feel warm again.

We came to some big mud pits that we were worried about because someone in our group was driving a Rover and we weren't sure if he was gonna make it through or not.

Thankfully no one got stuck, but the ride was starting to feel really long.

When I saw the Nelchina Glacier in the horizon, I knew we were finally getting close to the highway.

In all we rode for roughly 40 miles!  It was a long day, but really fun!

On the way back home, we saw this beautiful view:

It was much more impressive in person.

I just love it when the mountains have that gray silhouette look in the background!

Somehow when they are in a shade of gray like that, it makes them look even bigger.

Like really really really colossal!

So that was three days in a row of adventuring with Steph and then she went home.  :-(

But we plan on seeing her again before summer is over.

In the meantime, the kitties have also been outside doing their own adventuring.

 I don't like it when she chews on grass, but it's better than chewing on birds.  Peeka has developed a very bad new hobby.  She hunts birds and eats them.  Poor birdies.