Anchorage was gorgeous. The first place we stopped was Lake Hood, the busiest seaplane airport in the world. It was phenomenal and we loved just watching plane after plane land in the lakes.
After that, we headed to Starbucks to do some homework. The next day we got up and went to the Alaska Air Museum and then we grabbed a quick bite to eat at international house of dogs for a reindeer dog! It was fantastic.
Then we set off to do the coastal trail. It was gorgeous and we really enjoyed the ocean view. They even have a point where you can watch planes take off at the international airport and there was a cargo plane that seemed heavily weighed down and flew over us no more than 100 feet off the ground. It was insanely loud and we almost dropped to the ground. I felt as if I could reach up and touch the plane it was so close! We got back to the car and decided to ride our bikes into town. Great idea because I found this fantastic ice cream shop called Wild Scoops. It was phenomenal. They toasted marshmallow on top of the ice cream. We grabbed another reindeer dog off of a street cart because they were so dang tasty!
After that we went back to Starbucks to finish up our homework for the week. We totaled 10 hours in 2 days at Starbucks, I had another 12 page paper to write haha, but yay because this is our last week of school! Then we headed off to Seward. On our way to Seward we stopped in Whittier. It was such a unique experience. We had to pay $13 to pay the toll to go through a tunnel into the town. The tunnel was 5 minutes long! It was pretty neat. The town didn't have much and they call it "a town under one roof" and now we see why. Pretty much everyone there lives in a huge condo complex. There aren't houses or anything like that. We grabbed some amazing fish and chips at a restaurant and drove on to Seward.
Seward was also a beautiful town. We walked the streets and peered into small, souvenir shops. In the morning we got up to hike Exit Glacier and it was amazing! We decided to just do the 1 mile hike to the base of the glacier, but our adventuresome side got the best of us and we trudged on past the "enter at your own risk" sign to the top of the glacier. It was quite the hike and some parts were pretty challenging. It wasn't until I saw this 40 foot drop through the rock slide to a rushing river below did I get quite nervous. That meant everything we were walking on actually had a river rushing below it. So we decided to hike straight up the mountain in hopes of finding the actual trail that went to the top. Thankfully, we found the trail!
The views from the top were one of a million. Completely gorgeous and breath taking! It is incredible to see that much ice. We also saw a grizzly bear and two cubs on our way down. Also, on the trail we met a summer school college group who was taking a 4 credit class from Pacific Union College in Napa. Crazy how small the world is because I was at Pacific Union College this past year with the soccer team for Riddle and the guy in the summer study group from Pacific Union said he saw the women's team there. Crazy! Anyways, we finally made it back to the car as our 1 mile loop turned into a 9 mile hike. We got back in the van and headed for Mt. Alyeska.
Today we mountain biked Mt Alyeska and it was phenomenal. Out first, everyone that worked there was very skeptic because of our lack of nice bikes and full face helmets! We stuck through it though and rode our Walmart bikes the best we could. We couldn't come to terms paying $100 to rent some bikes when we have our own even if they aren't the best. At the end of the day, it was incredible and we had a blast. The workers said we were "the riders of the day" for riding our bikes so well haha. What an experience! Now off to Skagway for a train ride.