vorak.com » travel

Alaska

vorak — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 21:07:54 +0000

Last year Kathy and I took a summer vacation to the Boundary Waters. This year we took a trip to Alaska and needless to say, it was a wonderful time. We had a lot of fun, got to see a lot of great sights and had some incredible food. It is hard to top moose, dall sheep, salmon and halibut all in one meal. A true Alaskan feast!

We left very early on Saturday June 6th from La Crosse and drove to Minneapolis. We flew Sun Country up to Anchorage and had a great flight. We landed at around noon Alaskan time and started doing touristy stuff almost right away. We stopped by Kathy’s aunt and uncle’s house to drop off our stuff and take some short naps. Soon after though we headed up to the Flattop Mountain area and got to see all of Anchorage from a good perspective. There are some excellent hiking trails that lead up to the top of Flattop but unfortunately we didn’t make it up there. The view was amazing though!

Our view of Anchorage and Flattop Mountain

After visiting the mountain we headed down to the dock. We found a huge anchor to take our picture by.

On Sunday we drove about 130 miles south to Seward, Alaska and took a boat tour. This was probably the most spectacular part of our trip. We got to see some amazing wildlife and I saw my first glacier!

This glacier was HUGE! We even got to see a big chunk of ice break off and crash into the water. Unfortunately the name of the glacier escapes me.

Monday we took it pretty easy. We had been going non-stop since Saturday morning at 4:30am so it was nice to chill out. Kathy and I headed to downtown Anchorage to do some touristy shopping and walking around. We ate lunch at a great resturant called The Snow Goose. The food was really good and they have an excellent scottish ale. Monday night we ate dinner and watched Role Models with Kathy’s aunt and uncle.

We woke up on Tuesday mornng to a nice surprise though! A momma moose and her two babies decided to hang out in the neighbors backyard. They hung out there for a good 20 minutes before meandering back into the woods.

After the mornings moose excitment we all got packed up the cars and headed up north, past Wasilla, to spend a few days at Kathy’s aunt and uncle’s cabin. We spent two nights there and had a great time. The cabin can only be accessed via boat or plane in the summer and snowmobile in the winter.

I must admit, it was nice having the comforts of home but still being out in the wilderness.

The rest of the week passed fairly uneventfully, but was still great. We spent some time checking out a few other places around town and on Friday we went to the “Alaska Wild Berry Park”. Kathy loved their homemade chocolate and we probably spent about an hour walking around their gift shop trying to find things to bring back home for friends and family.

They even had this crazy chocolate fountain. That is 3400 lbs of chocolate you see there.

Friday night we spent the evening hanging out and Kathy’s aunt Cindy made a delicious spaghetti dinner. Saturday morning we woke up early and got ready to head to the airport. All in all it was a great trip and I can’t wait to go back someday. We were told many times that March is the month to visit Alaska in because the Iditarod goes down the river right in front of the cabin and everybody is out on the ice having a good time. I think that sounds like fun.

As for more pictures, I posted a whole slew of them on my Google Photo’s page. Check out the album. I also took a bunch of video and will be editing that all together soon and will post it when it is finished.

101 update

vorak — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:01:06 +0000

I’ve got a few more things to cross off the list. Feels pretty good too.

#5 – Get new glasses/contact lenses
I finally made it to the eye doctor a couple of weeks ago and got new contacts ordered. Glasses will probably have to wait a while. Maybe next year when I can use my insurance again to pay for them.

#20 – Register and vote for the November 2008 election
I voted last November and am proud to say my vote helped Obama win!

#42 and #43 – Run two and three miles without stopping
I actually did this one. No joke, I ran three miles straight without stopping. I’ve since stopped running (again) but I did it!

#58 – Go to a Badger Hockey Game
My friend Ryan was kind enough to take Kathy and I to a Badger hockey game last season. We were four rows behind the goal in the student section and it was awesome. Sadly the Badger’s lost that game 0-1.

#60 – See Metallica Live
About a week after my old friend Carl got home from the Army he and I attended a Metallica concert in Milwaukee. I have to admit I wasn’t very impressed. I think the main problem was our nose bleed seats though. The sound wasn’t very good at the Bradley Center either.

#72 – Visit Alaska
I’m going to write up a full post on this trip.

Today is the day

vorak — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 13:14:57 +0000

Today is the day Kathy and I leave for Duluth MN. We’ll be making the four and a half hour drive today and staying in Duluth tonight and tomorrow night before we head into the Boundary Waters on Monday morning. I’ll have some pictures of the car and the packing uploaded before we go in. I’ll get those online tonight and tomorrow.

More Tech Visits!

vorak — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 17:23:57 +0000

It is going to be a very busy November and December at work. The desktop support “team” has to visit each one of our branch offices by the end of the year and we get to get them started this week. I got out of going to Chicago tomorrow because I’ll be in an all day meeting (still not sure which is better…) but I am going to Minneapolis on Thursday/Friday. We’ll be renting a car and driving up Thursday morning and working in the office that afternoon. We’re going to get a hotel Thursday night, work Friday morning and then drive back Friday afternoon. The nice thing is that we get free meals each day… the crappy part is I have to actually go traveling. Oh well, it can’t be that bad, can it?