Our last big family trip I had planned for the summer was the most exciting - a trip to Valdez! I have heard nothing but great things about Valdez. Plus it is supposed to be one of the prettiest places in the state. Sold!
This sign is actually a bit out of town (22 miles to be exact) and not even on the way we arrived to Valdez, but I thought it was a super exciting sign and a good opening photo.
Details, details...
Ha!
We decided to mix it up and take the ferry over to Valdez instead of driving. It didn't save much in the way of time, but I thought the boys might find it more exciting than sitting in the car all day. Taking the ferry, of course, requires going through the tunnel to Whittier. I love the tunnel, but I am always super stressed about getting there in time and worried we will miss the opening in our direction and sit there for an hour. Luckily, that was not the case. Whew!
Because we made the right tunnel time, we actually had a little bit of time to kill in Whittier. We ended up driving around for a little while to see if we could find any people fishing and then walking along the water front waiting for the ferry to come in. Thomas was pretty excited when we told him that big boat pulling into the dock was our ride. :)
As soon as we got on board, the boys were ready to dig in to their lunch! We've been on a Lunchables kick while traveling. They'll eat a sandwich maybe 50% of the time - but they will chow down on a Lunchable almost every time. Works for me! Of course, we didn't realize we weren't supposed to eat in the forward seating area until we had already staked out a good spot. So I whisked the boys off to the dining area while Matt chilled out with all of our stuff (mostly toys to be honest!).
The boys were all over the place! The movie room was playing the Lego Movie - so that captivated Thomas for a while, but they mostly wanted to explore everywhere. Thomas started to get super sleepy and after a bit of a "I'm not tired!" meltdown, he passed out for a nap. Henry waited until Thomas woke back up before he decided to pass out.
Is it too much to ask for both of you to sleep at the same time so I can rest? At least I got my 10,000 steps in chasing kids around...
We got into Valdez pretty late, so we were asleep not long after getting a meal. I ended up making a last minute hotel reservation because the reservation I thought I had made, I never completed (whoops!). We luckily found a room, but it was a single bed, so in order to get Thomas to go to sleep - we ended up going to sleep too. A full night's rest was actually a nice treat! Henry is still in the pack and play for trips. He barely fits in there, but I'm still using it!
The next morning after a stellar breakfast at the Totem restaurant, we hit up the local playground. We figured we would go for a drive after the park and wearing them out to ensure a nap is always a priority!
They were excited about yet another new playground. And if you notice in the background, this one also had active construction - double win!
Henry has been hit or miss on whether or not he likes the swing. I know he looks super concerned / upset here, but I promise he was enjoying it. Just maybe not while his momma kept ducking down to try and get photos... ;)
We decided to take advantage of the fact we brought Thomas' soccer ball along to kick it around with him. He's been playing soccer over the summer and it had been outdoors (unlike his first session). He's not been as excited / cooperative this session - he claims it's because he wants to play inside, but I'm not sure he isn't just using that excuse because I suggested it. Either way, he was somewhat into kicking it around with us, so there is that!
I didn't get any photos of the drive, but it was gorgeous! The sun was out with just a few puffy, white clouds. The green grass, blue glaciers and colorful flowers were all so vibrant today. It was a gorgeous drive! We finally decided it was time to eat lunch and pulled off at the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park visitors center. This was the view from our picnic table - you can see the clouds were just uncooperative enough to cover the very the top of the mountains.
It was a great lunch, minus the wasps! At the time, I was insistent they were bees, but I have since decided that bees are nice, friendly insects and wasps are jerks. So they were wasps. None of them stung us, but they were flying all around us. I am not a fan of wasps and I was pretty much a nervous wreck. This might be the only calm photo Matt managed to take of me - obviously the kids weren't bothered. Look at those cheesy grins!
On the way back to Valdez, I made Matt stop at Bridal Falls. Valdez is surrounded by tons of waterfalls, but this one had the best pull off spot. I wanted to test out some filters I had bought for my camera. They are supposed to allow you to capture photos of waterfalls that look like softer streams of water. I thought it did a pretty good job!
This is the stack of filters! I had three of the ND filters in addition to my usual protective UV filter (the one with no label). ND stands for Neutral Density and is a way to block out some light in order to leave your shutter open longer - critical to get the smooth water look. It was bright enough that I had to stack all three of them to work - I'm assuming they are additive and it was equivalent to a ND 14. On a related note, I managed to get the ND 8 stuck to my UV filter. Matt thinks he *might* be able to get it unstuck.
Sigh... I'm a mess sometimes.
We decided to go back to the playground from this morning since the boys had been in the car most of the day. (The summer of road trips and playgrounds continues!). But when trying to convince Matt he had turned down the wrong street we found another playground!
And this one had pirate ships!!!
And a treasure box!!
They had two different ships - sized for younger and older kids. Of course my kids just ran back and forth between the two of them with no regard to what size they were!
Here Thomas is captaining the smaller ship with gusto! (Is captaining a word? I have the habit of making random things verbs that really shouldn't be...) Also note the gorgeous backdrop for the playground.
I think there must be a rule that they can only put Alaskan playgrounds in gorgeous places.
Or maybe it's because all of Alaska is gorgeous?!? :)
Henry, not to be left out, takes over the helm of the larger pirate ship. He mostly just made noises and moved the wheel back and forth. Seems legit to me! ;)
And it was Henry's first time to climb up the stairs by himself and go down the slide sitting up. Look at how proud he is of himself. He had to scoot himself quite a ways forward before gravity assisted him, but he was determined!
These two... So silly!
There was a section of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline on one side of the playground that looked like it was meant to be explored, so I hopped up there to check it out with the boys. It's such a huge pipeline - 4' in diameter. I obviously had to crouch a little, but the boys were fine. Amazing they built this thing from the North Slope to Valdez - a feat of technology to be sure.
(And Henry is wearing his brother's shorts because he spilled all over his - I don't have him in weird high waters. Just because I don't want anyone judging my fashion choices for the little guy!)
For a day of driving and playgrounds, it was highly successful. These two guys are pretty easy to entertain! :)