We're Ba-aaaaack!!! Alaska Adventure #1

Whew! I don't think I will ever catch up. Ever. Again. LOL
I've taken a little break from "social media" to get a breather and regroup (and recover from the crud I picked up on the way home.) :)

The kids and I are back from our incredible trip to Alaska - it was full of breathtaking scenery, tons of research, great friends, and our amazing editors/friends Karen Ball and Julee Schwarzburg. So, to give you a little teaser, I'm going to share a few pics and a little about our trip...

We arrived in Anchorage and I had several speaking engagements and radio interviews. These first two pictures are from an incredible school - Grace Christian - in Anchorage, where the kids were amazing and SO much fun.





About a week into our trip, we were joined by Karen and Julee. The first day we headed down the Seward Highway (one of the most beautiful drives in the world) and snow followed us the whole way! But it was beautiful!



After breathtaking Alaska weather, we headed toward Trapper Creek up the Parks Highway as we chased "The Mountain" - (I'll explain in a minute) - This picture is outside our cabin in Trapper Creek.



Chasing "The Mountain" - is attempting to get as close as you can to Denali (Mt. McKinley) the highest mountain in North America, and "seeing" it. Denali in native Athabascan means, "The High One" - and true Alaskans only refer to it by its original name. (There's a LONG story behind that one...)

Anyway, we chased the mountain from Anchorage, (hundreds of miles away), because the mountain was "out." But sadly, by the time we got to Trapper Creek, it had draped itself in clouds once again.

Karen and Julee were very fortunate though... Many, MANY people come to Alaska and never get the opportunity to see Denali, but as you can see below - we chased him down and we saw hundreds of views of this massive mountain.


Josh and Kayla had a blast posing for pictures and telling Karen and Julee all about their favorite parts of Alaska.



Did you know that Denali is actually the tallest mountain in the world from base to top? Everest beats it because of elevation...


In the picture above, we're still a good 50 miles away from Denali. In the foreground, you see Karen and Julee hiking up to a lookout point (during the summer, that's actually a parking lot they'd be standing on). Isn't it amazing how massive the mountain is? And it's surrounded by other massive mountains...

Stay tuned, more pictures and Alaska fun facts coming in the next blogs...