An amazing day of firsts

When we woke up on Thursday, July 28, we never expected it to turn into the "best day ever" full of many firsts for us. We started out feeling our bed shake and realized that we were experiencing our first Alaskan earthquake. It was a 5.2 quake centered about 100 miles from us. It lasted only about 30 seconds, but was definitely a weird feeling.

Since it was our day off, we planned to take an excursion called Devil's Canyon Jet Boat Adventure. As we started down the road we encountered the mama moose and her two little ones who have been seen all season around the area. It was our first moose sighting on property.



We drove to Talkeetna where the Devil's Canyon tour began. The jet boat took us about about 60 miles up the Susitna River through Denali State Park into the National Wild River Park of Devil's Gorge where we encountered class 4 and 5 rapids. It was exciting, and the captain did an excellent job keeping the 50 passenger jet boat under control.



 Not only was this our first white water rapid trip in a jet boat, but we also had our first black bear sighting  this summer. A mama bear and her two cubs were down by the river looking for salmon. When we passed them the captain stopped, and they stayed in our vision for a few minutes and then ran into the woods. Some people saw the cubs climb up a tree but we didn't see them.



When we returned to town we decided to try our luck getting on a plane to fly to Mt. McKinley and walk on a glacier. Since it was such a beautiful day we didn't expect to have success because we had to be on stand-by waiting for available space on one of the planes. Luck was on our side, and after about one half hour they found room for us. There's never a guarantee that the plane can land because clouds can come in very quickly. Our luck stayed with us, and we had our first glacier landing. What an indescribable experience! There were several planes on the glacier when we landed, but they all took off and we were left alone in the quiet of the mountains. Our pilot was a captain of the Alaska State Troopers who flew many rescue missions during his career. It was very interesting to hear of his experiences. Not only was the flight full of beautiful sights but walking on the glacier was a once in a lifetime experience.




On the way home we had our first Subway sandwich since we started our job. How delicious it tasted! We're still amazed at what a wonderful day off we had! It doesn't get any better than that.