May 11th, 2019. A twenty year old girl takes her first flight in an airplane. She’s leaving her hometown in North Carolina for a week stay in Eagle River, Alaska. The farthest west she’s been before ended at Tennessee. But suddenly, she’s flying through the air and her entire life changes. The seat belt light came on, flight attendants demonstrated safety procedures, her mom clutched her dad’s hand, and they were airborne. Just like that, she was in love.
Hi world! Chris here. I’m the girl that just found her one true love. I have always wanted to travel and see the places beyond my own rural town, but before this summer, I have never had the chance. By a stroke of miraculous happenings, my aunt and uncle decided to invite my parents and I to Alaska to see my cousin graduate high school. They had invited us before, but ticket prices and timing kept us away. This time around, my aunt and uncle decided to make sure we could come and actually paid for our tickets themselves. I don’t think I’ve ever been more grateful to anyone in my whole life. Seriously. Family is amazing.
I’m assuming most people have flown before, so I won’t bore anyone with our insanely messed up flights and delays and cancellations (we honestly had the weirdest experience with plane maintenance and airline problems). Instead, I will dive right into the wild frontier that is the state of Alaska.
The airport is in Anchorage, so that’s where we landed at 1 am the day following our departure. Anchorage is actually a pretty populated city, so my relatives live around thirty minutes away where they’re basically a part of the wild themselves. I’m being serious. Look at the view from their window. It’s a scene out of National Geographic.
After falling asleep immediately upon getting to their home, we woke up at a relatively normal time in the morning and started our summer vacation. And by summer I mean it was about fifty degrees in May. My mom made the mistake of only bringing one light jacket and had to steal thicker ones from my aunt.
The key to surviving Alaska is layers, layers, layers. The natives might laugh at you (they did it to me) when you’re fully bundled in sweaters and boots while they wear a t-shirt, but at least you’ll be warm. Believe me, it’s better to be comfortable and enjoy views like this:
than miss out on everything happening around you just because you’re cold.
You honestly don’t even have to look cute because Alaska has no dress code. I wore makeup one day because it was my cousin’s graduation. Usually, I was in a big jacket and leggings or jeans with no makeup and frizzy hair. I wasn’t looking stellar, but I was having an AMAZING time.
Besides, the bears and the moose didn’t care how I looked and there are more of those than there are people. It’s something I thought was really cool until we had to walk around with bear spray strapped to our hips every time we hiked. Initially it put me a little on edge, but then I just started looking around me and everything was so much better. I mean just look at the scenery!
This was just across the road from my relatives’ house. It literally might have taken us just fifteen minutes to walk there. They even had places set up for bonfires and camping, but we just took pictures and enjoyed the air.
My dad even reconnected with his youth and started skipping rocks on the water. I have never been able to do that (seriously, not even once), but he actually taught me to get one to jump one time.
My mom said it was her favorite part of the trip because it was so simple, but so worth it. I might agree with her. I mean look at me, I’m not exactly dressed the best, but I am wearing a pretty big grin.
There’s also a nature walk down the road a bit from their house, so we walked there one morning too.
Another Pro Alaska Tip: Go hiking with a big dog. It feels safer than having bear spray (but you still need that too).
The whole group got to go on this hike, but since my aunt was taking the picture, she wasn’t in it. But you can see how big the bear spray cans are. My cousin has one on her belt and my uncle has the other. In this picture they almost look like big knives, but they’re just aerosol-like cans. They made one more trip with us about halfway through the week.
My relatives have a few favorite hiking grounds that they visit pretty frequently. We happened to have dinner near one of these spots one evening, so they took us to walk through it. It’s a really beautiful hike up to a waterfall called Thunderbird Falls. There are two paths you can take to either the observatory deck or to the actual falls themselves. We did them both.
These are the views walking to the deck. The last one is what the actual waterfall looks like from up there.
This is the path to get close to the waterfall. 
This is the path to leave the waterfall. 
These are from my attempt to climb directly in front of the waterfall. I had to follow an invisible path along the water’s edge and then there was a bigger ledge where I stood with my cousins and my uncle. Nobody else wanted to try and walk out with us, but I think the pictures were worth it.
Of course, while I would have been perfectly happy to spend my entire week out in the wilderness, we did adventure into some of the more touristy parts of Alaska as well. On our first day in Anchorage we went to a weekend market that only opens in the summer. It was a neat place to look around for souvenirs at all the different tents and booths they had set up. I even splurged and got myself a map at a booth by Wayfinder’s PRESS.
Each map comes with a card that explains the history of that particular map. Mine was the original map of Alaska after it was bought by America. I really love map aesthetics, so I thought this was a really great way to commemorate the trip. If you’re a map fan too, you can get your own at http://www.wayfinderspress.com or on Etsy!
We also did some souvenir shopping at the Alaska Wild Berry Company. However, I randomly felt pretty sick then, so I don’t have good memories of the place.
I had assumed the Alaskan museum inside the Wells Fargo Bank in Anchorage would also be a place of some dull memories, but it ended up being really interesting. One of the staff members gave us a personal explanation of a lot of the artifacts and even let us hold the hand carved ivory.
That thing was beautiful, but HEAVY. 
The museum also had a library that you could go through and explore. I personally adore books, so this aspect made it my favorite museum. Honestly it was better than the Alaskan Heritage Museum. Don’t get me wrong, I liked the Heritage Museum, but we also went on Mother’s Day so it was free instead of the usual $20 entrance fee. On the other hand, the Wells Fargo museum is always free.
I don’t have any pictures of the Iditarod Headquarters, but we also stopped there. If you’re a fan of dogs, you’d like it too. It’s really small, but they show a movie that explains a lot about the study of sled-dogs and their nutrition and things. You can also see pictures of past winners and the trophies.
However, if fishing is more your thing then you would really like the salmon hatchery. We stopped there one day and once again I had lower expectations (I mean come on, it’s fish), but it was also kinda neat. We got to see the river where they collect the fish they will extract the baby-makin goods from and then they showed us where they store the eggs and growing fish. Out tour guide was also super nice, so I think she helped make it more fun.
Now one thing I really wasn’t expecting from the hatchery was the beautiful decorations. They had this artsy salmon statue in front of the building, and inside it was filled with colorful fish pictures that looked more like they were made for a beach house than a hatchery.
Honestly, Alaska as a whole has a lot of surprisingly beautiful art. We stopped at one carving store on the road to Seward from Anchorage and it had some really stunning pictures. I even bought one for the trip!
Luckily for us, these orcas aren’t the only whales we saw on our trip. Read next week’s post to find out all about the wildlife we saw during our week in Alaska! It’s not something you’ll want to miss 😉
Until then, stay safe out there!
Here, There, and Back Again 