The Plan

I'm going to Alaska for 9 days, starting Friday. I'll be traveling 5000 miles by air, 1000 miles by land, and even a few miles by sea. I'll be posting photos to my Facebook page during the trip if you want to follow along.

My company is sponsoring the trip. I'll be going there with two other coworkers (all of us BYU grads). My company awards groups with a stipend every quarter to follow their dreams. They call it a "Dream Grant". Ours is to find gold in Alaska. Here's the plan.

The route

We start in (A) Anchorage, then ice climb at (B) Glacier view, go off-roading in (C) Denali, hike at the foot of (D) Mt McKinley, and then kayak in (E) Kenai.

A. Fly into Anchorage

We land in beautiful Anchorage on Friday night. Time change: 4 hours. Weather has been in the 50's for the past several weeks, but it has also been wet. I have a lot of rain gear -- all synthetic materials.

B. Ice Climbing in Glacier View

Our first day will be ice climbing. It's all top roped, so expect it to be very safe. They provide all the gear as well. It's been a few years since I went out ice climbing in Utah with my pal Toby, but I think I'll remember the essentials: go up, not down.

C. ATV in Denali

Our next day will be on ATV's around Denali National Park. Lots of mud and lots of fun.

D. Visit Mt McKinley

Then we head out to the foot of Mt McKinley. A breathtakingly monstrous mountain. It will be a dream come true to see this place.

E. Sea Kayak in Seward

Our last stop will be kayaking in the Kanai Fjords. This is the place where the ice falls off the glaciers and the wales breach. We will kayak all day, sleep overnight on the shore, and then come back. You can see our tour guides at Liquid Adventures.

Western Maryland Scenic Railroad

One thing we do well around here is search out cool train sites. Recently we took a ride on the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad. This is another train that we discovered on our own. Nate was looking for something fun to do over the 4th of July weekend, and stumbled upon this gem. We drove up to Cumberland, Maryland in the Allegheny Mountains and caught this train. We ridden a couple of real, steam trains now. They are pretty cool. This one is a 1916 Baldwin Steam engine.

The boys had a good time. Beckett was thrilled.

Felix liked looking out the window for a while too. Then he settled in to eat the pretzels he picked out at the snack bar.

The train has a snack bar, a dining car, and plenty of seats for everyone. We also enjoyed taking turns going to the observation deck.

The train rides last about an hour and ends in Frostburg, Maryland. Everyone gets off the train for about two hours, enough time to see a little bit of the town and eat lunch. But the best part was watching the train turn on the turntable. The turntable moves fast. We had never seen a turntable in action. It was completely worth the wait.

The station in Frostburg.

If you go take a ride on this train, I strongly recommend getting a seat on the right side of the train if you are going from Cumberland to Frostburg or the left side of the train on the return trip. All the great views are on that side of the train.

 Felix wasn't quite as thrilled about the ride back.

The city of Cumberland is pretty charming as well. Look at all those spires. We drove around a little looked at all the Victorian architecture.

We also saw this claim to fame and some pre-Revolutionary history: George Washington's headquarters during the French and Indian War.

 

If you go to Cumberland you need to go to the creamery. Probably the best ice cream I've had in my entire life, and I am not exaggerating. The Queen City Creamery is only a couple of blocks from the train station, but it was probably the hottest walk of our lives, but I swear that is not the only reason the ice cream tasted so good.

The Western Maryland Scenic Railroad is most famous for its winter rides, which I think could be really beautiful. Maybe we'll have to go back.

Beckett sings "Moon, Moon, Moon" by The Laurie Berkner Band

This video is a little long. Stick with it. Your patience will pay off in the end. Just as funny as this video is watching Beckett watch this video.

The Laurie Berkner Band's version:

Summer Hair

I've consigned myself to being unstylish in the summer. I wear a t-shirt and shorts everyday. It's way too hot and humid to wear any extra clothing, and I'm just not into skirts except for Sundays. But, one thing I can have fun with in the summer is my hair. I prefer summer hair to be off my neck, so even a ponytail just isn't going to cut it. Here's a couple of the hairdos I've come up with for summer.

Two dutch braids into a braided bun:

I do the right side on a diagonal so the bun is off center. Then I twist the two braids up into a bun. Secure with booby pins and done.

Here's the style from the front (and a peak at my new glasses):

I've been doing this three mini-bun style for several years now, and I always struggled with it a little. Then I saw that Christina at hairromance.com puts the hair into three little ponytails, and for some reason this was a revelation to me. It's so much easier. I also added a dutch braid on the right side to make the whole thing a little more interesting.

Three mini-buns from the front in my summer uniform of t-shirt and shorts:

 This post is brought to you by Kayla. It's my first ever link-up and style challenge.

Funk Family Tours: Monuments and Goodbye

For their last night I took Paige and Peter to see the monuments. Nate stayed home with all four boys and put them all to bed himself. Those boys did not go easy on him, so he deserves a huge prize for his contribution to our evening.

We planned the excursion perfectly, arriving as the day was ending. 

We saw the FDR and Martin Luther King, JR monuments and then arrived at the Lincoln as the sun was setting.

That evening was the night of the Supermoon, and, when planning a trip to the monuments, Paige and I thought it would be pretty awesome to see the monuments under the supermoon. It seemed like a pretty popular idea. We saw a lot of people setting up their cameras and waiting for the perfect shot. The supermoon was pretty super.

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 By the time we made it to the World War II Memorial it was dark.

We made our way back to the Jefferson (very awesome in the dark, but not so awesome in my photos).

The next morning the Funks packed up, and I drove them to the airport. Beckett misses them so much. When they were saying goodbye Beckett said of A: "But I not want him to go home. I want him to be here." And every couple of days, even still, Beckett says he misses A and C and wants them to come back. "Maybe they can come on Monday," he says. So sweet and so sad. I'm so glad they could come.

Funk Family Tours: Harper's Ferry

Perhaps you are all tired of my constant praise of Harper's Ferry? If so, too bad. Here is another Harper's Ferry post. Paige, of course, has heard of my love for Harper's Ferry. She wanted to experience it for herself, and I do not think she was disappointed. It was my third trip, and I'm already planning the next one.

Shall we just get the obligatory train chatter out of the way at the beginning? Beckett had a fabulous time in Harper's Ferry. I think we saw 5 trains.

Every time we heard a train Beckett and Nate ran up these stairs. Doesn't Beckett look smashing in these sunglasses? No? Well, they are no more. B broke them on the way home and mourned profusely.

I try not to think about how many times Nate has let my son stand on train tracks.

We also got ice cream/ custard/ slushies (for the Funk boys) from our favorite ice cream shop. They liked it. We ate it in my favorite courtyard.

Now I want to do a little comparison for everyone. Below you can see what the Funk boys did during the ice cream-eating portion of our trip. 

 And this is what my kids did:

I think they each had about 3 spoonfuls of ice cream, and they NEVER stopped moving. The Funks? They each ate an entire slushy.

So, we arrived in Harper's Ferry late in the afternoon due in part to a late start on our end and in part to horrendous traffic in Frederick. On the plus side, we came late enough that we did not have to pay to enter the park. On the down side, all the museums were closed. I think we were all okay with that. We spent our time doing the outdoorsy stuff. We looked out at the Shenandoah and Potamac rivers. We admired the church and the cliffs. We walked across the bridge.We sat on this bench.

And then we threw rocks in the river. I want everyone to keep in mind that we had four boys with us. Four. This portion of the time was a huge success because all boys love throwing rocks in the water.

Because it was so fun the first time, let's do another comparison, shall we? Here are Paige's kids throwing rocks into the water. Notice how far away they are from the river. Notice how placid and peaceful they look.

 Now here are my kids:

Beckett is doing his crazy, excited arm flap and fake giggling. Felix insisted on practically sitting int he river, and throwing rocks into the water apparently turns him into a complete maniac.

Paige and I felt extra good about our trip to Harper's Ferry because just the night before we had gone to my book club where we discussed Richard Louv's The Last Child in the Woods and here we were, the very next day, with our children in nature.

All that rock throwing had worked up an appetite so we went and ate dinner on one of the restaurant patios. Felix was crazy during dinner (he is consistent), so he got to go on two walks with Nate during our dinner time: while we were waiting for our food and while we were paying. Apparently the walks included knocking on people's doors and sitting in the road.

We thought it was a pretty fabulous day with fun-filled, boy-friendly activities, but as we were loading up the car to go home A told us his favorite part of the day was getting gas at the gas station.
It must have been a really exciting stop at the gas station because we are pretty sure he loved everything else we did too.