Alaska Day 1

We are currently driving through the mountains of Alaska! We just had to stop and wait for a moose to cross the highway!!! It feels like I'm driving through a winter wonderland almost too good to be true. The snow is all stuck onto the branches of the trees, the mountains are completely white, the lakes are all frozen and covered in snow machine tracks and moose tracks.

The trip to Alaska was far too long and much too eventful. We went to bed at 11pm and woke up at 1:30am to start driving to Edinburg. I slept for an hour on the flight from Edinburg to Paris and when we arrived we found out that all the security personnel went on strike. They would stand outside the barriers to security with megaphones and signs yelling and changing...slight unnerving :s So we went upstairs to find out that we had to go through security to board our next flight...the line was about a mile long and had thousands of people standing in it...and our flight took off in an hours time. So I found a guy named Ollie and a woman named Elaine (see picture)

who were both on the same flight to Salt Lake City. We stood in line and would take turns finding French workers who were not too pleased to have people asking them questions. We finally figured out that all the planes were delayed and at the last second the workers would yell out a destination and you would shove your way through the masses, get to the front of security, then have to run to your gate and barley get to your plane. None of the connecting flights were still valid. Everybody's schedules were totally thrown down the drain. So...talk about stress. I kept with Ollie and Elaine and we were able to figure out the system and get on our plane ok. The 11.5 hour flight turned into a 13.5 hour flight. So that was no fun but we eventually made it to Salt Lake city where my 7 hour layover had changed to 5.5 hours. I took advantage of the free internet, starbucks, and restaurants. It was an ok layover. I slept the next 5 hour flight to Anchorage where my dad and Andy met me. The weather was too bad in Valdez for planes to fly out so my dad drove to Anchorage to pick up Andy and I from the airport. Andy arrived at the airport several hours before me and was quite surprised to see my dad waving at him in the airport :)

So we spent the morning doin some errands around Anchorage including a huge shop at Sams Club and Fred Meyer (oh how I have missed you!). We are currently driving to Valdez. I'm slightly bummed that we're missing a day with my brother, sister, and mom.

But visiting with my dad has been amazing and Andy is able to see one of the prettiest places in the world all snow covered! It is such a different place in the winter :) I am so ecstatic to be back at home especially in the winter. There is so many things we have planned in order to give Andy a tride and true wintery experience <3