Wasilla!

We spent a couple days in and around Anchorage on our way back up to Shishmaref this year. We only had two days to travel around but we filled them up and have a list of things we still want to do for next time. Our first day we slept in a little bit, rented our first rental car, and ventured up to Wasilla where we visited some friends. We first stopped at Lori and John's house. Lori was our mentor as first year teachers. She came to Shishmaref, helped in our classrooms, observed us teaching, and always brought us fresh food : ) She became our friend and invited us to visit if we were ever staying in Anchorage. So we did! We didn't have long with them but they took us hiking up to Hatcher Pass (their dog is named Hatcher after it).

One view from our hiking adventure, you can see a road that winds through. We drove on one like this to get where we were going.

Mike and John got along very well. They talked almost the whole time!

John, Lori, and Mike

Summit Lake. We collected some water for my dad here. We touched the water. It wasn't as cold as we thought it would be!

"The hills are alive! Ah..ah..ah..ah.. with the sound of music!"

Hiking along

Summit lake again. It looks a little larger from this angle. You can see some children playing around it.

Lisa and Lori

Took this through the car window on the way back. Every sight was more beautiful than the last.

We had a very nice visit with them and are sad to find out that Lori won't be our mentor again this year but we have been keeping in touch. Every where we turned the sights just kept getting prettier and prettier. We learned about red algae (ask Mike), saw some beautiful sights, and enjoyed the cool air. It was nice to be outside without sweating! "It smells like... trees and dirt," Mike announced at one point and I think this pretty much summed up our trip north of Anchorage.

We also visited some friends we had made in Shishmaref who then moved to Wasilla (live about 15 minutes from Lori) I wish we had taken some pictures there but we just didn't think of it! One of their daughters was in my class last year so it was fun to see her just a little bit older. We got to see their fancy new house, visit into the wee hours, and have some savory steak and potato salad! However, they did promise we would see moose when we were driving back to our hotel and we didn't! Seeing moose is still on my list!