September 23, 2012

Sunday, September 23rd

What an adventurous day! It started off in a pleasant way, with breakfast & family facetiming. We got to see our cousin Kelly today and show her some of 'Alaska' through the computer. Nice! Olivia made friends with two new stuffed toys - Flora Dora & Pinky Poo. They were both so wonderful, she could hardly decide which one to pick up first! Pinky Poo won out. What do you expect from a girl raised with wolves?!

Then we packed our things, loaded the dogs in the car & headed north... to the Arctic Circle! It was a gorgeous ride up there. We stopped and took lots of pictures and had snacks along the way. It was beautiful. Eventually we realized it was taking a lot longer to get to the Arctic Circle than we had thought. But by the time the sky got cloudy and the shadows grew longer we were a-l-m-o-s-t there...so we pressed onward! We made it to the Arctic Circle & the skies cleared just long enough for us to stretch our legs and get some photos. Then we hopped back in the car and began the long drive home. It was quite a trek, complete with sheeting rain, muddy slopes (named Beaver Slide), and blowing fog all along the Dalton Highway, which is not paved for much of the way. It was pretty impressive to drive for more than a hundred miles and not see one single house or electric line or light anywhere. It makes you feel fantastically small and reorients you to the awesomeness of nature.

Olivia was amazing on the car ride. She hardly fussed at all, and when she did I couldn't blame her because she'd been in the car for more than eight hours. She played with her dolls & books. She played peek-a-boo in the mirrors with us. She watched the puppies do a strange dog ballet in the back of the car. She seemed to really enjoy the trip and that made it so much more fun! What an adventure!