The trip to Anchorage was really great. The drive down there was absolutely beautiful! It's about a 7 - 8 hour drive, and we started at about 10:00 pm. During the first 3 hours, as we drove past Denali National Park, there was not a single cloud in the sky. We were pretty far away from any big towns, so the stars were brilliantly clear, and since I couldn't fall asleep, Scott and I spent time softly talking about the constellations, and trying to find Polaris. I don't think we succeeded. I think I found the Big Dipper, and Orion, but I couldn't figure out where Polaris was, and after driving over a rumble strip Scott decided to keep his eyes on the road (wise man) and stop looking. I tried to go to sleep after that, but though I closed my eyes I just couldn't get comfortable, and every time I came close to dozing off, something would wake me. The first was Scott pulling over to a gas station.
After gassing up, we hit the road again, and he informed me that as I tried to sleep, he almost hit a moose. Apparently it was standing right on the white line on the side of the road, and he saw it just as he crossed a bridge. I gave up trying to sleep at that point, and as we were again just talking, I happened to look behind us, and I was floored. The Aurora was out. Brighter than any I've seen yet. We were passing mountains, and with the bright stars and mountains looming darkly around us, the bright display of green lights was the perfect completion of an amazing picture. We stopped so I could get some pictures, but unfortunately I've never read how to photograph the Aurora, and I only had about 2 minutes to set all the settings on the camera to what I thought they might have to be to capture the lights, on manual. Also, the camera doesn't take pictures if it can't find anything to focus on, and I had a difficult time manually focusing it because it was pitch black outside. Still, here's the best shot I could get.
I did some reading when we got home of how to photograph the Aurora, and I think I know what mistakes I made now. I hope very much that I get another chance before we leave Alaska. God's creation is so incredible.
We got to Anchorage at about 5:30 am, Thanksgiving morning. Thanksgiving day was rather odd. The friends we went down there to see were holding a fundraiser for their church youth group that day (their dad is the pastor of a Samoan church), playing Bingo. They live in their church building upstairs, so we could hear all that was going on all day. Our friends thought that the fundraiser would end at around 2:30 or so, but it went on until about 6:00 in the evening, and it took 'til about 7:00 to clean everything up and see the last stragglers out the door. Scott and I by that point started making our Thanksgiving dishes and setting the table so that supper would be ready by the time they were done cleaning up. Two of our friends ended up not being able to eat with us because one had to babysit for some people going out to shop on Black Friday, and the other works at Best Buy, which was opening up at midnight. Scott and I were very tired from our trip (neither of us slept at all the entire trip), and the G's were tired from the day long fundraiser. So right after supper was ravenously devoured, everyone very quickly wandered off to their rooms to fall asleep for the night. Thanksgiving didn't really feel like Thanksgiving at all, we were separated from the G's all day, and dinner was eaten pretty quickly. So it was definitely the weirdest Thanksgiving we've ever had. But the weekend itself was very good, I'm so glad we got to go down there.
The next day, we enjoyed some shopping around, since Anchorage has WAY more to offer than Fairbanks. There's a Target, several malls with the usual stores you'd see down in the lower 48, normal restaurants (IHOP, baby!), and just so much more to see. Mrs. G often "stole" Micah from us and shooed us out the door, so it was very pleasant to be out and about and not have to worry about the baby. I missed him a lot though. I wonder if I'll ever be able to fully enjoy being out alone with my husband again. I do enjoy it, but it's always a bit dampened by wondering if Micah is ok, and wishing I had kissed him more before we left, and hoping he's not being too much of a burden for anyone. But it was very good to spend some time with Scott by myself. In the evenings, we played board games with whoever was home that night, Balderdash was the favorite. They are a lot of fun to play with. I was grateful because I also got to spend some time alone with Mrs. G, she was my first friend out here when I first moved out here and got married, and she is such a wonderful, godly lady. I greatly enjoyed the fellowship with her.
So, all in all, the little "vacation" (Moms apparently don't actually get vacations) was wonderful, though exhausting. Nights were pretty awful because Micah kept waking up every hour and a half - 2 hours, so we hardly got any sleep. And I got a cold, which I still have, but it was still a good trip despite all that. The drive back was also very beautiful, here are some moments from that. We took 650 pictures, mostly of the drive back.
And now, to work again. I have like, figuratively, a ton of laundry to do.
No comments:
Post a Comment