Welcome to a beautiful summer day in Alaska, where locals are coming out of their caves to bask in the great weather. Shorts are coming out, sunscreen is being slathered on, and everyone is excited to get their tan on. This summer we are breaking records in Anchorage, with the longest winter ever recorded. If that doesn't sing Alaskan summer like tunes on the beach, then I don't know what will. So grab a Coca-cola, roll up your beach towel, and head on up to Alaska, land of the midnight sun!
(Just a fun little photo. Yes, my toes were cold. But I figured since we are literally breaking records over here, I should take advantage of it. But now Alaska has no more excuses to dump snow on us. Cease the nonsense!)
Two weekends ago my family went on our first camping trip of the summer, and man was it an adventure! Only five minutes on the road on the most dangerous highway in North America (or so my dad says), we hear a loud bang from the top of the car and see things flying behind our speeding vehicle. Cars behind us swerved to avoid the flying objects and while we all freaked out inside the car, my dad pulled over to investigate.
Turns out that little piece sheered off our overhead compartment, throwing the lid open and causing all our sleeping bags and tents to fly away. So my brothers, dad, and I all walked along the highway trying to gather our belongings while tour buses drove by with tourists most likely laughing at us and the tour guides saying, "And on our right we have some locals trying to go camping. They didn't book with Alaska Tours and are now suffering the consequences." Thankfully, we got all our stuff back and with a few bungee cords keeping everything down, we were back on the road to go camping!
But when we got to the campgrounds, everything was covered in snow. It was so weird. Seriously, it's summer. There shouldn't be snow. And yet, some of the lots were covered and a bathroom was blocked completely from the foot of snow. We talked to some of the other campers and they said that they came every year at the same time and snow has never been an issue. I guess it's just been a very long winter.
For this camping trip I completely overpacked. I had brought nearly every warm sweatshirt I owned, but ended up wearing the same thing the entire time. Yeah, I even wore the same clothes to bed too. Sometimes, it's just too cold outside to change into pajamas. And man, was it cold this time! Everyone was freezing and pretty miserable, but we tried to stay warm by the fire (and also by wearing a million layers of clothes). I'm hoping we get to come back to this campground though. Last time we came we got to hike to the glacier and bike to beautiful lakes, but this time we weren't able to due to the snow.
In the wild, you have to find ways to entertain yourself. Nicholas has this trick where he can squirt water through his teeth. William tried to replicate it but only succeeded in spewing water everywhere.
Part two shall be up tomorrow!
