We started off our week with family who came up to visit, and a road trip. Alaska is so huge that if you want to see anything, you have to drive, so we spent a lot of time in the car, but we got to see a lot of fun things too.

We started off at Portage Lake to take the Portage Glacier Cruise. This is a fun one because it’s only about an hour long, you get to see a lots of little waterfalls, and you get to see the glacier. I feel like the glacier view is one of the better ones, but only because it’s a smaller glacier, so you can get closer. Sometimes on this cruise people have seen dall sheep, and once we saw a bear swimming across the lake. It then climbed up the side of one of the rocks and up across the glacier.

We then made our way to Whittier through the train tunnel. It’s fun because it’s the longest combined rail and highway tunnel in North America. The tunnel is 2 1/2 miles long and always a must see when you come to Alaska. In Whittier we always stop to get fudge, we love walking on the docks to see the boats, and we love to go see the fish at a little alcove day use area along the beach.

From there we went to the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center. I love going there because you can see quite a number of Alaskan animals and see them a lot closer and safer than out in the wild. We saw a black bear, brown bear, moose, caribou, muskox, buffalo, elk, deer, porcupine, eagles, and lynx.

We then made our way down to Soldotna where we ate dinner. Because it was Memorial Day our choices were more limited than we had anticipated. We settled on Mexican food and ate at a restaurant named Acapulco. This was a new one for us, but it was delicious and became a new favorite.

Our Airbnb was in Kenai, so after dinner we headed that way. The house was cute, clean, and had the most breathtaking view of the cook inlet. We all were enthralled with the view, so after we got our bags in the house, we all went out to enjoy the view. At which point, we realized we had locked ourselves out!

We found an open second story window, and then a ladder behind a shed. We were able to get back in to the house, and then made sure they key was in a pocket before we all went back outside again! We watched The Croods and then went to bed.

The next morning we started off looking for whales along the mouth of the Kenai river. This time of year the Beluga whales will come up the river a little ways following the fish. But the tide was too far out, so if there were whales, we couldn’t see them. We did find a lot of rocky treasures, and enjoyed the sandy beach for a while.

The we headed back toward Anchorage with our first stop at Girdwood. We road the tram to the top and enjoyed the views, the gift shop, and dinner at the deli. It was a beautiful view when we got there, but by the time we were riding the tram back down, it was raining. Still beautiful though.

We then made a stop at one of the overlooks because the tide was coming in, and low and behold, what did we see? Beluga whales. They were fairly far out, but we could see the whales feeding. It wasn’t as close as my mom was hoping, but it was fun to see and we spend a little time there at the turnout watching.

That was our last stop on the way home. It was a whirlwind trip, but we did enjoy all the sights we were able to see. We also found a number of new places to visit next time we have visitors, and some fun places to go when we want to spend time together as a family.