Winter Solstice and daylight

The winter solstice was about a week ago and on the longest day of the year, the sun came up before 4 in the morning and "went down" around 1:30, and by "went down", I mean that the sun may have been gone down, but it was like dusk in Oregon, where you could still see easily.  Now, only a week later, both Jeff and I notice that it seems to be darker already at midnight instead.  It feels like it's changing very fast here!

One thing we've noticed is that people here don't seem to stick with any kind of scheduled bedtime up here.  We hear kids (little kids) and teenagers out making noise past 1 in the morning!  And people are up and about until the sun actually goes down.

 Here are some random pictures of our trip.  This huge bear was a real live bear before it was killed and stuffed!

 I had to include this sculpture of this Eagle.  It was a spectacular piece of art... until

 I saw the pricetag:

 After our busy days, we went to a restaurant called Humpys where they had delicious food and good beer!

 These pictures are from our ghost tour.  Supposedly this ladies restroom was haunted by the ghosts of two women who had died in there.  I didn't see anything...

 But it sure was a spacious, luxurious restroom!

 And lastly, our ghost tour guide. He knew alot of history, to the point that the tour felt more like a history tour than a ghost tour. But it was interesting enough and we learned a bit about the town.

Portage Glacier

On our way back to Anchorage, we were seeing signs for Portage Glacier, about 6 miles off the main road and spontaneously decided to take a little roadtrip.  When we got to the end, the view opened up to reveal an amazingly clear blue lake.

We found out they do small 1 hour cruises to see the glacier, which was around the other side of a small mountain.  We got on the ship and it slowly made its way out to the far side of the lake, and then around it along the waterline until we got to the point where we could see the glacier.  It was absolutely beautiful, the blue in spots where the sun was shining through it.  Apparently this glacier moves 17 inches every day, and as it moves off of the small cliff at its base, it breaks off in good sized chunks which then float around the water, slowly melting.  It was an incredible sight, and definitely worth it!  After we got back that night, I realized I'd taken about 50 pictures of it!  You, however, won't be seeing all of those. :)

 The boat coming back so we could go on our tour.

 This is one of those huge chunks of ice broken off the main glacier.

 This is NOT Portage Glacier. :)

 You can begin to see it below.

 And here it is...

 There were parts of the glacier that were thin enough that the sun could shine through, and it was the most beautiful clear blue!

Animal Conservatory

After the mine, we went further south to the animal conservatory where the only things we were really interested in were the bears, wolves, moose, elk, reindeer, musk ox and other animals that are more unique to Alaska.  We did see two bears playing around, and a coyote (we think) keeping a close eye on them. 

This was an adolescent moose, he wouldn't turn around so I could get a good picture of him from the front, so this is the best I could do.

 This is a Musk Ox.  Interesting, shaggy looking creatures.

 There was a bear in a corner of the fenced in area, in the corner nearest to the car so I got out to take a picture and noticed that he seemed very agitated, pacing up and down the fence back and forth.  At one point, a girl next to me said we must look like lunch, to which I replied "depends on which of us is the faster runner!" LOL

One thing we noted in the park were all of these dead and preserved trees.  Apparently, when the big earthquake of 1964 occurred, the ground there sank 10 feet, allowing salt water to flood the area, which killed and subsequently preserved the trees.  Incredible!  10 feet is no small amount!