Part Two of our Cabin Adventure

We woke up Wednesday morning to an incredible view out front. Still a little hazy but the morning sunshine on Denali was incredible. Even the girls were amazed.


This picture had so much potential. So upset it's a little out of focus. Still a cute kid though.

So after a slow morning, we headed into Talkeetna. Just around the corner we found this view of Denali. Incredible.

Inside Talkeetna we were treated to this view!

The next couple of hours were the worst part of our mini-vacation. I did not bring a charger for the camera battery. Taking long exposure pictures when it's 15 degrees outside for 3 hours evidently takes a toll on a battery. Who knew, right?!! So during the day, we found a place in Wasilla that sold batteries and a charger so we drove the 70 miles back to town to pick it up. Thanks to Sam and Dave helping us out. After a lunch in beautiful downtown Wasilla (barf), we headed back to the cabin and took a walk around the area.




Just in case you thought Katy might be losing her stuff...she pulls a stunt like this and TOTALLY REDEEMS HERSELF!!! Lisa tells Katy to freeze and this is the pose we get. Awesome.


Looks at those eyes!!

The snow was probably 2.5 to 3 feet deep. I thought this was a cool shot of snow stacking up on a stump.

Back at the house, the girls were playing with the owners grand-daughter and the dogs...and....BUBBLES!!


Another glorious sunset in the books.

So after our huge side trip to get a new battery and charger, we were determined to stay up late and watch the aurora. Only problem, it wasn't nearly as active. It got going just enough that we packed up the girls and took them to a spot with a great view. We stayed there for about 45 minutes...and this is the only decent picture I got. A little disappointed.

Thursday morning. Time for some more bubbles and another walk before heading into town for lunch at the Roadhouse!



This might be the photo of the trip! I'd even put it up for an early contender for photo of the year! Wow!!


Bridge at Montana Creek. Going to have to come back here in the fall and so some fishing! It looked like a beautiful creek.

After an awesome lunch at the Roadhouse in Talkeetna, we made the 2+ hour drive back home. Amazing adventure!

If you're looking for a nice get-away, check out My Cabin.

Adventure..is out there!!!

As many of you know from Facebook, we had ourselves a little adventure the last couple of days. I had taken off this week for a trip I was going to take down to Kansas to see the A&M game on Tuesday night. Well things fell through so we decided to have a stay-cation...make the most of the time off and make some memories here in Alaska.

So I started thinking about cabins that we could go stay and remembered Ben and Lisa found this nice little cabin up north before they moved. I called and sure enough, they were available. The cabin is located near Talkeetna...which is a little over a 2 hour drive to the north. When it's clear out (which it was), it is BEAUTIFUL!! The only problem is that we've been under high pressure so long that it's starting to get a little hazy so Denali wasn't completely unobstructed.

Anyway, the cabin!




Our view...an amazing panoramic that included Denali and Foraker. That first night was really hazy and some mid/high level clouds were hanging around the peaks making it hard to see. Still...

The girls showing our beds upstairs. It was definitely a tiny cabin. We actually had a hard time all squeezing in on the 2 beds!

The owners were SO nice! They had several dogs running around that were very kid friendly. This was the girls favorite.

View of our cabin from the outside.

From the front porch, we had a fire pit (that we didn't take advantage of) and a heck of a view.


I took a lot of pictures of birds. This was the best...very clear picture.

Getting ready to take a walk, Katy showing her sassiness.

Alyssa getting ready.


Time for a walk.

Sign for our cabin.


We were walking on a snow-machine track that had crusted over. I kept telling the girls to stay on the trail and they kept asking "why?" So I decided to show them how deep the snow was off the trail.

Great picture of Alyssa.

Getting ready for dinner.

Another one of Alyssa. She had fallen off the sled and rubbed her cheek on the snow so it was a little red.




Sunset. I took 20 or so pictures. Here are a few that turned out pretty good.



Spaghetti at the cabin!

After dinner, the ladies settled in to watch a movie while I got all dressed up to go outside and wait for the Northern Lights to show up.

While I was waiting, I started experimenting to dial in on the right settings...and managed to get some good photos too. This is looking next to our cabin at the owners incredible home. Check out Orion in the picture!!

Our cabin under the stars. The glow from inside the cabin is the girls watching tv.

Me goofing off with the flash. Notice you can still see the stars up above me.

A couple hours later...the Aurora got GREAT!!!



It's a long story but the battery died early in the evening. So I had to keep coming inside to warm up the battery then go back outside so I could take a couple of pictures...repeat. I think I missed a lot of great pictures in the process. But still, happy with what I got. This last one was taken from the couch inside the cabin. I woke up at 3am-ish and went downstairs to see how it was going outside. It was an amazing phenomena where the entire sky was a faint green and it was pulsating. It was moving so fast from north to south that it looked like low clouds screaming past me. So I set up the tri-pod and took a few pictures and managed to capture the aurora from inside. Such a cool experience.

I'm really happy with how everything came out but to fit everything on the blog, I had to cut the resolution by 50%. Hopefully they are still decent when viewing on here. If not, you'll just have to trust me! We looked at them in full size on our tv and they look GREAT!!!

So that ends day 1! I'll be back tomorrow with more pictures.