Guest Blogger: Our kid blogger, Steve, is an eight year old boy who loves Legos, Harry Potter, and Minecraft. Steve also loves to travel because it is fun to see new things every single day.
Last summer, my dad, grandfather, grandmother, mom, brother, and I went to Alaska. It was a very cool trip, especially since we got to see new things every day. I am going tell you about my favorites things we did.
#1: Glacier Walk
My first favorite was that when we got to Alaska, we walked on a glacier. After we got past most of the glacier, we saw a big frozen over pond that we could walk on with crampons. It was a very long hike and while we were walking there, we saw my dad climbing on the side of a glacier. We also saw a little tiny stream with little pieces of ice floating in it. The stream led over to a different frozen over pond where the water would freeze over.
#2: Flying in the Mini Plane
I liked when we flew in a mini plane to a little town where we did the glacier hike. I liked what the plane looked like and we got little sets of headphones with microphones so we did not have to hear the big engine and so when we talked, other people could hear us.
#3: Scavenger Hunting
We went on a kayaking trip and stopped at a little island, where there were lots of trees that had been ripped up. We did a little scavenger hunt. We all needed to find mussels, a crab, and barnacles. After my mom found all of those, I started to look and I found lots of mussels and barnacles. The crab my mom found was just a big huge crab head, but the ones I found little tiny mini crabs. When I picked one up, the head was like a little hatch, with nothing inside. I think a bird pecked open the head and ate the brains.
#4: Glacier Landing
Close to the end of the trip, we took another plane ride. When we landed, snow covered the ground. My grandpa, dad, and I had a massive snowball fight. It was awesome.
#5: Puffin Encounter
We went to the aquarium and were able to do a puffin encounter. We were able to feed the puffins fish and we got to see them and go up really close to them. At the end, they had these little tiny things of krill that they would toss all around the water. Only one family at the time can do the puffin encounter and everyone can watch you do it from the other side of the glass. A fun fact about puffins is that puffin eggs are basically about half as big as the puffin stomach.
#6: The Boat Ride
We took a big boat ride for several hours. We got to see a big whale and lots of puffins and other birds.
#7: Dog Sled Ride
We went to this place where we got to ride on these little tiny cart buggy things. Since it wasn’t snowing, we did not have sleds. In front, there were huskies pulling us. My brother fell asleep halfway through the ride. What was really fun about it was that you actually get to pet and hold a baby husky and see the dogs up close in real life, instead of in a movie, like Balto.
#8: Panning for Gold
There was a big water device, here water would flow through over bumps, and every few seconds you could take a big scoop of dirt, dump it on to the top of the device. The water would push the dirt, but the gold would get stuck in the bumps. You could use tweezers to get the gold out. Anything that was not gold would fly around in the water, but the gold would get stuck because it is much more dense than dirt. The guy who was running the panning for gold place would give you a little tiny bottle to drop all your pieces of gold in. Earlier that day, someone found a very small ruby and he gave it to me to put in my bottle.
Alaska was an awesome trip and I had so much fun. My favorite thing about the trip was that we were all together all the time.
