Alaska: Day 6--the Zoo

On Monday, August 11th, Jared and my dad left bright and early for their halibut charter on the Kenai Peninsula. We received good news: The captain of the boat Jared and our dads were booked on graciously said he would not hold Jared's dad responsible for payment for his portion of the charter, since he was stranded in Seattle. Even nicer, in this case, no deposit was taken, so Doc didn't lose money on this portion of the trip that didn't pan out.

Mom and I had planned to take the kidlets to the Alaska Zoo while the guys were fishing. It was a cool, but clear day. We went around 11:30am which turned out to be a great time to be there because it was feeding time for the animals and they were all out.

We saw beautiful bald and golden eagles. One bald eagle was older than me--35 years old! Apparently they can live to be 50 years old in captivity. We also learned that all the birds at the zoo had been injured in the wild. They were rescued, nursed back to health, then given a new home at the zoo since they are no longer able to fly.

We saw polar bears, wolves, black bears, a red fox, yaks, llamas, dall sheep, wolverines, snow leopards, tigers, porcupines and big ol' grizzly bears.

Karcyn was mostly interested in the gravel rocks under our feet. To each their own, I guess.

We especially enjoyed watching the river otters swimming around. Jake was so mesmerized he kept bumping his forehead, hard, into the outer pane of glass while he watched the otters.

After a successful tour around the zoo, Mom took us out to Gallo's for a yummy Mexican lunch. And then we bummed around and relaxed for the rest of the afternoon.

Earlier that evening, Jake and Grandma went for a mile walk up the road, collecting wildflowers for--you guessed it--a requirement towards Jake's Wolf badge. They ended up at a nearby elementary school and called to see if Calvin was done napping. He was, so we joined them on the playground for some sunshine and expending of energy. Calvin was the keeper of the wildflowers.

On the way home, I took a picture of the mountains (part of the Chugach range, I believe). We were about a mile from my parents' house. The "peak" in the middle of the picture is called Flattop for obvious reasons. We like to climb it, but didn't get a chance to this trip. Maybe next time.

We learned later that Doc and Karole didn't just bum around their hotel while waiting to fly out on Tuesday afternoon. They actually took a bus tour around Seattle and saw things that I was hoping we could see! Plus Karole went and got a pedicure. It's nice to know they made the best of their crazy situation.