I knocked another state off my list! My last week of summer vacation was spend in Alaska, The Last Frontier, with a great group of friends. Click here to follow along on a map.
Zach, Jimmy, Aleks, and Stuart, my travel buddies. Jimmy and Aleks were roommates at St. Olaf; Aleks grew up south of Anchorage and is back there now. He invited us to come check out his homeland, and boy, were we impressed.
After a day of walking around Anchorage, we hit the road. We drove south to the Kenai Peninsula and had views like this the whole way. It was so beautiful.
Homer is a great little tourist town at the end of a long strip of land called "The Spit". They're known for their Halibut fishing excursions and they bring in some really huge fish--as large as five or six hundred pounds!
The Salty Dawg is a famous bar on The Spit. The interior is covered in dollar bills, so we signed one of our own.
After mass in a beautiful church on Sunday morning, Zach and I went fishing for halibut.
We were successful! I caught my limit of two beauties, around 14 and 20 pounds.
We had it on the grill within hours of catching it. We stayed the night with Aleks' parents in Soldotna where he grew up. The fish was delicious!
Monday was a really special day. We drove to Seward and took a cruise of Kenai Fjords National Park. The waters are teeming with wildlife. Our first spotting was harbor seals hanging out on the rocks.
Next up were the stellar sea lions (stellar is part of the name, no joke). They have an opposing flipper that allows them to climb these near vertical rocks, it's pretty cool.
Orcas! I was secretly really hoping we'd see them, and it was an amazing experience. There was a baby travelling with the school, very cool.
We pulled into a bay that seemed to have something floating in the water. When we stopped the boat, tens of thousands of jellyfish came to the surface. It was rather surreal, they move so gracefully through the water.
Next stop was the Aialik Glacier. This thing is huge. At the front wall the ice is as high as 400 feet.
When the glacier calves it sounds like a cannon shooting. We got quite a show. Check out this video I shot, and don't miss the giant wave that the glacier creates. That's probably 200 ft of ice that falls in.
The ride back was pretty wet and windy. I was very happy with my Marmot jacket I got before this trip, it was very useful.
After a night back in Anchorage we headed off in the other direction. We drove north to Talkeetna for some pizza on the way to Denli National Park.
It may seem like we did a lot of driving on this trip, and you'd be right. We drove 1500 miles in our week, and I loved every minute of it. The drives were breathtaking.
After arriving to our lodge just outside of the park, we headed up to Healy to the 49th State Brewery. They have the bus there that was used in the movie Into The Wild. The original bus is still out in Denali somewhere, but it's really tough to find. I mean, have you seen the movie?
49th State was awesome, I would recommend it to anyone. We ran into the brewer and he gave us a tour.
Denali was definitely another highlight. We opted for a hop on/hop off shuttle to Eielson Visitor Center, 4 hours into the park. Our driver was fantastic, pointing out everything of interest and giving us all kinds of park info.
We saw a TON of caribou. I would say more than 50 for the day.
Moose! This was the first one we saw. The view was good but it was far away. Just before leaving the park we saw one very close but it was hidden in the brush.
We were so very lucky with animals. I think we saw about 15 bears. This one gave us a great look walking across the tundra.
Our driver was so great that we stayed on her bus all the way to Eielson where they have a bunch of info about Mt. McKinley (also Denali, "The Big One", in the native language). It was pretty cloudy, which is unfortunately quite normal, so they have etchings on the window where the peaks should be.
We abandoned our bus here to do some hiking. I've always heard that hikers should stay on strictly marked trails; not the case in Denali. This is, for the most part, a "trailless" park. You can walk wherever you want! We opted for a more established path and had a great little hike.
View from the top. It was beautiful in all directions.
We may have played some cribbage at the top. We discussed how many people had likely played cribbage there before. My guess is not many.
Riding back with our new driver we were quite satisfied with our Denali experience. Then three bears walked out of the bushes and onto the road. It was one of the coolest experiences of my life.
The mother walked right up to our bus, I could have reached out and touched her (I didn't--don't worry Mom). They crossed the road, didn't really pay any attention to our furiously clicking cameras, and disappeared.
As if things couldn't get any better, Mt. McKinley made a dramatic appearance as we drove out of the park. We could clearly see both the North and South peak, the highest in North America.
Moose, Caribou, Bear, and Mt. McKinley. They call that the Grand Slam. We were also fortunate enough to see a coyote, fox, ptarmigan (state bird of Alaska), and lots of Dall Sheep high up in the mountains. What a day!
We went back to 49th State for dinner. I had some very tasty Alaskan Salmon.
Find Alpine Creek Lodge on that map. It's a little off the beaten path. Ok, it's a lot off the beaten path. Like 120 miles on a dirt road away from Denali. It was a little weird driving that road at night, we passed exactly one sign of life the whole way. It's a hunting lodge with a lot of character. We had a great stay.
Our last full day in Alaska we drove back to Anchorage. It was, hands down, the most beautiful drive of my life. Amazing landscapes, mountains, lakes, and even a glacier right next to the road. Unreal.
The whole trip was a great success, and I really want to explore more of Alaska. After returning Friday afternoon, I drove straight for Wisconsin to see my sister Anna get married. It was a beautiful day, a beautiful ceremony, and we had a great time. Since then I've been preparing for the coming school year. I'm off to Madison this weekend for another wedding, then hopefully I'll stay put for a while. Lots of travel coming up throughout the year though, so stay tuned!
What a month! There are a lot of pictures here, so feel free to skip the words. I'll try to be brief, but I always say that.
After Zach and Laura's wedding I drove straight for Notre Dame. It was good to be back on campus, lots of great memories there. Anyone want to drive down for a game this fall?
After staying one night with a friend, I continued on to Columbus OH. I drove through a pretty impressive storm to get there.
I wanted to check out Banshee, the new inverted coaster at King's Island, a short drive from Columbus where I stayed with a high school friend.
The plan was to spend a whole day at the park, but considering the completely empty waiting queues for every ride, an evening did the trick.
That meant I got a day to relax before hitting Cedar Point. Gatekeeper was built since my last visit, and I was impressed! B&M has been building these "Wing" coasters all over the place and they're a lot of fun.
The real occasion for going to Cedar Point was to give this guy a proper Bachelor Party. Joey was my roommate at Notre Dame and I was charged with Best Man duties. We had a great day.
The three Schmitt brothers in the stocks.
The ceremony was fantastic. Joey and Kaitlyn looked so happy! Being math majors, they had some fun with the place settings. At the head table all our answers were 0, unsolvable problems, or, like mine, non-existent.
The day after the wedding I drove north to Crooked Lake near Petosky, MI. I was there just before leaving for Ecuador and it was great to be back!
Lots of kayaking, good friends, great food, and, of course, all the water sports you can handle.
This little Boston Whaler is what towed me around most of the week. No wake, but the driver has to counter-steer like crazy.
I left my wakeboard across the lake while I was in South America. I went to reclaim it and took a few runs behind this beautiful boat. Such a huge wake.
There are two staples in Harbor Springs that everyone knows: Tom's Mom's Cookies, featuring Michigan's famous dried cherries, and Gurney's Pharmacy which cranks out hundreds of amazing sandwiches for lunch every day. I look forward to them every time I go.
It's so peaceful up there. Everything slows down, it's the perfect vacation spot.
This summer I got to know the extended family and we had some great days. This is wake surfing, a sport I haven't quite gotten the hang of. Still lots of fun.
My last evening I was able to get out on a fantastic ski boat. It's an '83 Nautique. Skiing it is amazing.
I also took a morning set before I left and was fortunate to have a pro photographer in the boat.
It felt so good to ski! Thanks to everyone on Crooked Lake for a great week.
I drove down to Chicago on the 18th to catch the Billy Joel concert at Wrigley. I've wanted to see him my whole life, and it was a blast.
He's looking a little older, but man, can he sing. I sang along with every song. So much fun!
On Saturday we went on a bar crawl with what felt like half of the city. It was a great time with great friends I hadn't seen in a while.
I spent five days in Chicago doing typical Chicago things. We went to the Lincoln Park Zoo, walked along the lake, and, of course, went to Millennium Park to see the Cloud Gate (affectionately known as "the bean").
We also ate some incredible food. Eataly had just opened up their Chicago grocery/restaurant and this may have been the best pasta I've ever eaten.
We had to go to Uno for deep dish. Apparently Sam Adams brews an "Uno Ale". It was quite tasty.
After stashing my car in one of the few free parking spots in Chicago, I flew down to Charlotte to meet up with Zang, a fellow trombone from Notre Dame.
He had a WRANGLER.
Zang and I share a passion for roller coasters, so naturally we rode 23 different ones in two days. I had been to Carowinds before, but Zang needed the 13 new credits so we rode them all in a row.
This park is cool, it straddles the NC/SC border.
Our second park was Six Flags Over Georgia. Lots of great coasters, but unfortunately our timing wasn't great and we ran into a lot of maintenance issues. This is a great ride but it was down all day.
Our last day in Atlanta started with putting the top down on the WRANGLER and going to do some hiking.
I was so happy to see Catherine again (another trombone player from ND) and to meet her husband Jason! Great people, thanks for the hospitality!
After hiking we went to the World of Coke which had moved and been redesigned since I was last in Atlanta.
They have a lot of the same advertising and antiques they had before but they added a few new gimmicks like this vault that apparently holds the secret recipe.
I learned that in the 80s they tried to change the recipe for coke at the 100 year anniversary. They called it "New Coke" and it was a huge flop. They were receiving tens of thousands of calls a day to change the recipe back, so they caved. That's where the whole "Coke Classic" campaign came from.
The finale of World of Coke didn't change much, you can still try Coca Cola beverages from all over the world. I was happy to see Inca Kola from Peru, I drank this stuff on planes in South America all the time!
We finished off our Georgia trip with pizza and trivia with Catherine's group of friends. We were in the lead before the final question but couldn't seal the deal. Can you put these toys in order from earliest release to most recent? Hot Wheels, Legos, Pound Puppies, and Silly String. Good luck!
Had to get a picture of this at the Jamba Juice in the airport. This is Georgia people, the Peach State! Love the irony.
Back in Chicago, we went to Wicker Park for a street festival on Sunday afternoon. Good food, good beer, and good music. Good times.
Every Sunday at the Galway Arms a group of Irish musicians get together to play some classics. Sully goes every Sunday, and I was lucky enough to go two weeks in a row. Very passionate musicians and some great music. And, of course, a few pints of Guinness.
I spent my last day at one more park. Six Flags Great America in northern Illinois built Goliath since my last visit, currently the world's tallest, steepest, and fastest wooden coaster. "Wooden" is a bit of a stretch, but the entire track is built on traditional stacked wood, so it counts.
Wooden coasters that go upside down are all the rage these days, and this one does it twice. It's a fun ride!
Before driving home I had a great night out with my relatives that live outside Chicago. Helen was a great hostess, what a great way to end the trip!
I've been recovering here in Minnesota the last couple days, and tonight I fly off on my next adventure. Come back soon for pictures from Alaska!
