We started our day at around 7am Anchorage time (5am Hawaiian time).  We packed up and headed to the airport.  We waited about an hour for the plane to leave, and the flight was about 6 hours long, then we had a 2.5 hour layover in Maui, and another hour flight.  Finally with all the bus travelling, layovers, and flight time, we spent about 13 hours just trying to get from our hostel in Anchorage to our room in Hawaii, but we finally made it!  This is so exciting, we did it, all 50 states!

As soon as we got here, we were greated by Roy Graham and his friend Bill (pictured below).

Roy is a member of New Hope church here in Honolulu, and it was one of the fastest growing churches in the nation.  They have several church plants all over the world.  Roy first took us down to Choppa Mike’s place.  Where we saw his collection of choppers that he built.  Mike knows a guy that rents bikes, and so he is going to help us get some bikes to take around the island on Sunday.  As of now the plan is that I ride Roy’s bike, and just pay for Roy to rent a bike for the day.

After Choppa Mike’s we went to one of the New Hope campuses, and Roy showed us around.  There were some ladies practicing a dance they do as a ministry to different groups, and especially in prisons.  They were just learning, but here is a picture of them dancing.

After the church, Roy drove us around Waikiki, and showed us the cool places, and the not so cool places to hang out in Waikiki.  I am excited for our ride on Sunday, especially since I thought I wasnt going to be able to do it.

We had such a good time with the Lindemans, they are a big family, and almost all of them live up here in Alaska.  Behind them is their main cabin, but they have 2 other guest cabins, and we stayed in one of them.

They are all very nice people, and we even enjoyed the free workout when it came to bailing hay, 700 bails total!  Thats us in front of our trophy.  We stacked all those bails all the way up there, and we are both quite proud of it.  We were talking about how we actually started getting really into it, and it was upsetting us when the kids were playing on our nicely stacked bails of hay.  I think I would fit nicely into the farm life.

Today I rode their horse again with no saddle.  And no my feet are not on the ground, its just a weird angle.

And this is me right after I fell off the horse cause the girls thought it would be a good idea to make the horse trot instead of just walk.  I didn’t handle that too well, and for a few feet was riding the horse withmy whole body hanging off to the right, and just my left leg barely clinging to the top of the horse.

After we left Ninilchik, just a few miles down the road, we came across a car accident.  Ryan did some EMT work, and the Ranger put me to work, check out this short video to see what my job was.  I will be honest, I could not have been happier.

And now he are some cool pictures from the road, just so you can get an idea of what Alaska looks like.

At the beginning of the week we stayed with the Bob & Jodie Browner.  We also interviewed them while we were there, but we were just recently able to upload the podcast.  This is really one of our most interesting interviews, life in Alaska is definitely different than the lower 48.

 

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We are staying with some relatives of Joel and Cheryl Cleveland from our home church. They live on a farm up here in Ninilchik Ak. It is complete with Horses, Chickens, a greenhouse for fruits, and a garden for veggies. There is also a good 16 acres of hay that they farm for the horses.

Yesterday we got to help collect eggs from the chickens, as well feed the horses. Today, I rode a horse for the first time ever, and it was bareback. I will be honest I was really scared, but it was an old horse, and if the 9 year old girl showing me how to ride could do it, then so could I. After the horse, I asked if I could mow their lawn for them. They have a riding mower from the 70s and so I was pretty excited to take that thing for a spin. I mowed three lawns and it took me about an hour. It is very relaxing to mow lawns on a riding mower, not so much on a push mower though.

And remember those 16 acres of hay, well today just happened to be the day that they decided to start bailing them up, and putting it all in the barn. So of course we got to help with that too. That is not easy work, it is basically lifting this big bails of hay onto a moving truck and trailer, and then stacking them a good 10 – 12 feet high in the barn. We did that for about 4 hours. It was fun to show the tough Alaskans that the city boys could pull their weight. I think we will be bailing more tomorrow, so we will see how well we will do on day 2, when the soreness starts to set in.

After all the bailing of hey was done, we headed inside for a huge delicious dinner, there were beef ribs, salmon, fresh salad, fresh potatoes, a spinach gravy, brocolli, and bread pudding. We ate well after all that work. Funny thing is that some people do that kind of work all day back to back, makes me feel like a pansy. I always knew it was hard, but now I have a whole new respect for farmers. I think we will sleep well tonight.

This is the cabin we have been staying, there is no bathroom, just an outhouse out back.

Today we drove down to Valdez AK, and on the way we saw some pretty cool stuff.

This is Worthington Glacier, and do you see that black hole on the left of the glacier?  That is a cave, that we went up to.

This is Ryan on the glacier, it is hard to see him, but he is right in the middle.

These are some up close shots of the glacier

These are some shots of the cave

As I got close I got very nervous, because the ground and the top of the cave where not at all stable.  I saw big chunks of ice which had fallen from the top, and I saw rocks and gravel falling all around it.  It was melting, and I did not want to be too close to it when it fell apart.

Well we slept well at the hostel in Anchorage, and then packed up for the road to Gulkana. But not before stopping at the Harley Dealership to see if we could go for a ride. Ryan was able to, but I was not since I did not have my license.

After that we loaded up on supplies at Wal Mart and hit the Road. It is amazing how much easier traveling is in a car. It is so relaxing and you can multitask, eat, sleep, play music, even go to the bathroom (as long as you have the proper supplies). Alaska is a beautiful country.

We got to Gulkana around 4pm, and met up with Pastor Bob & Jodie Browner. They are the pastors here in this native American village, and the only white people in town. He showed us how the natives catch fish, check it out.

We flew out of Portland yesterday to Seattle first.  I had to get my License out as an ID to get on the plane, well somewhere along the line it must have fallen out of my pocket, and the last place I remember having it was on that first flight to Seattle.  Anyway it is not a big deal cause I have my passport, but we were planning on renting motorcycles both here and in Hawaii, and this could foil my plans.  Hopefully the guys at the Harley dealership here in Anchorage will let me ride a bike without my license, but I doubt it.

Also as we got on our 2nd plane I saw this real antsy guy in the terminal with all kind of camo on.  As soon as I saw him, I thought man this guy must be some kind of hunting nut.   Well sure enough, he sat right next to me on the plane.  I had to kind of laugh that this guys seat happened to be right next to me.  I will admit everytime I fly I am checking out the girls in the terminal and hoping that one of them will end up sitting right next to me, but I have never been so lucky.  Instead I tend to get guys like Dan who like to talk real close to people, as if you even have a choice on an airplane.  Anyway, Dan wasn’t too bad of a guy, however I have not yet figured out how to tell someone that I am not interested in going to all the local strip clubs, without sounding either gay or judgemental, so I mustly just laugh and nod when they share about how great the strip clubs are in Anchorage or whatever city I am in or going to.

Alaska is beautiful, and a bit chilly.  A nice change from our last couple weeks of record heats in the North West.  Hopefully we will have lots of pictures to share with you all soon, but for now there is just this redundant video.