driving the Alcan

Monday around 11:00, the ferry docked in Haines, Alaska and we drove off to a "Welcome to Alaska" sign. It was snowing and pretty dang cold. But it was beautiful!

We stopped off the side of the road to wait for the other two cars in our caravan before driving to the hotel. The water was still that slate grey because of the cloud cover, and there were so many bald eagles. At the hotel the next morning when we were packing up the car, Buckwheat got really nervous and would stand on top of his kennel so he wouldn't be forgotten. Poor guy! 
When we were driving through the part of Alaska before British Columbia, Canada, we counted 15 bald eagles, and 1 golden eagle in only a distance of 20 miles or so. They were everywhere.  When we drove into British Columbia we saw these two tractors plowing and blowing snow off the highway. It looked like they were trying to make a bunny hill or something.
I had to use the restroom a short distance into Canada, and the only things they had were these little outhouse rest stops off the sides of the highway. That was the coldest seat ever! My family and cousins will know what I mean when I say it is even colder than the Judd cabin's toilet seats early in the morning. 

After British Columbia, Canada came the beautiful Yukon:
After leaving British Columbia (which was desolate tundra nearly the whole way - awfully depressing!), we made it to the Yukon. It was beautiful. Below, this is the largest lake in the Yukon. It was all frozen. In one part of it, there were parts where an actual wave had frozen; almost like it had been frozen while it was crashing. It was bizarre. The caps were even frozen. It reminded me of The Day After Tomorrow. Sorry about Buckwheat's blatant sniffing. How about that hoodie on him, eh?

Leaving the Yukon, we saw the Alaska sign! It was huge, and the people we were driving with took a few other pictures of us but said we looked "too cold". So this is us "not looking cold."

About 80 miles outside of Anchorage, there was the biggest glacier we have seen yet. It looked a lot like the lake in the Yukon that was frozen because it looks like it has white caps like the ocean would. It came spilling out of a mountain, about 4 miles behind us (you can't see it in the picture) and kept going! We pulled over to all get a picture with it.  Where we were wasn't even the end of this glacier. I'm so excited to see it in the summer time when it's green around it. 

We are so excited to be in Anchorage. There are stores, restaurants, forests, inches of ice in every parking lot (I don't understand how everything isn't bashed in), and indiscreet moose that apparently don't like me! Last night we went to The Moose's Tooth (delicious pizza and home made root beer), then afterwards our friends drove us around to find a moose. They were so surprised we didn't even see one with where we were driving; I had warned them that they must not like me - that or they're all dead.