North to Alaska!

We arrived in Valdez this afternoon around noon. Ethan pulled an all-nighter last night, so we covered 1,200 miles in about 26 hours. (Please remember that includes potty breaks, cat-napping, pulling the van over to resolve disputes between the girls, etc.)

During the last leg of our trip, we kept track of all the wildlife we saw. The girls would see the animals, screech with delight, then Jasmine would ask, “Can I hold him?” We would chuckle to ourselves and respond by explaining how hard it would be to hold such big animals. That was sweet of her, though. : )

We counted 104 animals in all. I wrote down the animals as we saw them, along with how many were there, then added to the number if we passed more along the way. There were:

4 Black bears
8 Caribou
1 Deer
1 Porcupine
3 Rabbit
6 Mountain goats
59 Bison
8 Geese
1 Hawk
4 Horses
6 Ducks
1 Red fox
2 Moose

I included the horses because they were free-standing along the edge of the highway as we drove through. When Jasmine saw them, she declared “He has boots!” Well, it looked like he had boots on, anyway . . .