Alaska Vacation~BIrthday Time!

You may be getting tired of my Alaska trip, but as I stated in my Blogland Tour, part of the reason I blog is to have a record of my life. It is fun to look back on blog posts.

Eric spent part of his growing up years in Palmer so he wanted to take us by his old home and his cute little town of Palmer. We had a yummy lunch and did some sight seeing of the area. It is a charming little place.

We passed a cute little antique area, so we HAD to stop. This little cabin had been a goat shed that the owner moved to the property. Pretty cute!

Alaska flowers really dressed up the place and gave it a great deal of charm!

We all thought that Otto would love to ride this sweet little bike!

Jimmy bought a pair of leather motorcycle gloves and was goofing around and making us all laugh!

So we continued on the Palmer-Hatcher Fishhook Road. Of course we were thinking fish and fishing, but Eric told us it was called fishhook because the road swishes back and forth like the shape of a fishhook! OK! It was absolutely beautiful.

We came to an historic park called Independence Mine. This was a working mine for years and now it's being preserved for all to enjoy. There's gold in those hills! I read that about $18 million dollars worth of gold was taken out of the hills when the mine was working.

Eric got serious about his driving and decided to take us on a gravel uphill road to Willow. I was scared to death at first but the drive was just unbelievable. I was so glad that I hadn't chickened out.

We came out into Willow and then drove on to Wasilla. Eric also spent some time growing up in Wasilla so he wanted us to stay there overnight. We stayed in the Best Western on the beautiful Lake Lucille.

A view overlooking the lake from the back of the inn.

We met a great fun family from Montana out on the deck. They entertained us for quite awhile and we all had a lot of fun.

The next day we drove back into Anchorage and Eric took us to the Anchorage Museum. What a great way to see the history of this fairly new state! Jim was most excited to see all the Sydney Laurence paintings. Some are so large, it's hard to believe.

I always enjoy the Native American history of the Northwest and Canda. We also got to see a special traveling exhibit from the Smithsonian Museum upstairs on the different tribes of Alaska.

August 8th is Eric's birthday. His mom and family were so happy to have him in Alaska on his birthday. What a good sport wearing this funny headband while he was opening his presents.
He LOVES pizza, so his mom ordered pizza and she made him a homemade chocolate birthday cake!

Make a wish Eric! Jimmy liked the cake so much he had three pieces!

We all went back to our hotel, a bit sad that it was our last night in Alaska. Happy Birthday Eric.