This past week the Bowen Family joined our Alaska Adventure. It was sure an adventure this past week! Our plan was to go camping for 3 nights in Seward. Greg and Ryan scheduled a fishing charter and rented an RV off of RVshare.com. We got all packed up with lots of food and a RV that well, was questionable, but we proceeded forward with the plan and adjusted as the new plans came our way. This week was filled with unexpected blessings!
1. Sunday/Monday my cousin and his wife came up for a last minute trip to watch the bears! We got to enjoy all their wonderful stories and amazing pictures of the bears eating salmon! What a special treat!
2. Our new friends up here in AK, offered us their Excursion while the Bowen family was here. This seriously was a need we really had no idea we needed until we took off to Seward. Love when God provides for us when we didn’t even know our need. Blessed! Thank you Ness Family!
3. The questionable RV, yes it was that bad-Greg confirmed bad, was a blessing. It poured in Seward and forecasted to rain our entire trip there. Image 6 kids (10, 7, 5, 5, 3, & 1) all in two RV’s (the one we rented and another one we borrowed from my cousin!). The one we rented leaked from the pull out, result sopping, wet, dirty, carpet. We didn’t find the wet carpet until we were getting ready for bed on Monday night, night one. Greg and Ryan were getting up at 5am to go fishing on Tuesday. We preserved through night one, and that was all! Because the camper was not functioning well, we were able to return to Anchorage the next day and get a refund for the RV. Now if you want to hear the refund story talk to Greg or Ryan! Thankful for how God provided again!
4. Alaska SeaLife Center in Seward, AK is amazing! Definitely worth the trip. Side note if you do come and have a zoo or aquarium membership bring it you could get half off! Dana and I were thankful for a dry spot that kept all the kid’s interest. My favorite was seeing all the different kinds of Salmon.
5. Silver Salmon and Rockfish a plenty! Greg and Ryan caught their limit 6 salmon! Rockfish was a bonus. It’s an ugly fish, but very tasty! The 4 oldest kids and I met Greg and Ryan on the pier with all the fish from the charter. They hung up the fish, to capture the exciting moment! We also watched them fillet the fish. We were soaking wet when we left, but worth the trip. The fish was awesome!
6. Trash bear sighting! Since we left Seward Tuesday night we found a place in Girwood to have supper. When we arrived we spotted a black bear trying to get in the dumpster. Pretty cool to see the bears this close. Not too worry no one was hurt, in fact we were all pretty excited at our bear sighting!
7. Exploring new spots! Even though we planned to explore Seward and I do hope we can go back. We went off to explore the Alaska Wild Life Conservation Center near Portage, AK. We arrived just as there were feeding the bears, 3 grizzly bears and 2 black bears! What a sight to see them eat so close. We also spotted a black cub high up in a tree! Crazy to think they can really climb trees! We all enjoyed watching the different animals!
The second place we got to explore was Eagle River. Praise the Lord it wasn’t raining! We even saw the sun! We did a 3 mile flat, loop hike, called Albert Loop. The scenery was suburb and the hike was perfect for our group!
8. This blessing wasn’t necessarily unexpected, but an appreciated blessing. Our visit with the Bowen family. We don’t often gather together for more than one night at a time. This trip we got four days in a row! Blessed to really get to know them more this trip.
