I’m back to share more about our Alaska trip – Day 3 we decided to take an extra excursion in the Denali Park area – a helicopter flight and Glacier Landing! Quite the exciting excursion! I was a bit unsure about the helicopter – I’d never been in one before and wasn’t sure what it would be like – I’m not a roller coaster person and was thinking it would be something like that. I was pleasantly surprised to find out it was NOT at all like a roller coaster. And perhaps it depends on the pilot but ours was great and the flight was so smooth. I sat in the front by the door on the right. Greg was in the back in the center but said he could see without any problems. There were 3 couples plus our pilot – 3 of us in the front and 4 people in the back.
Our adventure began at the heliport on the Nenana River. Everyone had to be weighed so they could put us in the helicopter and keep everything in balance. They also gave us special glacier boots to wear over our regular shoes.
It was another rainy sort of day with lots of cloud cover. Up on the glacier it was snowing. I have photos to post now and some videos I’ll post later once I can get them loaded to youtube.
The area we were in was Yanert Icefield and Mt. Deborah. According to our pilot who has been flying these trips all summer – the glacier that he took us too has only had around 20 people on it all year. Once we landed and he turned off the helicopter and we got out it was incredibly quiet up there. So peaceful.
Looking at these pictures it was like having summer, fall and winter all in one morning! I hope you are enjoying the photos of our trip. There is still lots more to come!
As you look through the Stampin’ Up! catalog each year there are certain pages that catch your eye more than others. Sometimes you don’t even notice a stamp set on the page because the colors and projects on that page don’t catch your eye. And the next year that same stamp set is presented differently and you see it – you thinks its new – but it isn’t – it was already there last year but presented in a way that didn’t appeal to you. Do you ever feel that way?
In this new catalog one page that really catches my eye is page 163 – I love the blue, the brown, the natural feel of what is on that page. Mosaic Madness was in the last catalog and presented in a different way with bright colors and a coordinating designer paper very graphic and bright. It wasn’t my favorite. But I LoVE this soft card on page 163 so I decided I wanted to recreate it. Mine has a few changes but is generally the same card.
We made this back in August as part of my Big Shot class. We used the Modern Mosaic Textured embossing folder for the background. And by the way this pattern is very popular out in fashion/decor – I’ve seen it a lot. Plus we used the Beautiful Wings Embosslit – it makes the cutest little butterflies! And of course the stamp set and coordinating punch. Some water-coloring with an aqua-painter, a little pearl bling, and a sentiment on a vellum strip. A nice card don’t you think?
I’m so glad you stopped by today. Do you try to recreate any of the cards in the catalog – let me know by leaving a comment?
Had to look to see where I left off. It’s only day 2! Which was a really long day. We got off the train at the depot in Denali and then went across to the visitor center for some lunch and then waited to get on our Tundra Wilderness Adventure Bus. This was our tour through the park. This park is huge and has one main road going through it – most of which is only accessible by the bus system. The entire tour was 8 hours! We drove I believe 53 miles into the park and then turned around and came back out on the same dirt road. Along the way we made several stops at “rest areas” for bathroom breaks. We also stopped whenever we saw any wildlife. And made a stop at an overlook where we could walk around a bit. This was another rainy day. Luckily though the rained was minimal or stopped when we would get off the bus. It did make for a very dirty bus and dirty windows so with every stop the bus driver got out – pulled a bucket of water (not very clean) out from under the bus and his squeegee and “cleaned” all the windows so that we could see again. Since these were converted school buses we were able to drop down the tops of the windows to take photos of the wildlife. And they did give us a snack box and water during the trip too. Plus a nice photo book. It is hard to capture the beauty and grandeur of this park on a camera – you really need to be there in the middle of it looking all around you. Another thing you will notice is the colors starting to change in the foliage. Apparently while we were there fall was starting and the colors were changing – and from what they said – fall only lasts a couple of weeks and then winter starts. When we looked at the extended weather forecast there was already some snow predicted about a week out from our trip. Here are some of the photos that I took.
We did see some wildlife too. And I was the first one on the bus to spot something. I wasn’t sure what it was – and it took us a while to find it. It turned out to be a Caribou. So all total we saw 3 Caribou, 3 Grizzly Bears, 3 Moose, plus a bunch of Dall Sheep.
Caribou is in the very center of this first photo looking directly at us. Then he walked up the hill and up to the dirt path.
This last photo shows the bear stepping down onto the road and then he crossed directly behind our bus. I bet whoever was sitting at the back of the bus got some good photos.
At the very end of the trip as it was getting dark we saw the moose. It was on the other side of the bus from where we sat so I really didn’t get any photos. Hoping one of the people that we met on the trip will send us their photos.
We arrived late to our hotel that night.
There was one video that we took inside the park – I’ll try to get that posted. Here is the little video –
My friend Cindy and I were playing with the Curvy Keepsake Box thinlit die a few weeks ago creating projects for the Stamp, Scrap & Create Retreat that we are hosting this month. With that on my mind I came up with the idea to make an apple! With school just starting and apple picking season upon us wouldn’t that little box be a perfect apple. A few weeks have passed by and I’ve been busy traveling as you may have noticed so I didn’t get to try to make an apple until this week. I decided to use it for one of my Stamper’s Club projects for Friday night. Look at how cute it turned out –
Here is how I made it:
I cut the Curvy Keepsake Box Thinlit die out of Real Red card stock. You cut two pieces and glue the bottoms together – I used the new Fast Fuse adhesive – its sticky.
Then I sponged all the edges with Cherry Cobbler ink and a Stampin’ Sponge. I wanted it to have some darker areas around the edges on the apple.
I filled the inside of the box with caramels – of course.
On the handle I tied some Pear Pizzazz ribbon.
Stamped “hello Sweet Friend” in Cherry Cobbler ink on Whisper White card stock and cut it with the oval shaped tag that comes with the box thinlits.
I cut a leaf from Pear Pizzazz card stock using the small leaf die in the Fall Fest Framelits. Glued that to the base of my tag.
I wanted to add just a little something else to the tag so I pulled out a Real Red candy dot and put that on it. But it made me think of a lady bug – so I decided sure – it can be a lady bug – I pulled out one of my Project Life journaling pens and added dots to the dot and two little antenna for the lady bug. Cute!
I tied on my tag with some Real Red Bakers’ Twine.
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It was another rainy sort of day with lots of cloud cover. Up on the glacier it was snowing. I have photos to post now and some videos I’ll post later once I can get them loaded to youtube.
The area we were in was Yanert Icefield and Mt. Deborah. According to our pilot who has been flying these trips all summer – the glacier that he took us too has only had around 20 people on it all year. Once we landed and he turned off the helicopter and we got out it was incredibly quiet up there. So peaceful.
