Thunderbird Falls

Here is a picture of the falls from the deck landing quite a distance away.




It was a fun trip...it’s about 2 miles stretch up some pretty good hills in the Chugach State Park. Thunder Bird Falls Trail reaches into a beautiful part of Anchorage’s backyard wilderness. The trail winds through tall birch and cottonwoods to a sturdy deck (the above photo was taken on) with a vantage over Thunder Bird Falls, and a side spur leads down to the banks of Thunder Bird Creek. Chugach State Park consists of only about 10 acres around the falls.




Here is a picture from one of the observation decks, it's a pretty good drop off-about 300 ft down


Needless to say, the boys had to "trow wrocks in the waaaater!" so here is a picture...we actually climbed all the way down (there was a rough trail) to get closer to the waterfalls.

Coming down the trail to the water below...

Getting Closer to the falls...and of course the boys all had to see it up close...

Here is a short video of Thunderbird Falls from the bottom.

On the way back we found a huge tree...with a big whole in it....

We had a fun day...but after climbing up the hill and the two miles back...needless we were all pretty tired. Went home and made supper, bathed our dirty little boys, and went to bed.

Weekend Fun

Saturday: Cleaned the apartment and got some laundry done. Packed up some snacks and headed up to Hatcher's Pass.

It is one of the most beautiful drives - Wasilla Creek and the Little Susitna river wend back and forth under the road. Everything is green, and some of the crab apple trees are blooming. Didn't see any flowers blooming yet though. We drove all the way to the top to Independence Mine.

We didn't have any cash on hand for the fee station, and the road up to the Summit Lake was still closed, so we came back down a ways and found a place for the boys to throw some rocks into the river.


After the boys got tired of that, we came farther down the hill and found a calmer spot on the river, and they....threw more rocks!

The water was pretty calm along our side of the river. This is across from where we were at:



Sorry for the abrupt ending! He didn't slow down and went right into the water after that rock he wanted!
Before they soaking wet, we got back in the car and headed back to town. We stopped by one of Alexander's client's house. "J" has a hobby farm - sheep, goats, chickens, horses, and a cow - all of which the boys got to feed, pet, or ride! Noah loved picking grass for the goats, but Christopher was more interested in Alice the cow! They didn't want to leave to go down the hill to see the horses, but as soon as we got there Noah asked "J" if he could ride!

Came home, had baths and supper. 7pm and Noah said "I'm tired. I wanna go to bed." Haha. Shortly after that Chris crashed on the couch, so it was early to bed for all of us.

Sunday: We went to bible study and church. The boys were pretty antsy - and at the very end of the service Noah was even more antsy; he freaked out when he spied a black ant climbing up his shorts! That had the people behind us struggling not to laugh!
After service, we grabbed some lunch and headed over to the park. Tried to get a kite to fly but the wind wasn't cooperating. We decided to go over to the lake park since the wind is always blowing over there. After another half hour or so of trying to get that thing up in the air, and some wading in the lake for the boys, we came home for naps. After the recharge, we decided to check out Lake Lucille park. We'd heard that it's pretty quiet, but as we had anticipated, was really crowded for the holiday.
Let the kids play on the playground, but pretty soon Noah decided he was hungry again, so headed home for supper. We watched Noah's new movie he got for his birthday, had more baths and then bed.


Monday: We slept in and just relaxed for the morning. Packed up a picnic lunch and headed over towards Palmer. Stopped at Kepler Bradley Lakes, and rented a row boat.

We had so much fun! Both the boys wanted to "help" daddy row the boat. Mommy tried to take pictures.

After our hour was up, we headed into Palmer to find a park to eat at. Couldn't find anything, so we thought we go back up Hatcher's Pass a ways, but instead found this spot at Wasilla Creek:



The water was so cold, but Christopher loved it! Noah was content to throw rocks from the shore, but we couldn't get Christopher to come out of the water until he got his shirt wet!

All in all it was a great weekend. And because of that, I want to say thank you to my uncles, cousins (and their husbands, too) for having served our country in various branches of the military, and to everyone I know currently serving! It's so easy to forget the reason behind this holiday, but I thank you for doing something that I know that I would have a hard time doing.

I hope you all had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend!