Day 10: The Mosquitoes Domain

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I almost slept 9 hours and could not sleep any longer. I got my phone and read for a while. Heath and the kids slept another 90 mintues or so before getting up. We were not in any hurry and let the kids watch tv while we had coffee and slowly packed back up. It didn’t take long to have our stuff back together and ready to go. We put the 2nd pot of coffee in our travel mugs and drove a few minutes back up the road to the Visitor Center at the National Park.

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We checked out the schedule for the day and had about 20 minutes until a short ranger hike. We quickly got a picnic breakfast going of blueberry bagels with PB and sliced bananas. Our table was right by the start of the hike and even though we ran a few minutes long the guide waited for us to finish.

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Once we left the area around the visitor center and got on the trail we were hit with swarms of mosquitoes. It was crazy. The guide was great and the views were good.

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We learned some cool stuff about the people animals and plants in the park. After the short hike the kids worked on their badges books and then went and got sworn in.

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Everyone was ready to go but I looked so sad after not getting a good hike in so they took pitty on me and we went on another hike. The mosquitoes were crazy again so we went fast and flew through them.

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After the hike we went back to the breakfast table and made up some turkey and pepperoni sandwiches. Heath and I spit a beer and it was delicious. Bean fell asleep on the hike but got up for a bite at the end of lunch.

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We had something between a 1-5 hour drive ahead of us and no real plan so we hit the road.

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Navigating in most of Alaska is pretty easy as there are not that many roads or towns and the towns are really small so as long as you are going in the right direction you are fine. We drove down to Chitna grabbed an 18 pack of Bud Light and then left the pavement for 45 miles of gravel, mud and amazing views.

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Luckily for me Heath drove and I got to do some quality assurance testing on the Bud Light.

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We saw a few eagles and old railroad bridges and after an hour and a half we made it to Cousin Stephanie’s little coffee shop.

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It was hot and she was loaded with customers there for some ice cream.

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Once we chased off all the customers she closed up for the day and we followed her a mile or so down a smaller gravel road.

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The gravel road ended at Long Lake at a cabin, some sheds, 2 boats, a float plane and a big bull moose. We moved our gear from the truck to the boats. Then we all loaded up and cruised a mile down a nice calm mountain lake.

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The kids got busy fishing and playing right away as we hauled up our gear and familiarized ourselves with the place.

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It was one of the coolest most rustic permanent homes I’ve ever been in. Water pumped from the lake,

C360_2014-07-02-21-00-56-458 solar power, 2 wood burning stoves,

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woodshed,

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outhouse,

C360_2014-07-03-12-04-18-990 greenhouse, etc.

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(that’s the green house in the middle of the picture and the roof off the main house on the right. this picture is taken from the seat in the outhouse)

Adam, Stephanie’s husband had built just about everything there and we immediately started digging into the details on all the work he had done and how everything worked.

We fired up the grill and loaded it up just like at home but with more moose steaks then we are used to.

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Seemingly in no time it was way past bedtime and we were just sitting down to eat. Everyone was excited and playing and talking together and the sun felt like the afternoon so it is easy to stay up too late.

We got the kids in bed and spent a few hours having drinks, talking and trying to make the kids go to sleep.

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