What's Up Wednesday: The Northern Road Trip Edition

Welcome to the "we're on vacation" edition of What's Up Wednesday. We are in the middle of a three week vacation where we're on a road trip from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan to Whitehorse, Yukon, with a couple of small side trips into Alaska. As of today, we're meandering our way back to Saskatoon with a stop in Southern Alberta. You can read more about the "why" of that in "What I'm doing this weekend..." below. Also, I've been meaning to blog about the past week but between exploring as much as we can and visiting with our friends, blogging hasn't been a priority. Stick around though and I'll get back to documenting our travels soon.

image from here

What we're eating this week... We ate a whole bunch of seafood this week. On Sunday night we had a dinner of crab and salmon from Alaska. That might have been my favourite meal to date. Yum!!! Now we're back to fast food for three days of driving. Boo.

I've also really been enjoying the homemade chai my friend has been making at night. The surprise ingredient is black pepper and it is delicious.

What I'm reminiscing about... Right now, nothing! We're still making memories over here. But I know we'll be reminiscing about this trip for a very long time.

What I'm loving... I have been loving seeing these four kids playing together. They've been having such a GREAT time. We're all friends because Sam and our friends' oldest son were in Grade Two together.

What we've been up to... I haven't had a chance to blog about this (coming soon, I promise!) but we've been to Alaska twice since we've been here.

We also got to visit the Carcross Desert, known as the smallest desert in the world. It is only one square mile so we were able to walk across it.

What I'm dreading... Something I wasn't expecting was all the wildlife encounters, especially as we've been driving. Last week, somewhere in BC, a herd of bison crossed the road. I had to navigate this before I'd had my morning coffee. Ack.

That same day, we stopped to watch a bear and then he decided to cross the road too. And a few days ago when I was driving, a bear crawled over the guardrail and landed in my lane, right in front of me. Thankfully, no one was driving towards me because I had to swerve into the other lane to avoid hitting him. Yikes.

So I'm dreading actually running into some wildlife on our drive home. Wish us safety.

 

What I'm working on... NOTHING! I still have a week of vacation left. Yay!

What I'm excited about... Needle felting. My friend introduced us to this craft and we are ALL loving it. I stocked up on needles and yarn so we'll be bringing this craft home with us. I can't wait to see what we'll make...

What I'm watching/reading... See above for what we've been watching -- bears and bisons and foxes, oh my! And sadly, our days have been so full I've barely had time to read which makes me sad. I don't really feel like myself right now.

What I'm listening to... Today (and for the next three days), I will be listening to the sound of the wheels on the road as we are beginning to wind our way home. Whoo hoo?!?!? Hopefully I won't be listening to the kids going insane as we spend 27 hours in the car -- without screens no less...

What I'm wearing... I picked up two really cool shirts this trip. The first one is from a local Whitehorse company called "Yukon Built." The shape is the actual Yukon Territory. (Spoiler alert: We may have gotten family shirts. Hahaha!!!) The second shirt is a long sleeve shirt from Haines, Alaska. I'll be wearing this one A LOT come fall.

What I'm doing this weekend... We're meeting up with my mom's side of the family in Southern Alberta and celebrating my aunt and uncle's 60th wedding anniversary! I just think that's an incredible milestone. Then we're going to a dinosaur museum. I'm really excited! Dave, Sam, and I were able to celebrate their 50th anniversary with them when Sam was just four months old. We also visited the same museum.

Baby Sam at the dinosaur museum in August 2009 -- awwww!

What I'm looking forward to next month... I'm really looking forward to our weeks at the pool when the kids will do swimming and tennis and I will get a ton of reading done!

What else is new... I think that about covers it. Next month things will be back to normal around here :)