But in reality, our Seward Highway excursion started on Saturday night when Holly rented a car at the last minute (and at exorbitant rates). I wasn’t involved in the process, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t get frustrated when we couldn’t get it to start the first time we tried to use it. It was a terrible, terrible vehicle.

Anyway, on Sunday morning, we had one final meal (and coffee) at Snow City Cafe, before heading south out of Anchorage on the Seward Highway. We weren’t going the whole 127 miles to Seward, just the first 50 to the Portage Glacier. Nevertheless, the scenery is pretty great. The huge Chugach State Park on your left, Cook Inlet/Turnagin Arm on your right with the Kenai Peninsula across the water. It makes for a very pretty drive. Even with the severe cloud cover and rain that graced us.

At one of the early scenic viewing spots, I used the iPhone Photosynth app to take this panoramic photo. It did a pretty good job of stitching the photos together, but you’ll have to click on the photo to expand it to get the best view.

Just a few miles further, we saw a pack/herd/flock/whatever of Dall Sheep chillin’ on the hillside.

Seriously, the views are awesome.

We made it to the Portage Glacier, which is accessible by a 1-hour cruise on Lake Portage. Reportedly, the cloud cover made the glacier bluer than a sunny day.

I must have taken fifty different pictures of that glacier, but none appear to be especially more interesting than any other, so we’ll move on. Of some interest is this other glacier barely visible in the center of the below photo connected to the Portage Glacier about where this photo was taken in the 70s.

At the other end of the lake, icebergs from the glacier collect. Holly was much more interested in the icebergs than the glacier–and only partially because it was 15 degrees colder out by the glacier.

Just a bit away from the glacier is the Alaskan Wildlife Conservation Center where we saw lots of cool wildlife. In order of appearance below: Brown Bears, Wood Bison, Moose, Musk Ox, Black Bear, Elk, and Porcupine.

My favorite animal–fittingly on July 4th!–was the Bald Eagle. Just a cool animal.

On our way back towards Anchorage, Holly had wanted to take the Alyeska Aerial Tram to the top of Mt. Alyeska where you can–on a clear day–take in the panorama. But we wouldn’t have been able to see anything, so we stopped in for lunch at The Bake Shop in Alyeska for excellent sandwiches (and a root beer from Ft. Worth?).

We made one more scenic stop on the return leg–at Bird Creek.

No complaints about the scenery, but we were both exhausted from all our walking, our late nights, the driving–and someone ran a marathon. So we were ready to head home.

We arrived Thursday night around 8 p.m. (11 p.m. Dallas time). By the time we got to the hotel, checked-in, and were ready for a meal, it was almost 10 p.m. But you could hardly tell by looking outside since it was absolute daylight outside.

We had dinner at Simon & Seafort’s Saloon & Grill, which overlooks the water to the west and north of Anchorage. The sun was still far from setting at 11 p.m.

The food was excellent as was the service. We discovered that our server was a leukemia survivor who has stood at the base of the hill at mile 25 of the marathon for a decade and whom Holly was going to be looking for on Saturday. Holly was happy to have met her.

After that great meal, we walked back to the hotel at midnight. Along the way, we saw many fellows of questionable character, but because it’s broad daylight, you feel safer than you would in a normal city where it’s dark at midnight. It’s odd.

We got a late start to Friday with breakfast at the highly recommended, seriously full Snow City Cafe. Again, the food was great (snow crab cake eggs benedict!) as was the coffee. While waiting for our table, we walked down to the waterfront. Supposedly you can see Mt. McKinley in the distance, but I have no real idea.

There was a park along the waterfront with this baby beluga for kids to climb on. Not really relevant except that I recalled Layla used to sing a “Baby Beluga” song when she was little (see the 3:20 mark here). I don’t really remember it, but maybe it was this Raffi song?

After the great breakfast, we wandered around the compact downtown. A lot of touristy shops that don’t interest me much. But we did find some interesting things. Like totems in front of city hall or the courthouse, some building.

Holly and I were both surprised by the abundance of pretty flowers around.

The reindeer sausage stand in front of the federal courthouse was great.

Glacier Brewhouse came highly recommended, but I didn’t care for any of their five local brews that I sampled.

We had the LLS Team In Training dinner Friday night, which was fine. Amazing to see the 565 T-N-T runners in one room.  And because we are talking about Holly, we had to visit Walmart that evening for some last minute race items she needed.

Saturday was mostly spent running and watching others run. We did spend an hour downtown (getting another Snow City Cafe coffee, etc.) before the LLS T-N-T Victory Dinner.

After dinner, we went down to Ship Creek where Holly understood that the Salmon would be so plentiful that they would be stacked up ten deep in the water. But we saw nothing but clear water.

We spent Sunday out on the Seward Highway, but we were back in Anchorage just before our flight home. We stopped into Humpy’s Alaskan Alehouse, where Man v. Food’s Adam Richman actually conquered the Kodiak Arrest Challenge.

Nothing looked that good on the menu, so I had only another local brew by Midnight Sun, which was better than anything I had a Glacier Brewhouse (Holly disliked the super dive bar atmosphere.)

As the final exclamation point to our trip, Holly failed to get a snowglobe through TSA, which caused much teeth gnashing. But we made it home–at 5:50 a.m. Friday morning–with Holly leaving for a Speed/Gibson Lady and six kid cruise at 8:30 a.m. I went to bed.

Emma went along for the first time and had a good time watching with her eyes and ears on.

We did this last year with Holly’s dad, but I can’t find any mention of it. Regardless, we met up with Holly’s dad, her brother-in-law, and Cousin Brendon on Saturday morning. It was humid, and it took way too long–and I stunk, figuratively and literally–but it was still fun. Somehow I ended up signing Speed and I up for both the Civilian and Competition categories, which meant we shot twice at each station.

Speed at the Glock’M station.

If I’d been aiming at the clip fastening the bottom of a target, this would be evidence of quality marksmanship. But since it was a foot below bullseye, it’s a memento of something else.

Next, we moved on to Glock the Plates, which is the most mentally challenging. The metal targets are small and since they are metal, you both see and hear when you hit the target. Miss over and over again and the silence can get into your head. Philip went first.

I didn’t do so hot, but I did finish strong getting 5 of 6 plates on the last of my 8 passes.

Speed did okay. He’s probably not going to be exciting about me posting this video of one of his passes. (You can hear the guy at the next station put his plates down in just a couple of seconds. Intimidating.)

Brendon was the only one of us to get all six plates in a pass. I have no photographic evidence.

I did get this photo of Brian needing one more round to get this last plate.

5 to Glock was, mercifully, the final station. Speed looks cool awaiting his turn.

My Glock jammed twice, and I was unable to finish. So I got the maximum time penalties. That’s why I didn’t win.

Speed, Philip, and Brian went back on Sunday to shot again. They all claim to have done much better than on Sunday, which is exactly what I expected them to say. But the posted rankings seem to corroborate their story.

Here are our results pieced together.

Plenty of room for improvement.

Last Friday, Layla and I were invited to join a group of school friends and dads to attend a Chick-Fil-A fan event. Riding to/from the event in a limo bus was nice (complete with a rose for each girl).

Of course, we were greeted at the door by cows.

Dinner was–what else?–chicken sandwiches and sweet tea. Nothing wrong with that.

After dinner, we watched Tim Hawkins, a comedian/parody singer. He was fine for me, but Layla and Hattie laughed amazingly hard. During his last song, “Peed Just a Little Bit,” he threw out adult diapers. Layla and Hattie both got one, which they got Hawkins to sign afterwards.

A nice event capped off by one of the dad’s mistaking construction booms on the way home for gunfire and diving into the bottom of the limo bus and freaking out the girls. Good times.

Starting with Friday evening where I was at Good Records until 1 a.m. helping set up for the big 11th anniversary/Record Store Day party on Saturday. I still have my regular job in case you were wondering.

Seven hours setting up for a party I didn’t even attend. Because Speed, Layla, Emma, and I headed to Norman Saturday morning (Madysen had a tough day of work and Habitat for Humanity) for the Red/White Spring Game. Big things are expected for the OU football team this fall, and it’s always nice to be on campus on a nice April Saturday.

We had access to a special pregame event but getting inside just 20 minutes after the gates opened and 70 minutes before scrimmage start was too late to hear from Coach Stoops. Oh well, the barbeque was fine and the Stadium Club seats were pretty nice.

Speed made out like a bandit on the day as he is planning on sharing the OU Chuck Taylor’s with Layla (they are too big for her, too small for him–perfect, I guess) along with a pair of brand new Nike running shoes for $20. I clearly didn’t oversee him sufficiently as I’ve since learned that the shoes are women’s, but I haven’t told him. We’ll see how long it takes him to notice and how much longer it takes for him to fess up. On the later, I’ll take the over on an short of forever.

Saturday night I had a brilliant idea of dinner down in Bricktown with Pat and Cousin Megan. It took four hours and much head scratching, but we had a meal at Pearl’s Crabtown. I have marked that off my list of things to maybe do if it’s convenient.

So what was Holly doing with her carefree day at home? Running a practice, semi-official half marathon as part of her Alaska Marathon training. She made it and was actually happy with her time. She took an ice bath that afternoon and a salt bath on Sunday to help recover. Good for her.

Once we were back in Dallas, Layla talked me into taking her and Emma to see Soul Surfer, which I had no idea what going to be a tearjerker and have copious amounts of Dennis Quaid shirtless. Emma remarked more than once, at particularly touching moments: “It looks like you are going to cry.” Heart of gold, that one.

I have resolved to get through the archives–up through April 2006–by the end of summer. And in less than my first month, I did pretty well getting through all of 2000. If you missed it, all 25 posts can be accessed here in reverse chron order. Not much happened other than a failed game show appearance (complete with video); a fireball; moving into my favorite house; summer in Cleveland, Norman, Erick, Colorado, and Houston; Speed started school; separate visits by both my parents and Holly’s, a Wizard of Oz Halloween; Christmas in Branson; etc.

Now begins the march through 2001. And because I’m completely fascinated by the recently released Flare app, all new 2001 posts will feature photos with a modified postcard effect (posts already exist of Madysen’s coin-bank fail, Layla singing the ABCs, Emma’s arrival, and the first ever Christmas letter, since retired).

On another note, I recently turned on swipe-enabled viewing of the blog for iPad viewing. Amazingly enough, despite the 20+ Apple products in our house, an iPad isn’t among them. So I have no idea how it looks, including the below “Launch Screen Image,” which is old (from our 2008 Caribbean cruise) but the easiest thing I could find near the right resolution. Feel free to inform me of any problems.

And related to this iPad viewing experience, I decided to create an icon for the blog.  No real reason why; I had previously been using a headshot of Nino himself. Two problems: I don’t know anything about creating an icon, and my overabundance of funny is balanced by a lack of creativity. Nevertheless, I spent five hours (low-balling) and created about 300 variations of a couple ideas. Here are my two favorite, the first being my favorite.

And of very little relevance, I’ve updated my Twitter icon to the following picture of myself catching a fish somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean on Captain Dougie’s boat some summer, I’m guessing, in 1979.

You can almost taste them

Strike a pose for a cupcake

HP Red Velvet cupcakes? Swoon

That head used to be covered by a great army of hair

Madysen doesn't believe whatever is coming out of Holly's mouth as per usual

It is sort of genius to serve dinner after 9 since people will be so hungry. Nevertheless, it was good and the mushrooms were cajun-y awesome.

Dig in

I don’t think Speed’s ever been to a boil, but the girls had been almost two years ago at Aunt Abby’s, guh, Ring Dunk.

Layla and Emma kind of half dug-in

Speed definitely in

She had more fun playing with them than eating them, I think

Cook/honoree Logan

Logan’s already back in the danger area. Sure hope he makes it back safe.

Neither of us have ever been to Vegas, and I’ll admit to being conflicted over the idea of Vegas. Part of it is my Southern Baptist upbringing (though I long ago capitulated on the no drinking prong of no drinking, no gambling, no dancing), part of it is my general dislike consumerism. Also, I’m curmudgeonly.

But off we went, staying at the very nice Wynn on the north end of the Strip. We had a couple issues with service, but overall, it was nice.

The Wynn is nice--hot babes billboard truck notwithstanding

The property is nice to look at

Etc.

The southern view from our room

The food was pretty good. In N Out Burger was it’s reliable, great self (and it’s coming to Dallas this spring). Thomas Keller’s Bouchon Bistro was excellent as was Emeril’s Delmonico Steakhouse. Only I sampled the Sunday brunch at Wynn’s The Buffet, which was okay for the cost.

The weather was far too cold for my ideal vacation activity–do nothing near a body of water. Really, it was high 50s/low 60s during the day, and 20 degrees colder in the evening. So we saw some of the sights. The Fountains of Bellagio are wonderful to behold, but nothing else struck as worth more than a passing glance.

Bellagio's fountains

The mini Eiffel Tower from across the Bellagio lake

Fountain of the Gods in the Forum Shops at Ceasar's Palace

Gondolas in the Grand Canal Shoppes in The Venetian

Never saw the volcano erupt at the The Mirage

Two other things we did that were great or just personally interesting. First, Fremont Street, the home of some of the oldest casinos, include Golden Nugget, where Holly’s grandparents went religiously for decades.

Fremont Street

Impossible to make out here, but one of several MJ impersonators

Golden Nugget, where I made a small non-refundable deposit in honor of Holly's family

The kids love the water slide that goes through an aquarium at Golden Nugget's pool

Second, we saw LOVE, the Cirque de Soleil/Beatles music show at The Mirage. I have no other Vegas or Cirque shows to compare it to, but I thought LOVE was great.

So all in all, I’m no particular fan of Vegas. I’ll admit that I wasn’t feeling particularly well, which I’m sure hampered my enjoyment. But I felt as though I was on a city-sized cruise ship–with somewhat better/more expensive food–and cruises and me don’t exactly get along.