We're back!

It has been one heck of a trip since I last posted!  We not only lived for 5 weeks on various glaciers in Denali National Park, but we just had a whirlwind tour of Canada and the U.S. on our drive back to New Hampshire in 7 days.

But you all want to see glacier stuff. . .

There are way too many pictures to upload here, so CLICK HERE to go to a Picasa page with our Alaska pictures:

We had a great time up there.  Despite some technical difficulties with the radar, we managed to get some work done and not freeze our butts off in the process.  The scenery was beautiful, it wasn't even that cold (except for a few -20 nights), and it was most definitely a unique experience.

We were caught in a few snowstorms that had us tent-bound for a couple days at a time.  We managed to cram 6 people in a 4 person tent for movie nights and did a lot of reading.  Despite all the snow, both Curtis and I managed to get the worst sunburns of our lives.  His sunglasses tan lines were absolutely ridiculous.  You'll see for yourself in the photos.

We barely made it off the glacier when we did.  The skies cleared up for a very brief weather window and we were lucky enough to get out of there about 36 hours later than planned.  It's been non-stop ever since.

We left Anchorage late Wednesday afternoon and have been driving longer and longer each day to make it to Concord with time to spare.  We took the Cassiar highway instead of the Alaska highway on the way back, and boy am I glad we did!  We spotted nearly a dozen black bears, one grizzly, moose on the loose and lots more.

It was a very long drive back, but so much better than the drive up in April.  No snowstorms! We even took a detour to come back through Jasper and Banff National Parks and it was well worth the extra time.  Here's Lake Louise:

We came back into the U.S. in Montana and spent the entire next day (750+ miles) driving through Montana.  How discouraging!  We were so happy to get back to smaller states to at least feel like we were making some progress.  After one night in Alaska and two in Canada, we had a night in Montana, one outside of Madision WI, one in western NY and landed here in Concord yesterday evening.  Phew!  We met up with Dad and went out to dinner to get our first taste of the area.  Our next task is to find an apartment in the next 2 days before heading up to Maine this weekend.  We can't wait to see everyone!