Alaska Part 1--Snowmobiling Tour!

"One way to get the most out of life is to view it as an adventure."--William Feather

One of the first things I booked for my trip to Alaska was a snowmobiling tour. I wanted to knock that off of my list and the Glacier City Snow Mobile Tours out of the shop Great Alaskan Tourist Trap had fantastic reviews and pictures on their website. I gave them a call a few days before my trip and booked 2 spots for my first full day in Alaska.




I originally asked specifically for the Glacier Tour, which they said depended on the weather, but we would see when I got there. They had a Gold Mine Tour as an alternative. However, when we walked into the store to check in we were told they hadn't had the Glacier Tour the whole season because there wasn't enough snow. That would have been fantastic to know ahead of time just in case we wanted to make other arrangements. 



Before you think I'm just spoiled let me explain myself. I am 100% down for adventures no matter what. On their website the glacier pictures were nothing short of phenomenal. They had me chomping at the bit to go to Alaska and I knew I had to do that tour. The gold mine pictures in comparison were mediocre. It wasn't unique. Both my friend and I had been led to believe we could possibly go on the glacier tour so we got our hopes up, unfortunately.
That being said, we did have a fantastic time. 

Snow mobiling is an interesting sensation. It operates like an ATV, but tends to jerk around more. Unless you stay in the path of the person in front of you then it is difficult to maintain the desired direction. There's not really a finesse to it; it's more like you ran out of steering fluid and need to convince it that it should go where you want. That was part of the adventure and I fully embraced it. I was a little nervous and therefore slow at certain points, but we had a fantastic time.

We did runs of around 4 or 5 paths before heading to the top of the trail to take pictures and take in the scenes. The view from the top was breath taking and COLD. We started the tour when it was around -10 degrees F outside and with the wind chill at the top...let's just say that all of us were happy the snowmobiles had hand warmers on the handlebars!

Then we were off on quite a few more trails until we reached the bottom again. We were provided a delicious lunch of reindeer hot dogs and their own specially crafted cider. The food was scrumptious! It was definitely a highlight of the trip. Then we were off again on more and more trails!

After 4 hours of riding with a brief rest with food it was time to make our way back to the shop where we donned our gear. All in all it was a really fun trip and I do recommend snowmobiling in Alaska if you get the chance. There wasn't much time for pictures while you were on the mountain. You were only given the chance to take pictures at the top and during lunch, however some of the best shots came about when we were riding up or down the mountain. I fell behind several times because I stopped for literally 5 seconds to hastily line up a shot, which was slightly frustrating.

On the upside, their guides were very knowledgeable and made sure everyone was listening to the safety briefing and helped anyone who needed it along the way. The company has many great aspects, but there are several things I think they could improve upon for a truly stellar experience.

"We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm, and adventure. There is no end to the adventures that we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open."--Jawaharlal Nehru

A Journey To The Desert!

 “When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable.” –Clifton Fadiman

Will is from the beautiful desert/mountainous city of Albuquerque, New Mexico. He lived there for several years before his family relocated to Virginia Beach. His grandparents still live there and we had planned a trip to visit them over Christmas this year. Our flights were booked, Atlas had a sleepover planned at Will's mom's house so he could play with the pit bulls, and we had everything planned that we wanted to see!

Now we had to wait a month for our flights. Luckily time flew by. Next thing we know it's already Christmas Eve! We dropped our fluffy child/dog at Will's Mom's house so he could have a weekend of play time with the pit bulls, small children, and get some snuggle time in. We made it to the airport nice and early because we thought we would have to battle the masses of people flying out on Christmas Eve. However, we were pleasantly surprised that the airport was near empty! We breezed through security in under 5 minutes, which I'm sure most of you are jealous of that time.

Now we had to figure out how to kill a little under 2 hours in the airport. We ended up sitting at the bar having a refreshing drink and delicious dinner! By the time we finished eating we were pleasantly full and went to our gate to relax, read, and people watch.

Our flights were pretty uneventful and by that I mean we both passed out and I actually had a pillow aka Will's shoulder. We arrived in Albuqerque at 1130 after both of our flights were delayed, but it wasn't a big deal.

Before we left, everyone, and I mean everyone, in Will's family warned me that I was going to be EXTREMELY well fed while I was there and that his grandparents would try to feed me at every chance they got. They weren't kidding. Almost every decorative bowl in the house was filled with candies, chocolates, and other goodies. Every drawer either held cooking utensils or more food. Their pantry looked something like a bomb shelter supply that could last 50 people several years.

When we arrived at their house both adorable grandparents greeted us and of course offered us food. We politely declined and went to sleep almost immediately. In the morning, breakfast was promptly served and this the feasting began! Christmas day was off to a delicious start! Since we had just gotten there and Will hadn't seen his grandparents in a few years we decided to have a lazy day and just spend it with his family opening presents, talking, and watching movies. And of course, we had a FEAST that night!

The second full day consisted of driving around town, seeing where Will used to live, taking in the sights of the desert, and going to Old Town Albuquerque, which had lots and lots of stores that boasted handmade items, Native American pottery and other makes. It was really neat to explore all of the stores with nothing but handmade Native American crafts. As an anthropologist I loved seeing the drastic and sometimes subtle differences between the pottery and jewelry of different tribes.

One thing that I really loved about Albuquerque was the openness of the terrain. There were tons of mountains that you could always see in the distance, but there was also very flat desert all around you as well. It was completely different, as you'd expect, from the East Coast and I really enjoyed it. It was a very refreshing feeling.

The next day we were supposed to go skiing in Santa Fe. I was beyond excited because I had never been skiing before and the mountains were phenomenal looking. Plus I wanted to get some really neat action pictures for my portfolio. However, life had a different plan for my Christmas vacation...

First of all, I get sick about once every 2 years. Nothing in between, but maybe a small cold. I guess my 2 year sickness interval was up and of course it had to come while I was on vacation the NIGHT BEFORE the day trip I was looking forward to most. I was lucky enough to somehow get norovirus...I got it once before on a cruise and let me tell you it is no picnic. I don't want to get too graphic, but it is essentially like throwing up out of both ends, continuously for 8 hours straight...

My wonderful boyfriend should get an award for picking me up off the bathroom floor and carrying me to bed every few hours. I felt a little better by the morning, and by that I mean I could drink water and keep it down. I decided that I would come with the guys (Will and his brother, Nick) to the ski lodge and just rest there in hopes that I would be able to ski later. In reality, I just slept all day on a table and some chairs in a corner. It was a huge disappointment that I couldn't ski there, but I'm glad I got to see the mountains and that Will had fun day of skiing. The only upside to this part of the story was that I lost all the weight I had gained by eating until I couldn't move for a few days straight. Not that I would ever condone losing weight this way..ever. I'm just looking on the bright side.

We spent our last night there enjoying spending time with his family, playing scrabble, relaxing, and of course eating. We had a very nice trip minus the illness setback. We decided we will have to go back soon so we can add more adventure to our New Mexican repertoire!   I did get to see tumbleweeds and a road runner so I can call it a success ;-)    I've always wanted to see both of those and I finally got to! (Nick and Will did a bunch of eye rolling when I got so excited over them)

All in all, New Mexico was a great success and I finally got to meet that side of Will's family. It was also my first time to the West coast and I absolutely enjoyed myself. If you ever get the chance to go I would definitely recommend it. It was very picturesque and had a homey feel to it even though it was such a big city.

“Adventure is a path. Real adventure – self-determined, self-motivated, often risky – forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world. The world the way it is, not the way you imagine it. Your body will collide with the earth and you will bear witness. In this way you will be compelled to grapple with the limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty of humankind – and perhaps realize that you yourself are capable of both. This will change you. Nothing will ever again be black-and-white.” – Mark Jenkins

Road Trip Part 2-- Hills, Horses, and Terror

“What you’ve done becomes the judge of what you’re going to do – especially in other people’s minds. When you’re traveling, you are what you are right there and then. People don’t have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road.”--William Least Heat

Learning to drive a manual is a traumatic, terrifying, and stressful event. For the driver that is multiplied by 30489903486... approximately. Not sure how the rest of the world felt, but Sarah and I were strangely apprehensive we I got behind the wheel. I was used to traffic patterns by now so that wasn't too terrifying. Reversing I can do perfectly. So if I had driven the entire time backwards we would've been golden besides a really stiff next from looking behind me. Too bad I'm 99.99% sure that's illegal. After Sarah and I dined and explored the castle I got behind the wheel for my first lesson. The castle was located in the middle of nowhere and there was a road nearby that didn't have a lot of traffic.

For those of you who have never driven manual before you're about to get a glimpse into a whole new world of driving. Getting into first gear... or I should attempting to get into first gear awakened some sort of weird laughing terrorized animal inside of me. As I tried to shift into first gear after backing up flawlessly I had a slightly inflated ego. Sarah told me to give the car more gas than it needed and ease off the clutch. Normal people probably would've done something.. well... normal. Me being me took this as floor it and then jerk of the clutch and realize this was dumb halfway through and then pump the clutch in a panic. It resulted in 1. a jerking motion of the car similar to what I think getting rammed from behind by a rhino would feel like. and 2. giving Sarah whiplash I the car jerked backwards and forwards and her seatbelt locked with each jerk. As it did this, every jerk forward resulted in her saying "nope. nope. nope. nope. nope"

It looked something like this... but picture it in a car not my room.

It's an attractive video I know... but I think I deserve credit for pretending I was driving and almost knocking myself out on my own knees just for this reenactment.

I managed to get it into first and roll down the road at a whopping 5mph. Watch out Scotland I'm coming for you... if I can ever get it into second gear.

I stalled out quite a few times and Sarah about died laughing at me panic and yell at the car and then laugh at myself. I got pretty confident and decided to roll my bad self and awesome skills into the street because I was ready for a quest. I rolled to a stop and managed to stall out. SHOCK. Then I accidentally gave the car too much gas, peeled out of the gravel entranceway spewing gravel everywhere and screeched into the street with minimal jerking. Sarah's reaction was nervous laughing and something resembling this face:

Poor girl...

Once I got out of 2nd I was golden. UNTIL... DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNN... we reached the hill of doom. Steep slopes are terrifying. I know it may seem like I'm throwing that word out there like a pro baseball player on steroids, but yeesh... I tried will all my might to get up that hill as the stoplight turned green. Little did I know the hill had it out for me and wanted to humiliate me. As I was swiftly going backwards down the hill trying to get it into first a van filled with guys pulls up behind expecting us to have the ability to oh you know DRIVE.... They quickly realized I was in distress.. well I'm sure the hazard lights Sarah always subtlely turned on when I got stuck gave them a clue... I just couldn't get up the hill. We had to get out of the car and do a walk of shame around the car so Sarah could drive. Needless to say that was the end of my lesson for the day.

The next day we booked a horseback riding trip in the Trossachs. I actually drove there and didn't kill anyone or thing... except a small curb but it deserved it anyway for getting in my way. The gps saved our lives many a time but I think it wanted to test us that day and see what we were made of. It told us to turn down a dirt road, so we obliged. We ended up 2 miles down a sheep pasture looking at a severe no trespassing sign... We decided to turn around. Quickly. I managed to avoid the sheep that had gradually begun to come towards our car in a creepy manner. Yes sheep can walk creepily. Just go to Scotland and walk into a field. You'll understand.

After getting passed by approximately 20945786 cars since we were driving at a speed that rivaled a blind grandmother snail we arrived at the horseback riding farm only to find the other cars that had passed us had also decided to go for a ride.

We got geared up and situated on our horses. I had a rather chilled out horse named Mitch and Sarah had a squat fiesty horse with a butt that rivals Beyonce's named Elby. The trip started out well as most seem to do. It got slightly more adventurous as we went along. Sarah is pretty much an expert rider and I've only ever been on a horse once before this. We were led in a line throughout the fields and countryside and even into the woods. My horse was the SLOWEST horse of all time. The PONY.... not horse, but a pony that was behind me literally had its head stuck up my horse's butt and would let out an exasperated sigh every few minutes. Mitch was unaffected and refused to go slower than death no matter now many times I kicked him in the side as you're supposed to do to make them go faster. The girls leading us described him as leisurely. Sarah lucked out and got the me equivalent of a horse that wanted to run ahead of everyone and jump around and play in a speedy fashion. I got the porker who likes to stand in the stable all day. I made do. I eventually got him to go faster, but as revenge he would jerk to a stop and uproot bushes that had poisonous flowers... Smart horse... So there I was trying to make my horse stop eating, stay in the saddle, make my horse move forward by twisting its head away from the bushes (which is HARD. Horses mean bussiness and are not weak) while kicking him to go faster while getting yelled at for not keeping the massive fatty from eating the entire time. He would try and veer towards bushes and it took everything I could do to keep him with the group.

We stopped to take pictures with Lake Menteith in the background. It's the only lake in Scotland instead of a loch. It was named as an insult after the man who betrayed William Wallace.

You may be wondering why my horse is leaning to the side like a drunken sailor... I have no idea. You may also be wondering about his emo hairstyle, but the real wonder ladies and gentlemen is his HUGE moustache that is hard to see from this picture. Let's just say my horse seems to be an emo version of Wyatt Earp. Google him. You won't be disappointed.






The rest of the ride was absolutely amazing apart from me attempting to wrestle a horse 5 times my size away from food and a very precarious ledge that my horse liked to trip on, which terrified me.

After we dismounted and got back in the car we made the drive to Glen Coe! We had planned to do a walk around Loch Lochan and in the mountains there. The drive was amazing and extremely eventful. We stopped at a rest stop to get some lunch and snacks and discovered that someone had the weirdest pet ever. We walked in to find a GOOSE on a leash lapping up water from a bowl like a dog. I couldn't make that up if I tried. I swear Sarah and I need our own tv show because stuff like that is the norm when we hang out.

On the way I was driving for the first time doing a long distance haul... A curb from hell came out of nowhere, meanwhile Sarah was munching on a new bag of cheeseballs. I may or may not have hit the curb really hard causing the entire car to bounce which then caused Sarah to yell and throw the entire bag of cheeseballs in the air making it rain delicious balls of cheese all over the car. We were still finding them even on the last day of our trip.

We FINALLY saw a shaggy cow. We had been looking for them and as I was driving I looked over and yelled... YAKS! Not sure why I yelled that as they were clearly cows. Oops. We found the parking lot after driving through mountains for 30 minutes which was the best view I've ever had in my life. We took the Loch Lochan trail and went up a mountain trail and back down and around the Loch.

After walking around for a few hours we decided to make the drive back to the small town and find where the filming of Hagrid's hut was in the Prisoner of Azkaban. We again had the best view of all time, but it was slightly terrifying driving down the road peacefully to have a tour bus come out of nowhere and drive past like it was in the grand prix. Those drivers have nerves of steel.

We kept stopping to see views like these:

The last place we stopped had a large pile of rocks in a dome shape. Apparently it's a burial place of Kings. Personally I would feel shafted if I was a king and someone said "hmmm I know exactly where we're going to bury you! Under a large pile of rocks. But wait there's more! It's going to be a dome shape and will eventually be on the side of a highway. Enjoy the afterlife!"

No. Just no. Anyone who tries to bury me there will get haunted by me. You've been warned.


At this dome shaped tomb thing was a bridge near a creek. On top of this bridge was a very awkward guy who was making his mom take pictures of him "modeling" for facebook... Yes he actually said that to us. I was slightly embarrassed to be around this guy, who was probably about 20, and felt bad for his mom. It got even more awkward when he took off his shirt and told her to make sure she got a good muscle shot. Poor guy. Doomed for life.

We made sure we hiked to a very high up place to we could pretend we couldn't hear him trying to talk to us about his facebook modeling pictures and then enjoyed the scenery and laughed at him modeling more on the pile of rocks.

Later that day we were heading back to Edinburgh and were starving. We aren't the happiest people in the world when that happens... After attempting to go to Tesco in 3 diferent places to find out it was shut we finally found an ASDA. I have never been happier to go into a walmart owned building. On our way out of the parking lot we came to a stoplight. Luckily there was only one car around and they were behind us. Sarah had a lapse in judgment and forgot we had to drive on the left hand side of the road. We were halfway down the lane and I was yelling that it was the wrong side of the road. What does she do? She slams on the brakes, looks around and then looks at me with terrified eyes and then peels out and speeds down the lane to the roundabout where we almost cut the other car off and then we both freak out a little after we realized we were still alive... The guy in the car behind us had a perfect view of the entire shenanigans and even slowed down to watch us more. He pulled up beside of and his friend did this:

And mouthed "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" He probably thought we were really stupid British girls. Whoops.

Next friday there will be the last post about this trip! Come back and read it :)


“Adventure is a path. Real adventure – self-determined, self-motivated, often risky – forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world. The world the way it is, not the way you imagine it. Your body will collide with the earth and you will bear witness. In this way you will be compelled to grapple with the limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty of humankind – and perhaps realize that you yourself are capable of both. This will change you. Nothing will ever again be black-and-white.”--Mark Jenkins