The Alaska Railroad

One of the things on our "Alaska to-do" list was to ride the train, and on August 16th we were able to cross that one off.

We scored two free tickets through the ASYMCA of Alaska, and since children under 2 are free we made sure to schedule it in and took Andy along with us.

The AK Railroad goes to several different locations, but the train ride we took went down to Seward, AK. The plan was to go down in the morning, visit the Sea Life Center, and then come back the same day.

The train left in the morning super early. We had to be at the station at 5:45am to check in, which meant getting Andy up before then so we could make it there on time. Andy typically sleeps in till 8ish, so it was quite a bit earlier.

Here he is chillin' in his pj's at the station.

We boarded the train around 6:30am and arrived in Seward at 11:00am. If you drive to Seward it takes about 3 hours, but on the train it was an additional hour.

Family Photo in front of the train

Andy loved the train. He loved looking out the windows. He loved the seats. He loved not being in his car seat. He loved exploring the other train compartments. He loved seeing the wildlife. He was having the time of his life.

Moose!

An eaglet in the nest

The momma eagle

If you look closely you can see a bear sitting under the tree in the middle of the shot.

When we got to Seward the only thing we really had on our agenda was to visit the Sea Life Center. We ended up having plenty of time to walk around downtown Seward and play at a park.

We didn't want to over book our day, especially because we didn't know how Andy would handle the lack of sleep... (Although I'm happy to announce he was a happy chipper little guy all day long.)

The Sea Life Center was really neat, and we really enjoyed seeing all the different exhibits. We saw puffins and other water birds, a baby walrus, sea otters, sea lions, and even got to touch some star fish.

There is an observation deck looking out over Resurrection Bay so we took another family photo after attempting to teach Andy to look through the giant sightseeing binoculars.

After we finished at the Sea Life Center we found a little shop where we stopped for some gelato and salt water taffy. Then after perusing some of the souvenir shops we found a park that we stopped at for awhile.

The train ride home was just as fun as the morning ride. We ate some good train grub in the dining car and Andy and Brig took me on a tour of all the compartments they had discovered earlier.

Andy's hair was getting so long, and after running around and getting sweaty we were able to style it in all sorts of fun ways.

We call this one "The Wave"

By the end of the train ride Andy was still happy, but you could definitely tell he was tired. We pulled back into the Anchorage station around 10:30ish and as soon as Andy was in the car seat he basically passed out.

It was such a neat experience and I'm so glad that we were able to do that as a family! Great memories for sure.