“Mama, the corn was really hopping!” Finn is obviously excited. “And Finn added sand to the jar, and that started hopping too!” Zoe doesn’t seem too happy with Finn’s creativity, but must admit that he turned it into quite a science project. “He also added rocks. The small ones stayed on the bottom, and the large one floated. How is that possible!” Today’s science experiment was to create hopping corn. Add baking soda, vinegar and corn to a jar of water and let the fun begin. Of course no amount of trailer search could locate the food coloring that I purchased for our homeschool projects, but there really was no…
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Do I need to run your plates?
I’m working at a coffee shop when I get a text message from Antoine. Something weird is going on and he wants me to know. At some point this afternoon someone is standing by the trailer. Antoine steps outside to see what is going on. A clean cut looking man is petting the dog and looking over Antoine’s shoulder, into the trailer. The man says that he heard a dog barking and a child screaming, and he waves some sort of badge. At this point our toddler -who is currently potty training- has decided to get completely undressed and step outside. Antoine is concerned with keeping our little one warm…
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Naval Undersea Museum
On our way to the Olympic National Park in Washington, we make a last-minute decision to visit the Naval Undersea Museum and manage to make a U-turn while towing the Avion. When we get to Keyport, the museum turns out to be on a naval base. We arrive after closing time and have not decided yet on where to sleep. The parking lot of the museum is pretty big and Antoine and Finn walk over to the heavily armed guards of the base to ask if we may spend the night here. I am hugely surprised when they tell me that the guards responded with a simple “why not” and…
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Kenai River Float
On the Kenai Peninsula it’s pretty much all about the Kenai river. Not that the hikes and the shore of Cook Inlet do not matter, but it is the Kenai river that brings tourism to Alaska. People visit from all over the world to catch salmon. Red, Silver and even King salmon runs up the river every summer to spawn. We thought that fishing would be a fun experience, but it turned out to be quite cost prohibited considering the gear you need in order not to ruin the river banks, and the licenses required to even make an attempt at a catch. Water lovers we are however, so we…
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“Mama, we have a problem!”
“Zoe Zoe, it is snowing!” I am slowly waking up and calculating how many hours we can drive today, and how far we can get. But after Finn’s exclamation both Antoine and I are instantly completely awake and looking outside. Indeed, the landscape around us has turned into winter wonderland. Overnight, and quite unexpectedly are we facing the narrow Cassiar Highway covered with several inches of snow. This road has no shoulders and drops off 5 feet straight down at places. The hills are steep and as far was we can see from here, nobody is plowing the road. Last night we barely made the first 50 miles onto this…
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Exit Glacier hike
A great way to visit Kenai Fjords National Park is to make the trip to Exit Glacier. You can hike all the way up to the Harding Icefield. This is a fairly intense hike up, and the round trip is about 8 miles. Some people hike up and camp on top to enjoy the sunrise. Others hire a guide to actually climb the glacier. None of the above is suitable for younger kids, so we join a ranger on a hike to the toe of Exit Glacier. We start off at the visitor center and hike through lush forest. The kids have done their homework, and earned their Junior Ranger…
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How to juggle multiple passports
You might think that having multiple nationalities is a blast. In a way it is because it literally opens doors. But what about the disadvantaged that come with keeping up with different passports? When we travel with three nationalities between the five members of my family, we are used to playing the passport game with care. After having been turned down to re-enter the United States on a French passport once after a quick visit to Canada, we broke laws to get my hubby’s American passport shipped to us from our home in The Netherlands when we unexpectedly flew to his home country from Spain. We even had to chase…
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Hiking in Girdwood
We are yearning to get some hiking in on this beautiful day in Girdwood. It is easy to get occupied with laundry, groceries and work, even when you are traveling. It is a 2.5 mile hike to get to the hand tram on the Lower Winner Creek trail. Just perfect in case we don’t manage to do the tram with the dog. On the other side of the tram, the trail continues. When we arrive at the trail head, we find out from some berry pickers that we are approaching the hand tram from the other end of the trail than we were planning on. We only have about a…
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Kenai Fjords National Park Cruise with kids
Because we are traveling full time at the moment, we have to distinguish clearly between what we would do if we were on vacation and our responsibilities of daily life. It is so easy to sleep late when kids allow you to, and it seems only natural to act like a tourist when you are in a new environment. Our family agreement is not to live like we are permanently on vacation, so we can spend time on basic writing, reading and math with the kids and work online. Sometimes however we make a true exception and willingly decide to break the budget. Visiting a National Park by boat is…
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Back on the road to discover Alaska
It is the middle of the summer. The sky is grey for the better part of the time, and it rains at least every few days. Not that this is something to complain about. It is not unusual for it to rain all summer here where we are, on the Kenai peninsula. There is even a fair amount of sunshine compared to last year. In spite of this supposedly reasonable weather, I struggle with being here. The campground is beautiful and the workload is okay, but we are so far away from everything that it paralyses us. In the morning, the campground chores need to be done. Before we are…
