Leaving Matanuksa ;(

We took a short hike onto the glacier before we headed out. There is a fee to hike closer to the glacier in addition to the fee to camp, but in order to actually walk on the white ice you must hire a guide and wear crampons (shoe attachments for ice) and a helmet. But the whole mass is glacier ice (even te grey muddy messy stuff, it's just melting) So technically even though we didn't get to walk on the white ice, we were still walking on the glacier and witnessed all kinds of ice and crevices 10-20 feet deep full of freezing ice water. Gage was lagging way behind taking pictures while the rest of us kept along the trail. Chuck almost had a nervous breakdown when Gwen went off the trail and got too close to one of the crevices (I think grace even got video of chuck and Gwen arguing about this!). Although the ground looks like muddy ash, it is most certainly ice and very slippery. Well Gwen kept insisting that he was overreacting until gage appeared behind us looking like this...

Oops, gage went off the trail and "ate it" haha to get a picture. Needless to say, Gwen realized dad was right and it's probably best to stay on the trail. 

View of road leading into and out of camp site...

Pic of sketchy bridge as promised..

Next stop 80 miles west in Palmer, AK to a reindeer and elk farm!

Dolly the bison

Elk are way more friendly than I imagined (I'm sure the grass we were feeding them helped!)

Next stop...Denali National Park about 5 hours north from where we are in Palmer. Back in the RV, kids being very excited from our frolicking with the reindeer, got in trouble for not keeping their hands to themselves. But they couldn't take dad seriously and kept laughing at his yelling "go play tickle scratch in the back of the motorhome and not right next to me!" So from that point on we kept hearing the kids say "stop tickle scratching me" and "wanna go play tickle scratch" HAHAHAHA. Even a card game of course turns into tickle scratch with these three who can't keep their hands to themselves!