Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center

We are only in Anchorage until December, so we like take advantage of where the road can take us. On Saturday, we drove about thirty miles out of town to the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center. We saw elk, wood bison, grizzly bears, moose, muskox, caribou, and more. This wasn't exactly a zoo, though. They were fenced in, but they were mostly in their natural habitat-trees, water, grass. Ya know, "nature."

The very first animal we saw was this hungry moose. He was right up against the fence chomping on a huge pile of tree branches. He was so content with his lunch, and did not even acknowledge the crowd of people that was fighting to get the perfect photograph. I wasn't concerned about getting a "good photo" because I only had my phone to take pictures. I think you can get the idea of how close we were to this guy. I even broke the rules and pet his antlers. Yes, he could have killed us. I know. But he didn't.

We watched this little bear cub for a long time, and I could have stayed there with him all day. He played in the water, dug in the dirt, and even did a couple of "tricks" with the bear trainer (lifting his paw, standing on hind legs, etc...) And look, he totally smiled for us!

I feel pretty lucky that I got to see all these animals, and my heart is grateful that they were all behind fences.

Here are a few more of my favorites-

oscar (he was in the car, so he's included)

two baby caribou

wood bison

harbor seals (from the Alaska Sea Life Center)

xo

Alli

PS-I started knitting a secret project, and I'm finally in the last season of "Friday Night Lights." Don't even think about watching it. You will get addicted.