Yesterday Mr. Coffee and I took the kids to the edge of a rain forest. For us it was our summer excursion. $110 in my suburban and $70 for dinner on the cheap (pizza.) We hiked 2.5 miles in and 2.5 miles out. It was so much fun-- I just wish I could have had the money to pay for a hotel room and we could have stayed over night.

We went to the place that my mother would have taken Sunshine. It's here

There is no place quite like it. It is in Girdwood, Alaska and you hike about a half mile in and suddenly the trees go from "lots of scraggly" to "few and wide." Plants have wide leaves that took almost prehistoric. There were berries all over the place that we would stop and eat. Some places were muddy and we had to carry the stroller. At the end we took a hand tram over a gorge. My vertigo had me panicking and laughing at the same time-- I loved the view but I felt like I was physically bouncing. On the way back the older kids took the stroller and Mr. Coffee put little Queen CuppaTea on his shoulders and walked the whole distance back. She sat up straight looking around and smiling-- she knew she was special and gave a queenly wave to everyone passing us.

We got home at 1:30, exhausted but we talked the whole trip home about everything we saw from white mushrooms to squirrels in the trees.

I could do that every weekend-- this is the best time of year in Alaska.