This summer, I had the privilege to visit Alaska with three of my favorite people, Liz, Jason (aka: Ocho), and David on an RV camping trip from Anchorage, to Seward, and finally to Denali. For all of us, it was our first time visiting Alaska, and we had big expectations. After all, Alaska is “the last frontier.” We’ve all heard stories of amazing wildlife encounters and pristine wilderness.

Leading up to our trip, though, we kept seeing news about large portion of the Alaskan rainforest on fire and smoke shutting down roads (a race that Liz and Jason were going to do in Seward was canceled because of the bad smoke). There were also stories of salmon dying in rivers that (because of climate change) were lethally hot. Even before all of this news came out, the Trump administration had opened up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.

All of this news was taking some wind out of my sails, and I wanted to take you all with me on my emotional roller coaster through Alaska. This is part one of the trip covering our leg to Seward. After each day, we sat down to share our roses (highlight from the day), thorn (disappointment from the day) and bud (what we’re looking forward to). Anyways, I hope you enjoy tagging along with us as we explore the “last frontier.”