So here's an update for ya! I'm engaged!!! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYY!!!!!
Here's how it happened:
After I had been in Alaska for a couple of days with Justin he woke me one morning and said, "OK! It's time to get up! We have to leave by 7:30!" I asked where we were going and he said, "it's a surprise!"
Now there were three main things that I wanted to do when I got to Alaska, one was ride the train because all summer I heard him talk about taking his passengers to the train yard to ride the train because it's a really pretty tour. Two was go on a hike, any hike in Alaska would HAVE to be absolutely beautiful! Three was eat Salmon. It's good.
So he tells me to dress in hiking clothes and we get ready and get in his green VW bug and start driving... I soon notice that we're driving toward the train yard and I get really excited and exclaim, "Are we riding the TRAIN?!" He says, "Yep!" and I thought that was a great surprise! We ride the train up a canyon a ways and he starts to look troubled and I asked him if he was ok and he broke out of whatever trance he was in and gave me a big smile and said that he was great! It was an absolutely gorgeous ride!
The train stoped part way and we got off at a trail head and start hiking. We were hiking in a rain forest and it was so pretty my heart almost melted. There were blueberries growing off the side of the trail and we stopped and picked some and they were so good! I was loving life and I was thinking, wow...what a great surprise!
I wasn't sure where the hike was leading to and after a couple of miles I asked him if there was a peak that we were hiking to or a specific place that it ended and he said there was. It got to a point where I had to watch my feet closly so I wouldn't misstep and after another mile I asked what it was that we were hiking to and he straightened up and said, "that!" I looked up and saw the most beautiful glacier!!! No words could describe how beautiful it was! Like looki
ng at a majestic inspiring palace! I was so happy! I was definitely thinking that this was such the great surprise!We kept hiking and challenged ourselves to get onto the glacier itself. The hike got a little precarious at that point. We were crawling over small boulders that would rock under our weight we could hear underground streams running close by. We were about to give up and turn back but we decided to make our way up to the top of a certain hill and when we did we saw that we were actually on ice! It was part of the glacier flow! We also had really good view of the mountain where the flow started. We sat down to rest and eat a granola bar. After staring at the glacier for a while the clouds came down and covered the mountain. That's when Justin got on one knee and said, "Gretchen, I thought that if I was going to do this that it should be while on a glacier in Alaska..." and he pulls out a box and opens it to show the most gorgeous ring! Tears are streaming by this point and he asks me to marry him. I said no.
Ha ha! Just kidding!!! Of course I said YES!!! and threw my arms around him and we kissed a lot!! A few minutes later the clouds lifted and we could see the glacier more clearly than we had the whole hike!!! It was amazing! When we boarded the train again the narrator for the train announced that we just got engaged and everyone was so excited or at least pretended to be. :)
Later on Justin said that he made dinner reservations and we dressed up and I got my salmon.
It was the best day! Justin is the love of my life and I feel so lucky! So there's the story! I hope you were able to handle the cheese! I feel like I've waited long enough to deserve some.
