Today we said goodbye to the lima bean. It has taken us down the Kenai Peninsula to visit some many amazing places (Seward, Whittier, Homer, Soldotna, Cooper Landing) as well as up to Denali National Park and see the wilderness that area has to offer. And yes....we have gotten a LOT of stares at the color of this rental! The restaurant owner in Homer who grew up in El Paso commented on it as soon as we parked! Thank you lima bean for all the memories!
We had to fill our day in/near Anchorage because the motorcoach was being serviced for a faulty sensor. We knew we could be gone most of the day, so we were!
Jeff remembered a place called Earthquake Park in Anchorage. When a massive earthquake hit in 1964 it caused a landslide in this specific area and you could see the drop in elevation in the park. The one pic I took doesn't show the depth well, but here it is.
This park also had the most gorgeous bright pink flowers. Peony?? Rose?? Google Lens tells me it's a rose. 🤷
We honestly didn't know what to do next so I suggested calling Alyeska Resort to see if we could reschedule our tram tickets (from July 5th) that we hadn't been able to use. They were very accommodating and let us do that so we headed down the Turnagain Arm area. This really made us happy too since we didn't lose our on that purchase!!!
View from the tram:
See snow? Must play in snow!
Literally my favorite picture is this one of Jeff. He has such fond memories of hang gliders leaping from these cliffs when he came in 2005 and I thought he was standing there in awe just "being" there. About 15 seconds after I snapped the picture he started moving his hands and I knew he was on a work call! 🤦🤦
The Turnagain Arm area amazes us because of the bore tides. We didn't get to see the bore tide itself, but as we drove to Alyeska around 11am the tide was in. As we left around 315pm the tide was out and still going! The mud flats it leaves behind fascinate all 4 of us.
Jeff really wanted to watch the tide and I really wanted to explore at the pullouts we had seen so we found a perfect spot--Beluga Point. We got to explore the mud flats (that we'd first seen in Hope) again. There was a cove and it was so interesting to watch the water literally leech from the sand and out to the ocean. Yep--even as I type that I feel I aged myself 20 years!
80 year old me watching the lines of water:
And of course, our boys couldn't pass up the opportunity to get muddy! This is one of the reasons I said I had to have a washer/dryer combo in the coach!
A random fun bit: people were staring at the cliffs when we got there at dall sheep and a bear. We couldn't see them without binoculars so we went about our way. About 20 minutes later we got to see them! How fun!
Then we finally picked up the coach and headed out of town towards our next destination of Tok, AK. We had no plans of getting there...just on the way. We actually were driving back the same way we came from Valdez and I told Jeff I wanted to overnight park at an area where we could see the Matanuska Glacier. I remembered seeing spots when we drove in for the car launch, so that was our goal.
Boy oh boy did we get lucky! Look at this view in our pullout spot! This is
the reason we do what we do!
the reason we do what we do!
I've got a surprise for the next blog and it involves this glacier and a bit of serendipity!
Prayers for safe travels, all vehicles to work properly, more family memories, and few bumps/frost heaves on the lesser traveled roads tomorrow to Tok.
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