Heading up the Glenn

Continuing with the random, never-got-around-to-posting posts, here is one from Alaska.

We decided to drive up the Glenn Highway to Matanuska Glacier before Aunt Geri left. As we were crossing the Palmer Hay Flats, we saw a car pulled over. Which means that they are either broken down or something interesting is happening. And lo and behold, an eagle. 

So we stopped to watch. 

We see Bald Eagles from time to time around Northern New York, but somehow, with the backdrop of the mountains (Pioneer Peak actually), the eagle was even more majestic.

We didn't have much of a schedule, so we stopped and took pictures as much as we wanted to. 

Where two rivers meet

I think that is King Mountain. I remember it being super pointy.

The amazing thing was, you could look for miles into wilderness with no humans. Granted, we were traveling on the only road in and out of Southcentral Alaska, so we were not stranded anywhere, but it was cool to think about.

Geri said this was what she had come to Alaska to see--the wildness. 

A grass seemingly made of sparklers beside the lookout

Cotten kids in the wild

My cute Gilbert friend

Lily squinting at me

Orianna being all grown up

Elsie being messy haired.

Summertime is not the time for observing my hairdoing skills. 

Leaves starting to turn. 

Interestingly, Alaska had the mildest fall on record this year. 

Standing there, it was absolutely impossible to not hear the words of the Robert Service poem Dad quoted to us so often as kids--

It's the great, big, broad land 'way up yonder,

It's the forests where silence has lease;

It's the beauty that thrills me with wonder,        

It's the stillness that fills me with peace. 

                                                  --From The Spell of the Yukon

Alaska is so much.

First glimpse of the Mat-su glacier

Sketchy bridge to get to the glacier access.

To get to the glacier access from Anchorage, we drove approximately an hour and a half. A few friends had told us to head south to Exit Glacier, but we had already driven south and we wanted to get out on the glacier, which you can't do on Exit. So we drove the distance, only to find out that it would be $100 for us to get out on the glacier. I hemmed and hawwed, but ultimately, as Geri put it, "We have to slip and slide around on enough ice in Fargo and New York, I don't think we need to spend $100 for the privilege of sliding on ice in Alaska."

So after all that, we turned around and came back. When we lived up here, a decade ago, we went out on the glacier a couple times and it was no where near as expensive as it is now. However, I guess glaciers are a fading resource, so they can charge what they like. 

Lesson learned--check prices before traveling a long way to do something. 

But really, we saw more of the wild side of Alaska than we had previously, so it wasn't a wasted trip. 

Mountains and valleys

And clouds

And construction

Such a dramatic cloud cover on King Mt.