Days 13-15

I'm going to combine some days in the next couple of posts, just so you're not overloaded with posts, and then I'll try to start doing daily posts again.

On day 13 we woke up in Canada, ready to be back on American soil. We left a little late, but we were gaining a hour going back into Alaska. We got into Alaska about half an hour after we left and drove through gorgeous Alaskan scenery. We ate an early lunch that night at Fast Eddy’s in Tok, which is one of my favorite pizza places ever. From there we drove through Glennallen, then headed towards south central Alaska. The road from just north of Palmer and Wasilla is incredible—it’s on the side of a mountain, literally built into it—and provides an incredible view of some glaciers and rivers. Rivers in Georgia, at least where we are from, are relatively lazy. Sure, they flow…but not too fast at all. They’re also usually muddy brown.

These rivers are grey-ish (from glacier silt, I think), and so fast and powerful. They water looks thick, like melted silver, and angry as it tosses against underwater rocks and creates rapids. There’s something about it that I can hardly look away from. It’s utterly captivating.

The Matanuska-Susitna Valley is one of my favorite places on earth, because the mountains are so close and tall. The peaks are jagged and rugged here, not softer like most of the mountains around Anchorage appear from the city.

We arrived in Anchorage that night at the Krafts’ house, friends of ours for way more than twenty years. Their house feels like another home to me (and not just because we lived here for a month when I was in high school and we’d just moved up). It was so good to see them again.

On day 14 we decided our large family needed to split up so my parents went off with a friend for the day and John and I took the boys to the zoo. I love the Alaska Zoo here in Anchorage. The animals have such large homes there, and the gravel path that leads around the zoo to the different exhibits is through the woods so it all feels very natural. The zoo is somewhere I came a lot when I was a kid, so it was really special to share that with the boys.

On day 15 we went to Hatcher Pass and Independence Mine which is back in the Mat-Su Valley (see day 13). You have to drive up, up, up into the mountains and a mountain stream winds by the road. John speculated as to how they dyed it to get it that perfect color blue. Haha. It really was incredible though. I’m not sure if I got a picture or if I was too busy looking. Timothy was really grumpy once we got to the mine (I’d forgotten his puppy stuffed animal…oops.), but we hiked around anyway, enjoyed the history of a decades old gold mine. Many of the buildings have fallen, but some are still standing and are being restored and used as part of the park (state park, I think?). The views from above the mine were beautiful. We could see down into the valley, and the mountains all around us that we were in the middle of were beautiful too—vibrant green and rocky. I think Scotland must look very similar to this area of Alaska. Maybe that’s why I feel so at home there—my ancestry? Or maybe I just like it.

This far into the mountains there was still a little bit of snow in patches, still, so we crossed a mountain stream and hiked over to one of the patches and let the boys play on it. While Timothy had fun (finally!) sledding on his rain jacket down the snow from me to my mom, John played mountain goat and conquered some boulders, and my dad walked around with Josh (who eventually wanted to sled too). 

We were all pretty soaked and cold by the time we finished. I teased my mom and feeling warm and sleepy (hypothermia, anyone?), but we made it back to the Krafts’ house and took warm showers, and then ate a delicious salmon dinner. Love salmon…