Day 29 and 30 - Slip Sliding Away
We will not bore you with our morning - laundry, tidy-up, banking...yawn! Necessary evils even (or especially) on the road but just at the noon check-out all the laundry, tidying and chores were done so off we head to the Glenn Highway. The rain has stopped and dare we say we see sunshine and blue sky over there? Ooh, we sure hope so!
The Glenn Highway stretches from the Tok Cutoff to Anchorage, AK and winds its way through the Talkeetna and Chugach mountains with the promise of lots of beauty and amazing glaciers to see.
There are also many little side roads you can take but today we will be heading straight for Valdez without the detours. We must come back this way to reach Tok on our way home in a few days, so we may take some detours then. Even without the detours, this road is very scenic and we were blessed with some sunny skies.
One of the highlights was the Matanuska Glacier 101 miles from Anchorage. You get your first glimpses of this glacier as you are driving along the road but then there is a veiwpoint with information kiosks to pull in to so you can get a good look and take some photos. Quoting from the Milepost: "Matanuska Glacier heads in the Chugach Mountains and trends northwest 27 miles. Some 18,000 years ago, the glacier reach all the way to the Palmer area. The glacier's average width is 2 miles and at it's terminus it is 4 miles wide. The glacier has remained fairly stable the past 400 years." According to one of the information panels, a scientific study is being conduction on this glacier to find out what affects the speed of a glacier and the effects of climate change on the glaciers of Alaska.
At Glennallen, we stopped for supper and then headed down the Richardson Highway towards Valdez. As you turn at the Junction here, you get a marvelous view of Mount Drum which is part of the Wrangell Mountains. We got a few other glimpses as we rode along, but eventually the clouds obscured it. There was a lake called Mirror Lake that sometimes reflect these mountains but it wasn't so mirror-like for us. However, there was an amazing rainbow that we captured on film before it faded!
We made a lot of miles today, but petered out about 55 miles out of Valdez where we pulled off the road and dry camped for the night. The clouds look ominous over the pass and it will be better for us to traverse over the mountains with rested and alert eyes. Just as we were fading off to sleep, Corona took off barking and we were joined by some hunters who also were dry camping in our spot. Corona is a good guard dog though and it is good to have him along. We will rest easy knowing he is on duty!
This morning, although it has not started to rain here, those clouds still look ominous and we cannot see much of the surrounding mountains. We have woken up very early (so have the hunters) and they have warned us that there is a fresh kill nearby and to watch for bears and wolves and keep an eye on our little doggie! Good job we're not planning to stay too long.
We head out towards Valdez and did not get very far before the raindrops started to fall. Despite the sogginess, these mountains are just beautiful with amazing waterfalls, mountain meadows and impressive peaks. The pass was pretty fogged in and we are glad we waited till morning to complete the trek down to Valdez. Valdez' weather is very much like Seward was for us. The forecast is eight days of rain! We checked in at the info centre and got some intel on the tours and museums in the area and also a place with wi-fi out of the wet so I can complete our blog entries and try to get the photos to download.
So, here I am at their beautiful library typing away, listening to the wonderful sounds of happy children discovering books in the children's section just below me. I have written postcards, transferred pictures, written the blog and now will attempt to add pictures to our blog and send it off to everyone!
Earl is not feeling well, so went to find a spot to park the trailer so he can have a lie down. I am thinking, after a month on the road, we are getting road weary and it is a good thing that we start to wind our way home now.
Wish me luck as I try to make the pictures work. We have some great shots to share with you all so I hope it works!
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