Whittier

Saturday morning we headed out to Whittier (about an hour's drive from Anchorage) to go sea kayaking. Whittier is a unique town and kind of creepy. It was constructed by the US Government during WWII as a secret military installation. The location needed to be as inaccessible as possible. This location on Prince William Sound qualified. It is surrounded by 3500ft, impassible peaks, and lost in visibility-reducing cloud cover most of the time. The army built two high rise towers where more than 1000 residents lived, worked and shopped connected by a labyrinth of underground tunnels all maintained by the government until 1968. They also blasted a 2.7 mile long, one-way train tunnel through the granite. It is one of North America's engineering marvels. In 2000, the tunnel was overhauled for automobile traffic making it the longest auto tunnel in North America.. It is open each way for 15 minutes out of every hour. It is open the rest of the time for train traffic and to let the fumes dissipate. This photo shows us, in what we affectionately call "the gray whale", waiting to enter the tunnel after having paid our toll. Cornerstone Church has graciously given us the use of their church van while we are here.

We were greeted in Whittier with uncharacteristically clear, blue skies and a very unusual wind. Whittier is known for having such still water it looks like glass. But not on this day! No kayaking in the white caps today.

This is the boat harbor with a Princess cruise ship in port for the day.

The newer of the 2 high rise buildings and the only one still in use. Currently, this building houses all of the residents of the town as well as the store. Since Kayaking was out, we went to plan B and took a hike up over the mountain where the tunnel is. This is the view back down to Whittier Bay.

And this is the view the other direction looking down on Portage Lake and Glacier. That is a pretty good sized ship that you can take out from Whittier on a glacier cruise. This glacier is only visible from the water or by hiking the mountain. It was definitely worth the hike!

This is our group. Rhonda and Ben Bohart had joined us for the day. Ben is a native Alaskan and Rhonda has been here for the last three years. They are former students of Cliff's at Mid America and have been wonderful tour guides, and delightful company.

We left Whittier when the tunnel opened and headed to Girdwood for some lunch and another hike. This is a 5 mile hike through a lush forest. This is what the scenery looked like much of the way. I didn't get a photo but we did encounter swarms of the "state bird" for the first time while in this forest. Tucker was calling it "skeeter falls" when we left!


We crossed over the most beautiful river on a footbridge.

And then we came to a place where you could cross the river on a hand tram.

We took turns crossing in the tram.

And pulling it across.

This was the view looking down from the tram.

One more view of the river before we hiked out.

This is the back of the Alyeska hotel and resort right beside the trailhead. They were holding a wedding outside when we started up the trail.

Driving home, we saw our first wildlife! We are still arguing about whether they are mountain goats or sheep. Considering there are stuffed examples of both on the walls at the house, we should be certain. However, we think these are goats, but we could be wrong. Either way, it was fascinating to watch them climbing straight up the side of the mountain.

Today, Sunday, Terry preached his first sermon at Cornerstone. You can watch it at churchcornerstone.com (they are usually up on the web by the following Monday or Tuesday). It was great and the congregation has been wonderful!

Warning: No mountain vistas or wildlife (other than teenage boys) are found in the following photos. Decorating shots, food and flowers are likely to appear however. Proceed at your own risk.



Out for breakfast (really more like brunch) at the Snow City Cafe in downtown Anchorage this morning.

A 30 minute wait at 10:00 am - wow! I took a little walk around the block and here are the highlights. This is the view down the street to Cook Inlet.

Isn't this courtyard adorable? I just loved the fountain. We had one in our house a lot like this one when I was a kid. My uncle made it and I couldn't believe this one was so much like it. I also just love these flowers! (I took this walk alone - can you tell?)





Back at Snow City....


The wait wasn't really all that long and they have a coffee bar by the door! The decor is really fun with Christmas ornaments and snowflakes hanging from the ceiling and chandelier....


And brightly colored walls....
And very fun art.


Yogurt Parfait =>
made with homemade granola - yummm!

Salmon Cakes







And the food (yes that is what we came for) was beautiful and fabulous. Now we know why they have a wait all morning right into lunch.

Afterwards, back at the ranch....... rest and relaxation. They've been begging for a day like this. Glad we are putting to use the many pounds of books we hauled up here. In fact, we have 2 copies of one - just in case we both need to read it at the same time.

And live entertainment. Yesterday was a Pink Floyd medley. Today, vintage western ruled. In that same spirit, we're having chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes for dinner.

Girdwood and Beluga Point

We set out down the Seward Highway to Girdwood today for lunch. This is the road following the mountain. It is pretty much this beautiful the whole way. Kind of like driving in Northern New Mexico's mountain passes with the ocean on your other side. After about 25 minutes, we arrived in Girdwood, a sleepy little, hippy town at the base of the Alyeska ski resort.

This is where we had lunch. Can they grow flowers here or what? Everywhere we go the hanging baskets and herb gardens are amazing. Anyway, we went in for some fabulous pizza for lunch, New York and Chicago style. It was great, but the day got even better when we discovered.......Is it a moose? Is it a bear? Is it a giant halibut?????

Nooooooooooooooo.....It's ESPN and it's time for the NBA draft. How could we have been so fortunate? Great lunch and we get to see where Blake goes (as if we didn't already know).

With part of the first round complete, we moved on to check out the only store in town:

Girdwood Book and News. A charming used bookstore/coffee shop.


Ok, I know, this is a really lousy picture with the rear view mirror and cracked windshield but I had to show you what the view was like coming out of Girdwood to the main highway. I can only get so many picture stops per trip and this wasn't one of them.

We stopped at a roadside pull out called Beluga Point. We had stopped here with Cliff and Becky and it was so windy we couldn't get out. Today it was perfect. This is the view from the roadside.

Never content with a roadside view, Tucker had plans for us to climb on the rocks below.

I'm not the only one taking pics!

Tucker really wanted to climb this (yes this photo is right side up). But calmer heads prevailed and he and his dad took off.

And climbed this one instead.

I think the wind blows really hard here a lot!

I loved the way the light shimmered on the water here. It's really cool behind the grass.

There's beauty everywhere. Even in the rocks!

The Matanuska Glacier & Palmer Alaska

On our way to see the Matanuska glacier we stopped in Palmer for lunch. Palmer is a town about 30 minutes north of Anchorage. It was settled in the 1930's when FDR relocated about 200 farmers from the dustbowl to Palmer, Alaska. It is the home of the Alaska State Fair, held in August and showcasing mammoth vegetables weighing hundreds of pounds. The growing season is short, but with almost 24 hours a day of sunlight this area grows incredible veggies. We ate at the Colony Inn Cafe which is located in the dining room of a former dormitory used in the 30's for temporary housing. It is now an inn.

I took these shots from outside the van while we were stopped on the highway for road construction about 10 miles from the road to the glacier, about 100 miles northeast of Anchorage on HWY 1. This is one of the most beautiful drives I've ever seen, but only in Alaska do they take out both lanes of the mountain road at the same time!

This is the edge of the glacier as seen from the road. I believe this is one of the few you can see from the road and it is also one of the few valley glaciers. It exists on a valley floor. Most of the other Alaskan glaciers are alpine glaciers which hang off mountain slopes. It is 24 miles long and 4 miles wide and advances at one foot per day taking approximately 250 years for ice to form upglacier and advance to the terminus (that's the part we're looking at here).

Fireweed grows up just in front of the glacier. It is amazing how it sprouts up out of the rocks.

This is called the moraine. It sounds like meringue but it's not. It is rocks and finely ground dust that have been carved off the underlying rock and pushed up in front of the edge of the glacier. You have to walk over a lot of it to get to the glacier and it can be in really big piles.

At some point, you look down and realize there's ice under the rocks and then you see the incredible blue color of the ice under the rocks. It's blue because the ice is so dense it allows the entire spectum of light to be absorbed except the blue which is reflected and therefore seen by your eye. Cool huh?

It's amazing!
Of course we explored and posed for the family pic (yes, I really am here).

We didn't go ice climbing however. (This is not our family)

What a handsome guy! That's why I took this picture but then I noticed....a study in perspective. If you look above his head and to the right about an inch, you'll see the ice climbers that are featured in the photo above this one. Just in case you got lost in the up close photos, this shows just how HUGE this place is!

Yes, he really is on the phone on a glacier! AT&T would be proud!