Thank You Sunshine

The weather was and is calling for more rain all week. So what a surprise when we woke to partly sunny skies that lead into sunny skies later in the afternoon. We needed to make a few stops for a few more souvenirs before leaving Wasilla four our 235 mile ride to Valdez/McCarthy area. Since it was a hard steady rain yesterday we spent most of the day shopping in Anchorage for gifts for the family.

Once we were on our way we found the Glenn Hwy a beautiful ride. Twisting Turning roads, mountains of all shapes and sizes with clouds coming down to rest on top of them or rest at to base making the mountains appear as if the are skyrocketing out from the heavens.     This Hwy, the Glenn Hwy is just a 2 lane road, opening to an occasional temporary passing lane along the Matanuska River   with extremely steep drop offs at times. With the sunshine, the Matanuska Glacier was lit up. This is a massive glacier and from several miles away we though it was clouds shinning in the sun. This glacier is the largest automobile accessible glacier in Alaska.   I would have loved to have gone there however, the steep and narrow road was not conducive to RV travel and Hooptie, well she has done her share of semi 4 wheeling but we know her limits. So we opted to admire the glacier from afar.

Nelchina Glacier was beautiful with the ominous cloud lurking over her.

Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, with 13.2 million acres, is the largest National Park in the US and had 9 of 16  tallest peaks in North America. It is bigger than the country of Switzerland and has taller mountains. We got a small glimpse of Mt. Drum and Mt. Wrangell but the clouds would not cooperate so we could see the peaks. We will take the 60 mile drive on a gravel road that leads us to another visitor center tomorrow so we can take a tour bus that will bring us deeper into the National Park. After that, we will go into a small town, McCarthy, that is only accessible by foot path. This drive today has been such a nice one with mountains, valleys, rivers, lakes, meadows, and tight squeezes.       I still find it to be strange and wonderful that the “highways” here, for the most part, are 2 lane roads, with no traffic and fantastic scenery.