Elmo's log #7

Elmo and Tim
Sunset from the deck in Anchorage, around 10:45 P.M.
The highway to the house above Turnagain Arm

Elmo’s Log # 7

May 31, 2006

Posting Note: The posting of Elmo’s Log #7 was delayed due to computer connection issues. Hopefully that has been resolved.

Once again, we broke camp this morning in the rain, but with much less annoyance; for tonight we would sleep in a bed in a warm house in Anchorage. I think that both Annie and I are ready for a short break from camping.

The Drive from Tok to Anchorage along Alaska Highway 1 may be the most beautiful of the entire trip. I know that the Wrangle Mountains were just to the east of our route and that we passed close by both the Nelchina Glacier and the Matanuska Glacier. Unfortunately we missed much of that beauty because of clouds snuggled in valleys and marching down mountain sides. Fortunately, the part of the trip from Glennallen to Anchorage we have traveled before when the weather was more suited to expansive vistas.

What we did see had beauty of its own, clouds breaking momentarily to reveal craggy peaks and massive glaciers, cloud tatters swirling up the side of an overhanging cliff, the Matanuska River roaring, spewing, and foaming beside the road snaking around the mountains, lake surface mingling with cloud surface, and waterfalls materializing out of hanging clouds. Our route today would have been a great set for one of the Lord of the Rings movies.

Then Anchorage appeared hugging the shore of Cook Inlet and Turnagain Arm. Across the Inlet a string of volcanoes, like ghosts, hung on the horizon. The end of the first leg of our journey.