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Thursday, Road to Seward
We had been told that the road down to Seward (Alaska Highway #1) was quite possibly the most beautiful drive in all of Alaska. It was hard to believe that anything could surpass what we had seen already, but today was the day for that drive. We were not disappointed. The combination of the ocean (Turnagain Arm, named such because Captain Cook had to turn his ships again and again in order to get them out) with the snow covered mountains was a humbling sight to behold. My camera is nice, not really fancy, but I don't think any camera anywhere can capture how you feel when you see this part of God's creation. And there are really no words that I know that capture it. I am reminded of the verse in Romans 1 which talks about the power and nature of God that can be seen in the things of creation, power beyond our description.
We stopped in a small town called Girdwood to have lunch, Alaska style. Eddie had a toss-up between the elk burger or the caribou burger. Elk won. I tried the fresh halibut. Neither of us were disappointed.
Along the highway near Girdwood, there were a lot of people out fishing with nets. We are told that at this time of the year, in some locations, you can just put in a net and pick up a fish. It seemed to be working that way. Not much for the sport, I guess, but pretty good for stocking your freezer.
Waterfalls were everywhere, for a while, it seemed about every 50 feet or so, another waterfall was coming down off the mountain.
It has been raining off and on all day. It has been a good relaxing day. We have been up late most nights probably due to the time change and partly due to the lack of darkness. I sprained my ankle yesterday, so a day sitting and driving has been nice to give it a rest.
We are camping tonight in Williwaw Campground, near the big tunnel going into Whittier. There is snow right outside our camper, a white mountain to the side, and we are right in the middle of a Christmas tree forest. It is quiet, except for the rain. The sign said to watch for bears, and we will.
Now for some thoughts. Alaska is unique to my experience in several ways. There is no sales tax on anything here. Nice, huh? But, in my opinion, they might consider that in order to work on some of the roads. In Texas, for instance, if you say some place is 60 miles away, it will take you about 60 minutes, right? Here, if something is 60 miles away, you can plan on probably 90 minutes. Don't get me wrong, the less than perfect roads are well worth the scenery, but just take my word for it, don't try to walk around in the back of a moving RV on some of those roads, okay?
One thing I really, really like about Alaska is that there are no billboards on the roads. Highway signs are there, but no advertising signs. At first, it honestly took some getting used to. We tend to look for signs to let us know what is in a town to et, where to stay, etc. But signs would really detract from the beauty. Wonder how that would work in Texas.
Trees. There are so many trees here, but we are told that they have to ship in trees for building purposes. A lot of these trees look like pipe cleaners and they look more like a corn field than a forest. Very interesting. We saw a display talking about how long it takes to grow the White Spruce and the Black Spruce. The Black spruce grows very, very slow and its rings are really tight. The display showed a tree that was about 60 years old and its diameter was about 4 inches. The White Spruce, on the other hand, was about 50 years old and its diameter was about 8 inches. Just thought that was interesting.
The daylight hours here are playing tricks on my mind. Right now, for instance, if we were home, I might look outside and say that it was maybe 8 or 8:30 and it is nearly 10:00, and even with the cloudy sky, it won't be dark for another couple of hours. We haven't seen the darkness except for one night, last night, and it was just about to get dark when we went to bed, nearly midnight. They say they play hard in the summer here, and sleep hard in the winter.
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Eddie's child by captain cook do you mean dad?