Tuesday, June 24^th, 2008

 

Moving day again and the weather is beautiful today.  While Tim and Doug went to pick up repaired vehicles, the rest of the crew packed up the campers and got things ready for travel.  We said goodbye to our Wasilla friends and headed south through and past Anchorage.  We stopped at a grocery store called Three Bears to get groceries for the next few days.  Milk was $4.00/gallon; apples were $3.49/pound; bananas were $2.45/pound and not worth buying.  At home these bananas would have been wrapped with tap and on clearance.  My sister-in-law said that she didn’t really like apples and tomatoes when she lived in Anchorage and maybe it was because they were so expensive that she didn’t get them very often and when she did get them they were not at their best.  It must be very expensive for the stores to get fresh produce in Alaska.  We have been to several Wal-Mart’s in Alaska and none of them have a fresh produce section although some of them did have a food store.  Even Wal-Mart has a hard time getting fresh produce in Alaska.  We haven’t had a banana, apple, or any other fresh fruit since we left home.  We have purchased a head of lettuce for $1.29 and a clearance bag of spinach leaves for $0.99.  Baby carrots in a bag are less than $2.00 so we have had some salads.  But we haven’t had any tomatoes because they are $4.00/pound and like our tomatoes in the winter. 

 

On the way thru Anchorage, a vent cover came off Doug’s camper, and it was destroyed (we ran over it, and it busted into little bitty pieces).  We stopped for a cheap bite at Taco Bell, and there was a RV place right across the street that had just what he needed.  (God moment #1).  After lunch, we headed down the road, and had not gone very far when our sister in law Becky told us over the walkie talkies that a childhood friend of hers had just pulled up beside them and recognized her (Becky lived in Anchorage for until she was 10 years old).  We followed her to her house and hung out there for a few minutes (God moment #2).  Our kids thought that was the weirdest thing, running into an old friend in Anchorage, 4,000 miles from home in a city of 230,000.

 

The drive through Anchorage was much different that we expected. There are a lot of mountains around Anchorage and it is a very pretty city.  Before this trip, we were advised that we should just skip Anchorage because it is just like any other big city.  I am sure it is just like it in many ways too.  Anchorage has water around part of it and Turnagain Arm intrigued us.  It is on the south side (I think I have my directions straight) of Anchorage and it is a narrow area where ocean water comes in and out with the tides.  We saw it first at low tide when the mud flats are visible.  Mud flats are just the land under the water but it is mud and silt from the mountains so it looks like sand but it is gray like shale.  The Milepost (our Alaska guide book) advised us that it is dangerous to walk out on the mud flats because the sand there can act like quick sand.  The Milepost also told us about something called a bore tide.  Because the tide comes in and out in such a narrow area and there is 33 feet difference in the water depth between low tide and high tide, the water comes in and out very quickly.  A couple hours after low tide, the water comes back into Turnagain Arm as a wave that can be as big as 6 feet tall and then it curls around like a wave that could be surfed.  Of course this wave is not as big as a surf wave but I guess people have been known to try to surf this wave. We didn’t see anyone trying it. Beluga whales can be seen with the bore tides. Also at low tide eagles visit the mud flats and we got to see several eagles, some bald eagles and some American eagles.  Since we were driving by during low tide we decided to find a campsite and then come back to see if we could see a bore tide.  They had a visitor’s center along Turnagain Arm so we checked the Internet for the time of the bore tide.

 

We have graduated to a new level of camping status.  There was a campground that had flush toilets and showers but the campsites were in a parking lot so we went on.  We chose a campground because it is beautiful but it doesn’t have flush toilets or showers and we might stay two nights.  We have never done that before (and might not ever do it again).  As a matter of fact, we didn’t think we would ever choose a campground that didn’t have flush toilets when we began this trip.  We (us girls) were a bit worried that we might not have any choice but to have to stay in one of those campgrounds with pit toilets.  Now here we are and no one has complained a bit.  We have used many pit toilets on this trip at rest stops and when we are sight seeing but only when we are desperate and nothing else is available.  The campground we stayed at was Williwaw USFS Campground and it was in the Portage Glacier valley with glaciers all around us.  The creeks are blue green colored from the glacier runoff that has minerals and silt in it.  Some of the glaciers have a blue green color to them and others are white like snow.  There is a blue green glacier just above our campsite. It is beautiful.