A Travel Day

 

We left Denali this morning under sunny skies (figures!) with a temperature of 39, and headed south toward the Kenai Peninsula. We didn’t have a plan as to where we might end up for the night, only that it would be sorta “thataway”. Well, we ended up in the town of Kenai, which means we covered almost 350 miles!

Along the way we saw Denali . . . almost! We were driving south on the Parks Highway when we saw the mountain almost entirely exposed. We stopped at a viewpoint and were soon joined by 5 other rigs, all waiting for the last cloud to clear the summit. Wouldn’t you know it? After 20 minutes of watching the last cloud slowly move west, it stalled. We waited, and waited, but it just sat there. We finally gave up, happy to have seen as much of The Mountain as we did.

We proceeded south through Wasilla (nope, no Sarah sightings, but maybe we saw the “First Dude”; he was a burly guy with a mustache in a pickup, right?). We went through the western edge of Anchorage and looked further west to see Russia, but it seems there are mountains in the way. We did find a Costco and bought gas for only $3.30/gallon; it felt like they were giving it away after the prices we’ve been paying!

We then drove further south through the Turnagain Arm and onto the Kenai Peninsula. What a spectacularly beautiful area! We’re camped on the top of a bluff above Beluga Point with a great view of Cook Inlet, and we sat outside in the never-ending sun with a glass of wine and our binoculars, but failed to spot any beluga whales. Maybe it’s not the right season? Now that we’re here, we have 5 days in which we’ll drive maybe a total of 300 miles exploring the area. It will be a nice break from our “road trip”.

Mt. Redoubt, Cook Inlet Alaska