Monday, September 5, 2011

To Hope: A Rainy Day During Rainy Season In A Rainforest

On the way out of Anchorage at Turnagain Arm.


I've been down this road before and this is actually a picture from a previous trip. It was raining so much on this trip that I didn't get the pictures I wanted to get along the inlet. In reality, the scenery is so lush I can hardly believe it's real. On the inland side, green gives way to more green, backed by blue and green new mountains and the view suddenly opens up to a blue river as wide as a lake and then rolls and rolls off and off into the distance.




I went to bed last night having decided to maybe--depending upon the weather, depending upon how sleepy I woke up, depending upon my penchant for making sudden, "damn the torpedos, full speed ahead" moves--take a trip to Hope, Alaska, a little historic gold mining town about 80 miles south of  Anchorage on the Kenai Peninsula where some of the original structures are still standing and still in use--cafe, library, museum, church.


I always learn something valuable from people I meet in my travels.  Here the proprietor of this tiny, cluttered gift store shares a little-known golf secret that I will probably take to my grave before I ever take it to the golf course...you know, not being a golfer and all.





In the picture below, you can see the school through the woods--kind of.   It's there.  I remember going to a very small school in the mountains of Colorado for a few months.  Didn't hate it at all.  That's when we lived way out there, way up there and even when we went to down to the town, there was hardly anything and anyone there, either.  We had fun.





On the way back to Anchorage, I took a little spin around Girdwood and the Alyeska Ski Resort area.  I don't know quite what this pig's head in the yard is meant to mean.   I do know (from spending time in the mercantile with other shoppers) that the main form of transportation in this place is the Canna Bus.  That may explain something.

1 comment:

constanza said...

Hey, I can finally comment, I hope. Lauren opened my G account.
I'm loving Alaska and your wonderful narrative.
Constance