Friday, July 21: On the Road again

We wanted to get an early start this morning so we packed up as quickly as possible and decided to eat breakfast on the road. I hated to pass up a morning with Randy and Bernadette, but we already were still in Homer rather than our planned night over in Palmer 6 hours up the road. More hugs goodbye and we were on our way.

It was nice to be able to see the drive this

time. It had been completely socked in when we arrived in Anchorage on our way down but today was “the fourth sunny day of the summer!” as Randy put it as we were saying goodbye. It is a beautiful drive. A bit slow due to it only being two lane and lots of visitors and campers making their way up and down the peninsula in the summer.

Poor zippy is more interested in sleeping than watching the scenery go by.

Redoubt - Micah's volcano visible on our drive to Anchorage :)

We made a stop in Kenai to pick up a Walmart order to restock our groceries before heading up the highway any further. I was grateful for pick up orders and cheaper groceries again, but I was pretty happy that our across the bay shopping skills still fared us well in Seldovia. I had managed to make meals work the entire stay without needing to shop at the Crab Pot for anything except a bottle of honey for our morning tea. It was a disgusting price, but it was my only purchase and I do like to support the locals when we need to :). Oh we did buy a lemon and some garlic for some fish one night.

Another view of Matanuska glacier on our way home.

We stopped to take a photo at Turnagain Arm which was our first truly gorgeous view point 20 years ago after we had flown into Anchorage and began our drive down to Homer for our honeymoon. Our anniversary is July 27th!

We made it all the way to Tok today. Almost to the first stop we had made and camped on our move to NC back in 2012. We camped on Teslin Lake back then. The bugs were HORRIBLE, swarming us by the thousands. We left the kids in the car as Tim and I scrambled to set up a tent as quickly as possible before stuffing the kids in with the sleeping gear and zipping out as many of the buggers as we could. Our dinner tonight was reminiscent of that. We made a point to stop at the pull off with a picnic table so we could have dinner outside of a moving vehicle and actually cook. But the bugs foiled our plans. It was fine when we first got out of the van. Abbey and I started on sauce, tortellini and a salad while everyone else decided to hike the trail to the creek. Big mistake. About 10 minutes later they all came scrambling into the camper, slamming the door behind them, but not before bringing in an entire cloud of bugs with them. We had disturbed them and now pleasantries were over. The picnic table was no longer an option (it had a spike up through it and several large gaps due to missing boards so there wasn’t much going for it to begin with). Plan B was to haul all of the piled camping gear back out of the camper to make our seating and table space available to eat. The weather had turned and it was now hot and stuffy as we sweated over our bowls of noodles and swatted the remaining bugs. It wasn’t the best birthday dinner I’d ever had but I did thank the kids for staying cheerful for my sake. We were able to laugh over the swarm of giant horseflies and mosquitoes on the screen door and the overhead vent. They knew we were in there!

Zippy decides she's awake enough to enjoy some scenery.

But our spot tonight was bug free thankfully. In a rest area outside of Tok, on some river as the sun settled as much as it would for the night. Tomorrow we would be our last day in Alaska as we’ll head into Canada once again. The kids are NOT excited but it should be a bit more enjoyable if we’re not throwing up this time through!