18 & Non-stop

This boy will be 18 in a few more days and graduating high school in May.  I think I'm possibly, sort of ready??  Maybe?

Alaskan Vaca 2022 - Day 12, Lounging Around at the Eagle River Cabin

Ahhh... a lazy day!  

I made some coffee and went out on the deck to enjoy the view and my beverage.  Let's have a look around.

Hmmm... wait.  A visitor?

A moose came by to say, "hi!".

Moose A. Moose had moved on so I took some pics of different directions of my coffee view.

Rob and I went for a short drive to find the moose again as we could hear him bugle a few times.

All four of us went for a slightly longer short drive to view more of the valley until we hit a dead end.

Our AirBn'b is somewhere on that mountain side.  I really love it here!!!

 

Let's have a look around this place.

This is where I sat to write my journal.  I would often drift and imagine myself working "from home" M-F from this very location!  Have I mentioned that I loved this place?

Tomorrow, we board a plane for Iowa and we weren't very excited for that...

Love The Pups!

 

Alaskan Vaca 2022 - Day 11, Goodbye to Seward & Hello to Eagle River

A lazy last morning in Seward as we need to check out of the Best Western by 11am but cannot check into our last AirBn'b in Eagle River until after 4pm.

We went down for breakfast at the hotel and ended up standing as there were no seats/tables available.  The food was sub-par from the previous morning, but so be it.

Back up to the room to pack everything up and hopefully get moving down (or up?) the road.  It's raining again, or still, and coming down pretty good.  We head out in search of real coffee that is unlike the hotel coffee that you could read a newspaper thru.

That took us back down to the area of tourist hell where we boarded the boat yesterday.  Rob got out to take a pic or two while Mama went to secure coffee.  Caleb and I stayed in our vessel so we could keep moving around the immediate vicinity as the parking spots are scarce at best.  At one point, I was parked illegally in  a "bus only" spot when a bus pulled up, as a larger, full sized tour bus was pulling out!  To describe it as an absolute cluster would be an understatement!  At one point, I was sideways across a lane of traffic with a full-sized RV an inch away from my front bumper and the bus, whose spot I was occupying, about 3 inches from my back bumper!  Not cool...

We prevailed and made it out alive to hit the road only to have a camper pull out in front of us after only 2 blocks on the highway.  I have dubbed this phenomenon as "dealing with camper-ass".  I don't much enjoy it as a lot of people driving these things in places like Alaska are very inexperienced and it shows!!! 

This fella wasn't quite as lucky.  Remember the story about Mama reading about local Alaskans telling tourist to slow down as a bad wreck can not only ruin a vacation, but it can close a road for the better part of a day when there is no other option.  Luckily this cat was off of the road so no imposition to others, but yikes...

Next are just from pictures from our drive.

This is on the road to Hope, Alaska. Love little places like this along the road where the tree's open up and you have beautifully clean water in a stream to look at.  This is where Mama just popped out of the car to take the pics, but asked to use my phone as hers takes some shady pictures.  To set this up, Mama takes a lot of blurry pics, pics with a finger in it or whatever.  When she got out of the car to take the pics,  Rob made the comment, "Well, we sent out our weakest soldier but at least she's armed.".  

Hope, Alaska.  It was initially established as a mining community.

Fly fishing!  The first time that I've witnessed such a thing and it was fun to watch!  Watch your step tho, or you're going to be face down in the mud.

The plaque says, "Willard Rheingans Cabin, 1939, Hope Historic District".

A snow shovel and some electrical work that was likely not original back in 1939.

The building to the right was the original town hall.

Second crash site of the day...

We squeezed in a little mini-golf in Anchorage as we can't check into our next Air Bn'b until 4pm and we're due to get some lunch soon too.

I cannot flip this pic for the life of me, but I, dear ol' Dad, won again!

We ate at Humpy's.  It was delicious and they had good beers.

I always try to get a pic of Rob eating his chicken wings as it looks like he needs a shower afterwards.

After Humpy's,  we left for our last Air Bn'b in Eagle River and the drive was quite stunning with lots of good places to die should you not be paying attention.  

Once we got settled in, I went to get gas, visit a liquor store called the Brown Jug next door,  and then hit the Carr's grocery store so we can do some cooking instead of eating out all of the time.  What struck me was that with this being our 50th state, and having hit grocery stores in many of them, they are all SO similar that it was shocking when I walked back outside with the beauty that surrounded me along with the smell of the air!

The next several pics are on the drive back to the cabin.

There's our place.  Let's go in and have a look around.

The loft outside of the master bath where I wrote my journal.

The Eagle River valley below our cabin.

From the back deck...

In the left of the pic, about 1/3 of the way up, you can catch a slight glimpse of the Eagle River.

I spent some time out on the deck watching the sunset.  This place makes me NEVER want to leave Alaska!!!

 It was great that it was finally not raining and there was very little sound out here that wasn't nature.  Stunning.  I hated going to bed and was excited to get up the next morning to enjoy more of this place.  And to cook!!!