Alaska 2008

We left Seward this morning under gray misty skies. As we headed north on the Seward Highway, we encountered occasional rain showers. By the time we reached Girdwood, the clouds lifted a bit and the sun made an effort to show its face. We stopped at the intersection of Potter Hill Road and the Seward Highway to meet our friend, Michelle Coburn. When we visited Michelle's home last week, she asked that we stop and meet her on our way out of the Kenai Peninsula. Michelle had wanted to see how we lived on the road and she presented us with some salmon, freshly caught by her husband, Bret, over the weekend.

A few moments after we got back on the Seward Highway we were in Anchorage. I was concerned that the detours for the Glenn Highway construction eastbound were as bad as the ones we had to go through coming into Anchorage. I didn't need to worry as we went through the detours without a problem. The Glenn Highway splits from the Parks Highway in Palmer and heads up into what I think is one of the more scenic roads we traveled in Alaska. It runs along the Matanuska River and past the Matanuska Glacier. At times it climbs above the tree line so that when we look up the mountain, you see tundra or barren rock. The road has some curves in it and we passed a construction site where they are blasting a new road through a mountain in order to straighten it up. The construction area had one way traffic for several miles and we had to wait for 15 minutes for the pilot car to escort us through, a minor inconvenience. Other than the traffic jammed up because of the wait, the highway was relatively empty and traffic from the construction area thinned out pretty quickly.

When we went up the Glenn Highway in 2005, we were told that this is not a heavily used road. Many people traveling from Anchorage to Tok and beyond prefer to go up the Parks Highway to Fairbanks and then down the Richardson and Alaska Highway because they don't like the curves. I suspect that the State of Alaska is improving the Glenn Highway because it is a shorter run from Anchorage to Canada and the lower 48 states. I also found that the condition of the Glenn Highway was, for the most part, as good as the other roads we traveled in Alaska. Of course, not having much traffic is not good for the businesses along the Glenn Highway. The campground we are staying in tonight is relatively empty. When we stopped here in 2005, it had empty spots. This time, it had two spots filled for the night, ours and a family, camping in the back of the campground, that seemed to be here for a while. The campground has minimal services, but it is a nice setting and a good place to stop for a night.

Michelle Coburn and Susie