Day 48: Anchorage to Kenny Lake

June 1, 2014

Today started with breakfast in the rig then packing up and heading toward Kenny Lake. We stopped at Fred Meyer in Eagle River for fuel in Fred and the truck. We then retraced our steps from last Thursday from Eagle River back to Glennallen. The mountains were even more beautiful today than last week with about 3 inches of fresh snow above 1000 feet. Beautiful snow but the roads were clear and dry. The sun was out and the sky blue.

We again stopped at the Matanuska glacier, did some hiking, caching and more pictures in better light than last week. Barry and Donna seemed to really like the glacier.

It was then on to Glennallen but rather than returning toward Tok we headed south toward Valdez. We stopped at the Wrangell St Elias National Park Visitors Center. They have some very nice displays, maps of the park and helpful rangers. Nice facility. We pulled over at several scenic lookouts for pictures. Unfortunately the big Wrangell mountains were clouded over at the very top. We got some decent pictures but none with the entire mountains. We will be partially retracing today's route Thursday when we had toward Paxson so we will try again then for the “perfect” picture.

We also got a glimpse of the Tran Alaska Pipeline as it parallels the road.

We turned onto the Edgerton Highway and after about 7.5 miles arrived at tonight's destination Kenny Lake Mercantile – groceries, videos, souvenirs, diesel, propane, gas, gifts, hotel and RV park. And they also have the Vicki's Burger Bus. Without knowing who we were talking to inside the store Donna asked where was a good place to eat in the area. Vicki's Burger Bus was given rave reviews and then after telling us all about the burgers she told us “by the way, I'm Vicki.” Well, not feeling we had much choice after talking to Vicki (besides there is really no where else to eat) we all four had burgers tonight. They were quite good. “1/3 pound of certified Angus.”

We spent the rest of the evening preparing for tomorrows glacier hike. All four of us are excited about this “expedition” as none of us have ever done this before. We will leave about 5:30 am for McCarthy so we need to get some sleep.