|| Seward Harbor

Again at early morning time, we went back to the road. It was extremely cloudy and depressed. The mountains were mostly in the shadows, in the icy fogs or simply under the sky. I've always noticed that the world looks even better under moody weathers, and here in Alaska, it was very much the same. Breathtaking it was to see the weather changes on mountains from far then to closer views. There was chill in the air and moisture, but no one else on the road. We constantly stopped at places to take pictures, no words would be enough to describe the beauty of the land, the canyon, the trees, the plateaus ....

I was hoping to get a refund from K2 but was full of joy after hearing that we were actually going to fly. It was a 10 people small plane and we were mostly sitting at the tail end of the plane. The view was amazing, not that subtle or slow developing as what I typically felt when on road, most of this was fast and the landscape changed left to right and up and down. I seemed to understand why the climbers wanted this even risking their lives. Flying was also a handsome thing to do, very cool and very intelligent, there were constantly radio transactions on the plane, and I could hear clearly a female voice, a wonderful soothing one. She was saying, good luck, have a safe flight ... it was extraordinary.

A long way coming off of the flight, was getting closer to Anchorage again. We came back to the center of the town and had a wonderful lunch at a Japanese restaurant DAMI. I ordered the teriyaki halibut bento box and the tempura udon. After two days of trailer made chinese fast food, this meal was very well welcomed. The next leg of the journey was unexpected, it was probably the most beautiful drive for the trip, also for my driving history.

When I researched Anchorage, most of the reviews were about the homogenous compared to the lower 48 states. That was my imagination but certainly not doing any justice to what I saw after turning onto the Seward drive. The ugly urbanity started sparse out and finally all I had was a winding road of creek-river-swamp, mountains with moraines in the close and mountains with glaciers in the background, while on the other side, national forest and country lodges here and there. It was so pretty and so impressive, plus the depressing clouds and light rain ... was perfect and was delightful. A good 30-60 miles, the scenes were all like this, maybe knowing that I wouldn't turn around for a second chance so I was grateful for the extension.

The creek-river-swamp disappeared and we arrived at the entrance of the Kenai peninsular. I didn't choose to stop here overnight, a mistake. It was a totally different scene and feel, not that high ground, blowing wind with that hopes of getting to the platinum top, this was hopeful because of the green vegetation amid the spotty glaciers, so strong and so abundant, they covered the entire land, left and right, top and bottom. There was more moisture in the air, like a late spring season, making you just want to live in it.

Having some trouble finding the Salmon Bake cabin by GPS, I called the office and embarrassed myself because I was actually right there. I was living in cabin #4, a charming little place with bunk bed, lots of details and small touches, reflecting the designer's taste as well as infrastructure. Loved the place so much!

Not so impressive was the Seward harbor, very commercialized and tourist-y. But walked on the deck and off the deck, went into gift shops and purchased a can of smoked salmon. Suddenly saw a crowd at a place, checked it out, one of the favorite sightings, the fishing tournament. A chartered boat was coming on shore and brought back very handsome looking halibut. I was hoping to be able to take pictures with them but they belonged to the rich people/family who went on the fishing tours. They were selfish by my definition but more proper description was that they were not generous. But I was happy seeing the fish and did snatch a few pictures for them.