July 5th 2004 Anchorage to Glennallen

I have been in Anchorage for a couple of days now and I am starting to go a little stir crazy. To the south it seems like all of Alaska has escaped from the city's to the Kenai, mainly to Seward and the traffic and full camp sites are too much for me. I spent the holiday yesterday in my hotel room just relaxing and watching TV. I hadn't watched any TV in 3 weeks. What about fire works you might ask, Surely you watched the fireworks in Anchorage on the 4th? Nope, there aren't any because it doesn't get dark enough! Never the less Anchorage was also crowded, I don't know how because the other night it seemed like every RV in the state was headed south. Never the less Anchorage was still crowded and I really prefer less crowded places. To the north there was still Rain near Denali and Dense smoke near Fairbanks. It's starting to seem that the entire state was either burning or getting rained on. So I did LAUNDRY! Wahooooo! Then I grabbed some groceries and just started going north. when I got to Wasilla and the junction of the Parks Hwy (AK3) and the Glenn Hwy (AK1) I decided to take the Glenn which follows the Matanuska river to the east.

Today's Map

That's allot of car moose collisions!

The rainy weather makes some dramatic views of the Chugach mountains

Fog hovering over the river

Looking back down stream if you look at the lower right part of this picture you can see the confluence of another river with the Matanuska. Note the lighter brown water mixing with the darker main flow.

The Matanuska Glacier. One of the three glaciers in Alaska that are easily accessible by car. It was about 10:00pm when I took this pic and they weren't letting any one down the road to the glacier this late. Oh well maybe next time

Some of the bridges I came across didn't look so sturdy, this is one of the better ones

To go the next day click HERE