June 12, 2018

The last few days have just been doing a little touring, and hanging around. It is really nice to be settled without the pressure of moving down the road.

Over the last few days, we spent a little time in Palmer, Wasilla, Anchorage, and today down the Turnagain arm of the Cook Inlet.

One of our nicest hikes was up the Bodenburg Butte. We rode horses up in 2014 and 2016. The hike is pretty steep with around 300 stair steps. The hike up is well worth it as views are spectacular. I even took a hazy picture of Mount McKinley (Denali).

The next day we went downtown to Anchorage. One touristy thing we had not done in the past was to take the trolley. It was OK, but there was not a lot of photographic opportunities. We tried to go to lunch at Humpy's, but after over an hour waiting for our orders, we just left. They were having some difficulties.  I guess one of the cooks just walked out. Go figure.

We spent the entire day today with the goal of seeing the bore tide around 4PM. We drove down to the Portage Glacier area (Chugach National Forest and State Park). We had an awesome lunch right on the Portage Creek.

We stopped at a couple of the visitor centers just to see if there was anything new before heading back up to our pre selected viewing area. We based this stop on some internet searches and suggestions. The prime spot was to be the pullout just south of Bird Point.

The parking lot filled up pretty quickly as this was supposed to be a pretty significant Bore Tide. After hanging around a while, I noticed that about a half a dozen surfers were getting ready just south of us. This increased our excitement. However, when the tide arrived, we just saw a rush of water. Immediately looking south, the Bore built up to at least 4 feet based upon my estimation.

We were one pullout too north!!!! Oh well. We did get to see the guys surfing. It is supposed to be a little stronger around the 15th. If we have time we may go back down and pick a pullout further south.

We did get a video of it in 2016, but it was just a couple feet high. I was really hoping on something huge.

The hike up Bodenburg Butte:

 Pioneer Peak

 Matanuska Glacier

Mount McKinley a long ways off

Some of the Stairs on Bodenburg Butte

Flowers in Palmer:

Downtown Anchorage:

On the Trolley

Visitors Center

This is an underground house

Down the Turnagain Arm of Cook Inlet:

Lunchtime view from Portage Creek

Yellow Warbler

 Surfers on the Bore Tide