Tuesday, June 02, 2009 – Day 33
We pulled out of Kenny Lake around 09:15 AM, headed for Anchorage. We passed through the tiny community of Copper Centre, which seemed to be a very nice, quiet town. Lots of fishing charter companies and RV parks.
We stopped at the Wrangell-St.Elias National Park Interpretive Centre just off of the Richardson Hwy. The center is fairly new and is located in a beautiful treed setting. The buildings are all fairly new and continue the same wood beam architectural theme. It tells the story of the region and man’s interdependence with his natural surroundings. How the mountains were conceived in fire and how ice continues to sculpt the land. 
One thing that we should have mentioned. Wrangell-St.Elias National Park is larger than Switzerland and has higher mountains than Switzerland. It is also 6 times larger than Yellowstone National Park.
We continued trough Glennallen on the Glenn Highway. The stretch of road west of Glennallen for about 50 miles is mostly black spruce. Then the vegetation starts to change with much more poplar. At this point the Glenn Hwy. becomes a Scenic Byway. 
The volcanic Chugach Mountains form the backdrop for the rest of the trip along the Glenn Hwy. At a number of points along the route you can see alpine glaciers The Matanuska Glacier is without a doubt the largest glacier I’ve ever seen. It apparently extends for almost 27 miles out of the Chugach Mountains and at the terminus in the valley is almost 4 miles wide. It is like a ribbon of ice coming out of the mountains. 
The highway then became very twisty with a max speed of only about 45 mph. as it descends from the mountains towards Anchorage. The last 50 miles of the highway is in a broad valley eventually leading into Anchorage.
Once again I “showed off” to Janet, my wonderful skill of estimating fuel consumption as we coasted into the campground, “sniffing the fumes”. Fortunately I did not have my hearing aids in so I couldn’t hear everything she was saying to me! (None of it very flattering!)
Which company made your hearing aids?
ReplyDeleteMy Hearing Aids are over the ear type, OTE in audiology parlance. They are rechargeable Lion type batteries. They are called Pulse by ReSound. They are nice in the fact that you don't get the sound occlusion (like you are in a barrel)that you normally experience with an "in the ear" ITE type. But you do get whistling when the wind blows. And being totally outside the ear you have to be concious of precipitation. Sorry, I was so late answering.
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