This massive glacier is the Matanuska Glacier. We went to see it a couple of days ago, before we moved the rigs down to Eagle River State Park, close to Anchorage.
Today we packed a picnic lunch and drove along the Seward Highway through Anchorage and down along Turnagain Arm. We remembered this road for the incredible devastation caused by the Good Friday Earthquake of 1964. Today it's lovely and the wreckage of homes and businesses is long removed. We will go back there to see the tidal bore later in the month, when the tide surges in, sometimes as high as six feet! We decided to eat our lunch at the Potter's Marsh Viewpoint. The marsh, created when the railroad constructed a huge long causeway in 1917, is home to many kinds of birds and animals. We walked out to the end of the boardwalk and sat at the viewing station, watching a red-necked grebe and chicks. Garth spotted a bald eagle and then we added 2 more! Turns out the immature one had just left its nest today and was sitting on a branch below the parents. There were kingfishers there also... lovely bird, and so brightly colored. The grebe I was able to add to my Life List in the front of my Peterson's Field Guide to Western Birds.
In the evenings we've been playing cribbage on the lovely board I purchased in Tok when we entered Alaska. Garth has had the devil's own luck with winnings and I'm trailing sadly in the overall count, but I did squeek out a win last night!
Tomorrow, after we go to church, we will move the rigs 40 miles of south of Anchorage to Bird Point State Park. Jan & Walt have driven down there this afternoon, both as a scenic drive and to check it out for us. Mother is with us for just over a week and then will return to Jan & Walt's rig in time for our friend Mary Kasenberg to join us.
We're off to go make sure we know where the church is... a recon mission, to be sure!