Here's a map of our current location. We've started down the Kenai Pennesula. The best mapquest could do is Girdwood. We're actually about 13 miles south. If you see the blue line running towards the east -- that is the road toward Whittier. We're about 5 miles up that road.
http://www.mapquest.com/maps?city=Girdwood&state=AK#a/maps/m::7:60.942499:-149.166397:0::/e
We were enjoying our time in the forest and today I thought we’d take a hike nearby. Unfortunately the weather threatened rain all day. We weren’t very excited about getting stuck on a trail in the rain. The temperature here is in the low 50s which is perfect for hyperthermia if the victim gets wet. We try to be very careful. Instead we piled all the laundry in the truck and went to Girdwood where they advertised a world famous laundry/hair salon/showers/internet access/ Mexican restaurant. Hmmm? Girdwood is actually only two streets, one block long each. In addition to the aforementioned building, there is a Post Office, hardware store, and the usual outfitter. We spent several hours at the laundry and accomplished that task.
On the way back to camp I noticed a state park road named “Moose Meadows”. Well, I HAD to check it out. Maybe there would actually be moose there? We took a short hike at Moose Meadows but alas although there were plenty of mosquitos we didn’t see any moose.
We built another campfire and enjoyed a quiet night except for one exciting moment. Because it is very chilly, I was wearing jeans, long sleeve shirts, hiking boots, jacket, and hat. As I sat by the fire suddenly I felt a stinging at my ankle. There were lots of mosquitos so at first I blamed the little bugs. The stinging continued. Then I looked at my ankle. Somehow an ember had jumped from the fire, under the cuff of my jeans and into my boot. One creative ember. It burned a hole in the inside of my boot and my sock (and my ankle). :-( OUCH! That was one creative ember. The burn wasn’t serious but it certainly was annoying to destroy a good pair of hiking socks.
We ran our generators for two hours in the evening to recharge our house batteries. That seemed to work fine. Our gas water heater is working well so we had hot water for showers. Our only functional problem is the amount of water. We didn’t fill our fresh water tank when we left Eagle River so we’re strongly conserving.
