Turnout On Seward Highway South of Anchorage

Mileage:  45,178

After a rather slow start this morning we were on our way south.

Today is about chunking out a bunch of miles.  We want to go back to Seward so that we can take Kyle on a glacier cruise.

The sunshine was brilliant with very few clouds…such a different ride than it was several days ago on the way north.

This is Denali in her glory.

Some people take the train to see Alaska.

We stopped at Beluga Point and Kyle did some rock climbing.

Panorama of Beluga Point.

Somewhere south of Anchorage on a roadside turnout below Bird Point and along Turnagain Arm, we decided to camp for the night.

In the picture below you can see a portion of the mudflats in Turnagain Arm.  Apparently many people have tried to go out and walk on the mudflats at low tide.  Unfortunately the mudflats are a kind of quicksand.  People have gotten stuck in the quicksand and have not been able to be rescued before the incoming tide drowned them.

From the train-tracks across from our “campsite.”

Truck of the day.

We were hoping that we might see a bore tide from here.  From the Milepost:  A bore tide is an abrupt rise of tidal water just after a low tide, moving rapidly landward, formed by a flood tide surging into a constricted inlet such as Turnagain Arm.”  This bore tide is usually most remarkable over a span of days at new moon.  We knew we had missed the range by one day…but the tide still shifts in the same way (maybe not as dramatically) so we thought we might see something here.  My best guess was that the tide would come at about 9 pm.  Shortly before that people started coming to the parking lot and gathering at the water’s edge.  A young couple arrived and put on wet-suits and took a float and a paddle board out into the water.  The tide was coming in.  It came in a wave and then started to become more turbulent.  It filled in the mudflats in minutes.  It was so cool to watch.  I tried to take pictures…but again some things just have to be seen and experienced.  The couple on the paddle board is visible in some of the pictures.  They came out of the water exhilarated.

The view from our bedroom window.  Notice it is still light outside.  It was 10:30 pm.