Chickaloon

Getting ready to leave this morning, one of my chores is to clean the cats sand box.  Have you ever tried to clean a sand box with a broken scooper?  Yup, just as I was ready to pick up a big ball of scoopable, the scoop broke!  Drats!!  So I told Jon that we needed to make a side trip to the WalMart for a new one, he said we’d find something on the way, Ooh Kay.  Something on the way turned out to be the Fred Meyer in Palmer, very nice store, and fresh vegies were on sale sooo, why not. 

Next stop was the view point overlooking the Matanuska River just outside of Palmer.  You can really see the braid in the river.

Almost all the rivers in Alaska are Glacier rivers.  This means that the color is slate grey, not clear or blue.  The color comes from Glacier silt that is washed down, it’s like a very fine power.  You don’t want to drink any of this water.

This mountains’ head was in the clouds as well as having a necklace around the middle.  This picture just doesn’t do justice to the beauty.  We had seen some antique tractors beside the road so we found a nearby campground right next to the river for the night, total miles today, less than 50.  Oh well, we got nowhere to be until November.

After lunch we headed back to where we saw the tractors and first thing we see is this Turkey Strutting his stuff.  Then we see the Llamas and Alpacas.

The little brown and white one were born in May.  These folks are taking care of rescued animals, the lady told us she tried breeding and this is the result.  She shears them during the summer and spins the yarn in the winter, making hats and scarves.  They also have geese, more turkeys, rabbits and pigs with piglets.  The stores in Anchorage, Palmer and Wasilla send them the food that is out of date or spoiled so she can feed the critters. 

Her husband collects and restores these old tractors along with a handful of other equipment.

Flower gardening is a big pastime in Alaska.  This was a large patch of wild flowers, mostly poppies.  Anything can be a planter!  Zoom in to check it all out, can you find the tricycles?

This lovely fellow followed us all over the property, strutting with fluffed feathers.  He even allowed me to pet him, he is very soft.

This is a Downy Woodpecker.  Below is a very contented bunny hiding under a trailer of some kind.

When we left there, we took the Fish Lake Road, and yes it does go by Fish Lake as well as Drill Lake.  Supposed to be a 4-wheel drive road, but we never needed it.  We did see some really pretty houses hiding behind the trees.  The road circles around and comes out just West of Chickaloon.  Used to be a town here at the end of a rail spur, now it’s just a post office for the folks that still live here.  We saw this bridge sitting beside the road just before reaching the Glenn Highway.  It used to be the bridge over the Kings river, some folks rescued it and put a new cover over it.  Supposed to be a sign but it’s not up yet.

That’s the Kings River, it flows into the Matanuska

 

Jezebel says, see ya!