Real Estate, Redoubt, and Rest

Mt. Redoubt from Soldotna airport

8-25-2012
Let me start off by saying that I am NOT a morning person. I love my coffee and need my coffee in order to function somewhat normally. On the other hand, I will say that there are sometimes when 5am can't come soon enough. For instance, when you happen to be attempting to sleep in the tiny backseat of a PT Cruiser, when it's 40F degrees outside, and you just have a paper thin airline blanket and no pillow.
When the sun began to peer over the horizon at the beautiful Skilak Lake, we were thrilled to get up. We were heading back into Soldotna, but needed food ( and liquid motivation ) first. We hit up a little diner for some breakfast. I think between Andrew and myself, we must've drank a whole pot of coffee and a pitcher of water. The food was delicious. As soon as it was a reasonable working hour, we called the listing agent for property #3 and asked for more details to be emailed to us. We immediately called and forwarded it to Mom and Dad. We were pretty sure this was gonna be the one. We decided to go back and look at it again, maybe try to walk and find the back corners of the lot. Upon arrival we opened the map of the property the agent had sent and quickly realized that the power lines were much closer to the front of the lot than we had previously thought. And we thought it was big before! We walked on and found the large field that seemed perfect for a garden. Waist high grass was the still wet with dew and I was a little cold. Then I saw next to me..... a crop circle. Well, it was worse really. A huge area of matted down grass. I'd seen it countless times on tv shows. A grizzly bear has sat his enormous rump right here where I now stood. I might have been slightly panicky and less willing to walk any further back at this point. Okay, I downright refused, whining and whimpering like a toddler. With much disgust, Andrew obliged and we headed back towards safety. Regardless, I knew this was my new home, it just felt right. We walked to the street feeling completely certain that this was where we needed to be. :Let's look down the road and see if we can see a neighbor."  Not 30 feet down our road, I stopped dead in my tracks and stared across the street. "Oh, my, god, Andrew, did you see THAT?" Right there, across a gorgeous field of bright pink fireweed, was Mt. Redoubt, the most beautiful volcano. ( this is pictured on my first blog post ).

Doubtful now that there could ever be a more perfect piece of land for us, we left. We were now headed to Anchorage for the next leg of our journey. We got back on the Sterling Hwy. Before long the scenery around us opened up tot he most beautiful views we had ever seen. Mountains with a dusting of snow, lakes, streams, and the greenest grass. "Is this the same way we came from Anchorage a couple nights ago?" I asked. "Well, yeah, this is really the only road." So this is what we were missing that first night when we were half asleep. It made much more sense now. The pull off areas, like the one we slept in for a while, weren't for that purpose at all. They were for taking photos of all Alaska's amazingness.  After 2 1/2 hours of oohing and ahhing over the views, driving through Alyeska Ski Resort, and stopping for some lunch, we arrived in Anchorage. We returned our rental car and checked into a hotel. It was going to be an early morning tomorrow. We arranged a wake up call and a taxi, and settled in. After we both abused the hot water, we turned on the tv. You know those tourism channels, right? Short bits of useful and interesting information tightly mashed between tons of commercials for local businesses? They always repeat the same 30 min or so. Well, before we even got through a whole cycle, Andrew was out cold. No dinner and only about 5pm. I guess a combination of odd sleeping arrangements and jet lag finally got us. I jotted down some notes about the things we'd seen, and watched another hour or so of the same channel. (There was nothing else on ) By this time I knew I desperately needed an ulu ( a really cool traditional knife of sorts ) at least. I was out hours before the sun went down.

Scenes along the Sterling Hwy.