Rainy Reflections

I'm writing this in the thin autumn sunshine above Cook Inlet, at a small campground called Stariski State Recreation Area. There's nobody else here except flocks of chickadees and a woodpecker and some ravens that fly through, as do some tourists or fisherfolk with trailered boats. I should head into Homer to get ice, but... I can't leave. The sun, the view, the sun, the lack of annoying insects, the sun, the light breeze are just perfect, so I'm taking the chance to write and reflect, while the weather and sun last. The solar charger seems to be just keeping up with my use, so I'll write as long as it allows. I'm using my phone's hotspot to connect to the internet. This is the way the trip was supposed to be!

Aptly named "Reflection Lake"

Sunday morning in Palmer was lazy. It started to rain early, and I was glad I hadn't stayed in Denali, expecting to see the mountain again. It would have been wet and rainy and something of a letdown.

Instead, I was treated to three sandhill cranes wheeling in the sky above the hayfield. Their croaking cries alerted me to their presence, and they turned gracefully above, circling and gently lowering altitude until they finally landed in the field. They never seemed to be still, but started walking across, never separated from each other by much distance.

They must have been the vanguard, because about 20 minutes later a large flock of more than 100 birds announced their presence by raucous squawking. Like the previous birds, they circled the field, and finally landed in the morning mist.

This land is magical. I am so glad that so much of it is preserved so that people in the future can be treated to sights such as this.

It was a lazy, rainy day.  I really didn't feel like doing all that much, so did a bit of food shopping, got more ice, did some reading and knitting, and only moved on at the end of the day.

It was a terrible drive. The storm came in earnest, with high winds and driving rain. I gave up earlyl and only made it to Wasilla. I stayed in the parking lot of a Best Western on Lake Lucille, and had a momentary worry in the morning when a police vehicle drove into the parking lot. Fortunately, he didn't give N0MAD a second glance, but was after two other guys in a dirty blue sedan. Not sure what their transgression was, but, after a lengthy discussion, it looked like they were written up for something, as one of the guys was presented with an official-looking, very clean piece of paper.

I left quickly, following the police car out of the parking lot.

There is a fine line between homelessness and my present situation. It's one that I thought about after the sale of the house two years ago, and that I think about still.   

What is the difference between living in an RV as a "full-timer," which is accepted by society and even evokes something of adventure and romance, and being homeless, which evokes feelings of pity and desperation? 

The easy answer is that full-time RVers (and me, a nomad who is living in my car without the niceties of an RV or trailer), is that we are doing this by CHOICE, whereas "the homeless" are homeless out of necessity. However, I suspect that even might not be true. Some homeless in cities choose to remain in that state. They drift in an out of shelters, preferring life on the streets to the rigors of "normal" society.  Who are we to try to herd them into shelters and make them adapt to our ways of thinking? 

Alaska, truly the last frontier, as it says on their license plates, seems to attract people who live on the fringes of society, whether because of their background    

It's complicated. There's an essay to write here, or maybe the bones of a story.

At any rate, we'll leave that discussion for another time. But, my situation — as wonderful as it is right now — does still make me squirm at times. It's so far from the way I've been brought up and so far from my vision of my own future, that I'm still adjusting to it.

But on a day like this Sunday, as I write this in the calm sun of an autumn afternoon, overlooking the spectacular snow-covered peaks of Alaska's Ring of Fire volcanoes, it just doesn't get any better.

Two moose in the garden.

Lake Lucille

Having only glimpsed at Lake Lucille (the hotel obscured the view), and having read about it yesterday and picked up a trail guide, I figured the misty rain wouldn't keep me from exploring. Lake Lucille is in Wasilla, the home of Sarah Palin, and it has lots of nice houses. It's basically a bedroom suburb of Anchorage, with its fair share of strip malls, fast food joints, bars, shopping centers, potholes and other trappings of civilization.

And police.

And moose.

Two moose turned into three: two cows and a young bull, intent on assembling his first harem. 

I finally found the well-disguised entrance to the park. Turns out it's probably easier to get here by plane than it is by car! While there, I saw at least one float plane landing on the lake and taxiing up to a home on the lake.

Rustic breakfast cooking class, with birch leaves.

This large park has soccer fields, a camp ground, playgrounds for kids, a swimming/canoe dock and loads of hiking trails. I made breakfast under one of the covered pavilions, and was entertained by a couple of guys on the honeypot patrol. Took them about 45 minutes to do their thing and manage their hoses, winding and re-winding them; about the same amount of time it took me to make breakfast!

They nodded somewhat apologetically to me as they left in the drizzling rain.

There was no one else here except one dog walker.

Stairway of birch roots

I took off on the perimeter trail, which went through the forest and would eventually take me back to the lake. I didn't worry about bears so close to civilization. They don't even bear-proof the garbage cans! I could have worried about moose, but fortunately the forest floor was relatively open, and I hoped I'd be able to see any animals before they saw me and became alarmed and angry.

There was a confusing tracery of trails, and after awhile I gave up trying to figure out the "right" way to go, and just followed my nose.

Even with the absence of sunlight, the trees above blazed with yellow, and the understory was resplendent with the deep red of dwarf dogwood and fireweed, the brighter red of highbush cranberry leaves, and the green of leaves that had not yet turned.

The forest floor was littered with fallen birch leaf stratigraphy, the latest crop of which were golden, the older ones underfoot turning brown.

Mysterious miniature railroad tracks and town.

One of the surprises on this hike was a miniature train track! It was on the other side of a serious-looking barbed wire fence at the perimeter of the park, but it was evident that a lot of work had gone into laying the track and building the miniature structures along it. No signs or anything else; perhaps it was someone's hobby.

In my wanderings on these unmarked trails, I did unintentionally walk into someone's backyard, but fortunately there were prominent "No Trespassing" signs, so I beat a hasty retreat and went a different way.

Dwarf dogwood showing off its fall colors

The line between "park," "wilderness" and "civilization" is sometime difficult to tell here. 

I eventually figured out where I was when I crossed a linear trail, which was a good landmark. The lake itself wasn't too much farther, and the rain was (mostly) holding off, so I kept going rather than returning on the wide fast-track direct trail.

Lake Lucille may be natural, but isn't really a wild lake. There are high-end (and some not-so-high) houses around most of it.

Current prices? $140,000 will get you a one-acre lakeside lot on the south side; $159,000 will also get you a .64 acre lot on the north side of the lake.  I'm not sure about the price difference, but beaver-knowledge says to always build your lodge on the NORTH side of the pond so that you maximize sunlight on your abode... makes sense to me, and might account for the difference. $590,000 will get you a very nice 4-bedroom lakeside home.

View of Lake Lucille, looking south.

As part of an Eagle project, a local scout troop had built a narrow boardwalk along the lake; a newer project was a broad boardwalk and swimming dock. I'm sure it gets a lot of use on the long summer days.

It began to drizzle more in earnest, so I headed back to the car.

Itidarod Headquarters

A letterbox was supposedly hidden here, but the directions were somewhat obtuse, and the place was a bit on the busy side, with a team of dogs running around an oval track with tourists on the wheeled cart. When they know they are going to get to run, the dogs express their excitement by barking and lunging, showing that they just cannot wait to get going! Would that everyone enjoyed their work so much!

One is supposed to be "stealthy" when finding letterboxes, so I abandoned this one.

Reflection Lake is aptly named

Reflections Lake at Palmer Hay Flats State Wildlife Refuge    

I hadn't really planned on it, but I'd been past this turnoff several times now as a result of missing the turnoff north (due to road construction and murky signage). 

The rain was holding off, so I decided to just go with the flow and take another walk. Besides, I hadn't really been seeing much wildlife, so thought visiting a wildlife refuge might remedy the lack. 

Like Wander Lake, Reflections Lake isn't a "natural" lake, but it's perfectly situated and honestly, who cares? The "hay flats" to the east used to be where the Palmer settlers grew hay (duh), but the land sank by more than seven feet during the 1964 Anchorage earthquake, with the result that water invaded and the land became too marshy to farm. Now it's the home to beaver, muskrats, and migratory birds, of which I saw none. Zero. Zilch. 

Palmer Hay Flats (now a marsh)

I saw one dragonfly, which I expect was not long for this world, as it was particularly lethargic, posing nicely on the rusty railing of one of the bridges. And I did see my first true squirrel midden: a large pile of spruce cones. Perhaps the relative rarity of spruce here convinced the squirrel it had better stockpile those available cones for the coming winter!

Dragonfly

Apparently the lake has had a hard life, being "vandalized" by disrespectful people. (Not sure what that means, but possibly littering and woodcutting and illegal hunting). "Concerned citizens" banded together to urge state wildlife refuge protection for the area, and it's quite a lovely place to visit now, with boardwalks protecting some of the more fragile and accessible spots (thanks to Conoco). There is a lakeside viewing platform, and a new sturdy metal observation tower that was just built in 2015. 

However, despite the apparent lack of birds or other animals (and I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record), even in the soft gray misty light, the fall foliage around the lake was spectacular. The birch trees here were joined by cottonwoods, and they are in full, glorious color right now. These trees are huge. Some of the leaves that had fallen were bigger than my stretched-out hand. 

Rose leaf colors

Trails circle the lake, but also go out onto the marsh. Unfortunately the signs warned of "high water during rains," and this was true... I didn't get more than a few hundred feet when the trail went underwater, so I gave up and kept going around the lake.

More forest color: are you bored yet? I'm not!

At the other side of the lake was the Knik River, another broad, rushing river. No birds there, either, but it was a pretty view point, although by this time the clouds were lowering and the colors were muted.

Knik River

A breeze had also sprung up; you know that breeze that often portends the beginning of rain? Well that was the end of the reflections on the lake, but it had been a beautiful walk.

Last view looks like a painting!

It was time to make tracks and get going toward Anchorage proper, and thence to the Kenai Peninsula.

I ended up in Eagle River for the night; first trying the library to see if I could possibly get some work done there, but it wasn't open and there was no wifi. By this time the rain commenced in earnest, a repeat of the heavy rain and wind from the previous evening, so it was time to hole up for the night and see what the next day would bring.

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At this point, I'm alternating between euphoria and emptiness. I once read an article by a travel writer who said that every trip has an apogee: that point at which you begin looking forward to going home more than you look forward to the trip ahead. The writer went on to say that this could happen at any point during a trip, but most often happened towards the end, when you start thinking about all the things you have to do at home. This has always resonated with me. I know it's been true on some of my hikes, when it just seems like, hey, you're done. It's a slog to continue, and you're happy when you're done.

Now, I'm not sure. It was hard to leave Fairbanks and head south. It felt like giving up. I have done so much on this trip: seen the northern lights, glaciers and volcanoes, high mountains and broad rivers; moose and bears and caribou and eagles. It seems hard to contemplate that anything can cap the experiences I've had to date.

But... I'm not ready to come home, even if I had a home to come to. Perhaps, if it were freezing cold and rainy again, I'd have a different viewpoint, but I'm not ready to give in and stay in one place, no matter how comfortable. 

I'm finding that there are still awesome places to visit, and I want to keep going as long as I'm able and happy to travel.

The dust (or mud) isn't going to settle on my Pikahiker boots.

The wind came up, and no more reflections. I was lucky to see what I did.