We got up a little earlier this morning so we could head over to photograph the Matanuska Glacier. I was all excited, and J was less excited — she's not really a morning person. :( There was light overcast above us, but there was nice golden light streaming in under the clouds. I had my normal breakfast, then we prepped the RV, turned it around, hooked up the Jeep, and departed at 7:54.

We got back on the Glenn Highway heading west at 8:03. We quickly caught up to a slow-moving RV. When I was checking "my brain" (that's what I call my Palm) recently for details about a prior trip to Alaska, I read that I had logged that RVs should be banned. I'll have to modify that to be "slow-moving vehicles that delay progress should be banned." Of course "slow-moving" is relative because we usually drive below highway speed limits to improve gas mileage. We went by a snowshoe hare by the side of the road at 8:10, and we went by another one just down the road.

We got to the Matanuska Glacier State Recreation Area, and there was no access down to the glacier — only a nice view of it in the distance. I consulted The Milepost to figure out how to get down to the glacier. There was some nice light on the glacier face. We left at 8:31 and headed back east.

We turned south on Glacier Park Rd at 8:32. It's a dirt road that makes a steep descent from the Glenn Hwy to the Matanuska River and then crosses it on a wooden-planked bridge.

We got to the "tollhouse" on the other side of the Matanuska River. I asked the guy how much the entrance fee was, and he said $15 per person and we each had to sign a liability waiver. We declined to go in because photography at the face of the glacier is better in the afternoon/evening and the price was really steep. I think it was only $5 when I was here last. We left at 8:41.

After climbing back to the Glenn Highway, we headed west. We stopped to wait for a pilot car from 8:56 to 9:08. The new four-lane road they were building had a very nice surface. It was much nicer driving through the construction area than on the old road on either side. Usually, it's the other way around.

We arrived at the Fred Meyer (grocery store) in Palmer at 10:11. J went straight in to start shopping and I did a few things in the RV first. When I went in, I enjoyed shopping at the nice, large, clean, and well-stocked grocery store — the first one we had been in since getting on the Alaska Highway. They had a great selection, and J thoroughly enjoyed shopping there! I loaded up on Clif Bars: Chocolate Peanut Crunch, Oatmeal Raisin Walnut, and Cool Mint Chocolate. They had some Lock & Lock 1.3 qt storage cotainers for free with the "Purchase of Millstone Bulk or Millstone Pre-Packaged Coffee (10 oz and larger)", and J was able to get the cashier to give them to us for free even though we hadn't bought any Millstone coffee. :) Lock & Lock food storage containers are airtight and resist odors, and J had been using some to store her fresh tea. I have been looking for such containers to store my coffee beans after opening up the big 2.2-lb bag, but haven't been able to find any in a store, so I was quite happy that I was not only able to get them, but that the price was right too! We left at 11:49.

We got to our friends' D&RA's place in Wasilla at 12:16 where we'll be parked for a while. I unhooked the Jeep as soon as we arrived, and there was a hairy woodpecker on one of D's magic logs. He has several magic logs in the front yard for bird photography which are old snags that have strategically-placed holes filled with suet. Birds love to come and get the free food, and photographers love the natural perches — it's a win-win situation. :) (Egads — a surprising throwback to my corporate days. I haven't used that phrase in years!)

Had lunch, then went through the mail that we had sent to us here and that J had picked up from the house when she went in to start some laundry. I moved the RV to our final resting place, leveled it, then hooked up the electricity. While I was outside, I rinsed off the Jeep with a hose because it was filthy after driving along those dirt roads yesterday and this morning. I vacuumed the floors of the RV while J washed off the throw rugs. It started raining lightly as she was finishing. J introduced me to Tootie, D&RA's golden retriever, when she showed me the laundry room. Tootie and I bonded instantly! I worked on this site to improve the search capability some more and to add editable responses.

D came home around 4:55 and came into the RV to visit. J finished preparing chicken enchiladas for dinner and I finished my laundry. I set up our Kyocera wireless router inside using an ethernet cable plugged into their router. The signal strength in the RV was really strong and the net connection was really fast — the fastest we've had in a very long time!

D joined us for dinner of J's delicious chicken enchiladas and fresh guacamole. RA's salmon dip that D brought out was good too.

After dinner, I uploaded the blog entry for yesterday, then finished setting up the site to have editable responses. After adding some more capability to the back end, I finally went to bed around 1:00 am!