A Long Way to Go

for lunch, that is.

After driving a few miles north to the UAA campus, where I'll be depositing Younger Daughter each morning this week for a culinary "boot camp", we turned around and drove 90 miles south, to the Summit Lake Lodge.

Highway 1 heading south from Anchorage is much improved from the first time we drove that way, and even that was an improvement over some two decades ago when it was a two-lane blacktop providing the only access to the Kenai Peninsula. It's still the only highway, but these day it's wider and has long passing lanes climbing into the mountains. That's a very good thing, as the numbers of motorhomes, RVs, and trucks pulling large boats continues to increase.

Summit Lake Lodge predates statehood, but that's not hard with a state that's only 51 years old. Built in 1952, it's a log building, with cabins and other amenities along the shore of Summit Lake.

I've posted pictures before, so I won't bore you with the same old same old again. But the food and service are good, and the setting is pretty nice, too.

Heading back to Anchorage, there was a LOT of traffic (I told you it's the only highway), mostly the aforementioned boats and RVs. But the scenery remains among the most spectacular in Alaska, and the drive is over before you know it.

One nice thing that happened: it was low tide along the Turnagain Arm as we drove south. As we came back, we saw the bore tide which presages the incoming tide by about 45 minutes, and the mouth of the Arm was nearly at high tide. We've never seen all three stages in one trip before.

There were several surfers riding the bore tide as it swept east toward Girdwood, but the traffic was too heavy to permit slowing down or stopping to take pics. Sorry 'bout that.