What to do on a Rainy Day

Good morning, my friends. Well, it rained most of the day yesterday. We made good on our threat to visit a couple of chocolate shops in town. Our first stop was Aurora Chocolate. We almost missed this since it was inside a building with huge signs identifying it as a Century 21 real estate office. There was one small sign at the tippy top of the building that gave away the chocolate shop inside. Even after finding the building, it was hard to find the door that opened to some stairs leading to the second floor. Then...just this humble front door.

Inside, as a PBS reviewer put it, "edible art." Look at these chocolate turtles, made to look like actual turtles.

Here are the candies Aurora Chocolates is named for, inspired by the Northern Lights. 

These little chocolates on a stick. They looked like Fruit Loops cereal, threaded onto a skewer and then dipped in chocolate.

And chocolate-covered pretzels.

We each picked two of the candies, and then were told we could have two free samples. We just added those to the box. Mike chose the four in the upper right...each one with come coffee flavor included. I chose the salted caramel at the bottom, and the tiny lemon tarts on the left. 

Next, we headed to this much larger enterprise. It was a chocolate shop, yes. But it was also a large gift shop with all sorts of Alaska-made products. This was the front door:

Posted on the door...this sign:

Okay. Well, this I gotta see. And there it was right inside the front door. It might be hard to see this, but the chocolate "fall" starts at those copper buckets at the top, each one pouring into the one below until it reaches the "waterfall" at the bottom.

Here's the accompanying sign.

I have just one question: Why? On the other hand, it is one way to get into the Guinness book, I suppose. Maybe my own attempts have been wrong-headed. 

We didn't buy anything here because, again, things were outrageously expensive. I loved all these Christmas ornaments, though. If we still put up a Christmas tree, I might have been tempted.

Mainly, I liked the labels and "flavor" names of things:

These were socks in a can. And, again...why?

They did sell chocolates here too. We thought we already had enough candy from the first stop.

It was the usual stuff one expects to see in a place like this.

Except for this. Alaska's largest chocolate bar. "Largest" seems to be the theme here. It was the size of a baking sheet, and a bargain at $90! Yeah...we passed again.

From there we headed to the grocery store. We saw this embankment of fireweed along the way. We hadn't seen any fireweed at all until we arrived in Anchorage. Now we're seeing it everywhere.

We finished our grocery shopping, and put things away. After that, I spent some time on my slow-stitching. Smitty helped with that. He held onto the loose strands of floss for me.

We tried to get him out for a walk, but this is a noisy and scary place. He wasn’t willing even to get off the step of the camper. Sadie was very concerned for his welfare…or maybe she just wondered when the treats of valor/appeasement would be disbursed.

Whatever she was thinking, she kept an eagle eye on the door, hoping Smitty would return soon.

So we head to Palmer today. We have a couple of outings planned for that area. The RV parks closer to Palmer were full, and so we're staying farther away than we'd hoped. We have a couple of day trips planned to see a couple of different sites, and that means more driving than we'd like. Oh well. It is what it is. If nobody dies, then we'll declare our visit a success. (We set the bar low. It saves us unnecessary disappointment.)

Our drive today is short. We're hanging out in Anchorage until we're forced out at 11:00 a.m. It's only about an hour-long drive, and check-in at the park near Palmer isn't until 3:00. Most places will let you check in early, but we'll probably do something to kill some time before we arrive.

So pack up your stuff. We're heading down the road again. We still have a couple of weeks of sight-seeing left on our trip, but we'll be heading for home in a few weeks. 

Blueberry Loop Trail

Good morning, my friends. The weather was cooperative for our hike on the Blueberry Loop Trail yesterday morning. We had a little trouble finding it, although our nav unit led us right to it. The signage gave it a different name. Even after arriving at the parking lot, we found yet a different name on the signs posted. Happily, we found the loop we were looking for on the posted map of the trail system.

I'd learned about this trail from one of Alaska’s "Only in Your State" newsletters I received at some point. Here is a quote from the newsletter:

The 300-foot elevation gain is condensed into the first 1/4 mile or so, which means the only challenging part doesn't last very long. 

And let me just say...LYING LIARS!! The uphill portion lasted at least a half mile, and even farther. Oh well. We were tough. We did it with only a little bit of cursing. From the parking lot, the trails all start as the one that takes you to the top of the mountain.

Here we go...uphill...and rather steeply.

Just to belabor the discussion about hogweed a bit, we saw some of the poisonous stuff along this trail. Notice how different the leaves look from the image posted below the next one. Also, if you look closely at the stem, you'll see some purple there, which is indicative of the poisonous variety. So, thanks to my early warning system (you guys!), we knew better than to touch this stuff.

This next image shows the leaves of the benign "common" hogweed.

Moving on, here's another quote from the newsletter:

You'll traverse a whimsical forest with trees growing every which way, their gnarled trunks attempting to ensnare unsuspecting hikers. Each step pulls you ever-deeper into an eerily breathtaking fairytale within Chugach State Park.

Sure enough...there they are. 

And then we just enjoyed the walk. If you look just a little northeast from the center of the image below, you can see a couple of show-offs hiking to the top of Flattop Mountain. There was another couple who were actually running. If I'd been their mother, I might have felt their foreheads for fevers.

Turning around, I zoomed in for this view of downtown Anchorage.

The hillsides were covered with wildflowers. It was a flower lover's dream. My phone tells me this first one is Seacliff Buckwheat.

This is yellow Indian Paintbrush. Before visiting Alaska, I didn't know this came in any color other than red.

More Fireweed.

Wild geranium.

I like the two colors together. Nature knows and understands the notion of complimentary colors.

My phone tells me this next one is "Arnica Mollis," or another version of an aster.

This one is Narcissus-flowered Anemone.

Violets.

This is a giant purple aster. We saw these as we drove back down the hill to our camper.

Aside from the wildflowers, we enjoyed splendid views of Anchorage. Here, you can see the green of the hillside and the city below.

By then, we'd reached the portion of the hike where the loop continued on, but intrepid hikers could go on up to the top of Flattop Mountain.

You can go if you want to. Consider yourself warned.

Think carefully. I've pointed out a couple of people at the top for scale.

Turning around, we had this expansive view. Looking to the right, it looked like this:

Turning a little to the left, we could see this:

A little more to the left, it looked like this:

Turning even farther to the left, it looked like this. We could see the full horizon with land, mudflats, water, and mountains. Quite a sight.

I could live over there [in June, July, and August]. 

Zooming in on the northern-most mountains within our view, we could see this. Also, notice where the land meets the ocean horizontally in the image below. See that little point sticking out about 1/3 of the way from the left? That's where we were the day before when we walked the Coastal Trail.

We met a couple with two dogs along the trail. The woman insisted on taking our picture. They were very friendly, and their dogs would pose together for pictures. I guess they have a talent for getting two life forms to pose for a picture. We bit.

Looking down, that's how high we were above the parking lot.

And that was our hike for the day. We headed back to the camper where Sadie helped me edit my pictures for today's post. She was unhappy hearing about the woofies. Stupid woofies. A cat would never humble herself to pose for a picture. Sheesh. Have a little self-respect, woofies.

It's our last full day in Anchorage. We'll be moving on to Palmer tomorrow, where we have three nights. I've made a few changes to our itinerary, adding and subtracting nights here and there. We're looking at a lot of rain over the next several days, and so I'm not sure how much we'll be out sight-seeing. Fortunately, another of Alaska’s “Only in Your State” newsletters dropped into my email inbox this morning. The headline was: “These 4 Chocolate Shops in Alaska Will Make Your Sweet Tooth Explode.” Well, if there’s going to be an “explosion,” we should definitely check that out.

The next "big" stop on this journey will be in Valdez, where we're hoping to take a cruise out to see some more aquatic wildlife. We're keeping our fingers crossed for good weather, but we may not get it. Oh well. It is what it is. We'll probably do the cruise anyway. We're hard core that way.

So off I go. Breakfast is next, and we're planning at least a grocery shopping trip for today. When in the land of Fred Meyer, one is wise to do one's shopping. Also, I’m pretty sure we’ll check out at least one of the candy shops.