Driving to Kenai

The 3-hour (145-mile) ride from Anchorage to Soldotna on the Seward and Stering Highways is nothing less than magnificent, traveling first along breath-taking Turnagain Arm with wonderful views of glacier-capped mountains across the inlet, and then through a mountain pass before you drop down into the forest to drive alongside the glacier-fed, aqua-marine Kenai River.

And indeed, it is a beautiful drive. Last year I was driving, which is not conducive to much picture-taking. Today I was a back-seat passenger, so my view was somewhat limited.

I didn’t realize until we got there that the back windows of this particular minivan will actually roll down, so I wouldn’t have had to deal with reflections on the glass if I had known. Oh, well.

We checked into our hotel, then went and set up our booth at the convention venue.

Sheila (one of my co-workers) had discovered an interesting-looking pizza place in Soldota: St. Elias Brewing Company, so we decided to eat there for supper.

The pizza was delicious… as was the root beer which they make there on-sight (in addition to beers and ales and whatever else breweries make).

Sheila is good at taking group selfies. (Or do you call group selfies “ussies” or “weesies”?) She took this one at the restaurant before our food came.

And we marveled at how high the sun still was at 8:30 p.m.