Yay!

Yesterday I got a great surprise!  Duane and I woke up at the crack of dawn (about 9 a.m.) and decided to hit the town for some Christmas shopping.  As soon as we got on the road, I knew that something different was on the menu for the day because Duane didn't turn the right way on the highway.  Instead of going toward town...we were going OUT OF TOWN!  WaHOOO!  YaaaHoo!  My long awaited for trip to the mountains had begun.

Not far up the Turnagain Arm Inlet were around twenty or so "Dahl" goats!  We were at a place that made it impossible to slow down so we just caught as long of a glance as we could.  Of course, my camera was not prepared to work that quickly in our trip but I got it right out after that.  We drove clear up the inlet and up a beautiful canyon just as the sun began hitting the tops of the mountains (abt. 10:30 a.m.).  It was totally worth waking up in the dark to hit the road early enough to see such a view.

Duane drove up to a valley where the icebergs lay in the valleys between mountain peeks.  There was too much snow to see them in all their turquoise splendor but I did get a good idea of their beauty.  We drove on over to the Kenai Peninsula and watched as truck after truck unloaded their snowmobiles.  It was such a beautiful marshmallow world up there!

On the way home we stopped at a most interesting dining establishment!  It was called the Turnagain (named for the inlet) ARM PIT BBQ!  Mmmmmm!  Sounds tasty, doesn't it!  Well, it was actually!  We both got a Boar Tide sandwich that was running at around five inches tall.  It was BBQ pork topped with more pork--bacon!  Everything was quite scrumptious but we were both rolling like two little piggies being pushed out the door by the time we left.  We were full for the rest of the day!  The fun thing about this eating establishment was all of their pig paraphernalia decor.  There was a jolly flying pig Santa, a pig weather-vein, and even pink piggy string lights along the bottom of the building.  Hilarious!

We began heading home around a little before sunset (2 p.m.) so that we could get some shopping done before dark.  As one last treat on our way home, we drove by a man who was off to the side of the road--climbing ICE!  He was a good 20' up on one of those ice sculptures that are formed from water dripping down off of the rocks!  Of course, he was also in a place that I couldn't get a photo because we were on the highway but it was a nice final treat to a perfect day.