Road Trip Chronicles - Waikiki Beach

Because we arrived during the night, the following morning was stunning. As I crawled out of my tent I was greeted by the warmth of the sun and the sight of glassy smooth emerald green waters along with mountains that I could have sworn had been transplanted directly from the shores of Hawaii (hence the name). Imagine going to sleep in Alaska and then magically waking up in Hawaii, it was wild.

Even though we needed to leave in order to stay on schedule, we definitely took our time. We all took advantage of the opportunity to get our weekly shower in and jumped into the icy waters of Kenai Lake. After that it was a bit of lounging in the sun (Tanner), strumming on the guitar (Bret), skipping rocks, and making breakfast before the long haul towards Canada. 

Bret on the guitar

Subaru number 2 was the first to leave, and we all agreed to meet at a riverside lodge, which is where Rachel used to work. Once there we treated ourselves to lunch on the back deck that overlooked Kenai River. The purpose of this was to regroup and take a look at our schedule/itinerary and decide where we were going to go next.

The view from our lunch at the lodge

As it always goes with group trips, we found ourselves in a position where some of us wanted to do one thing, and others wanted to do another. Ultimately, Subaru #2 decided that they wanted to spend the night in Seward in order to hike to the Harding Icefield, which was originally the plan, but we were a couple days behind schedule. Because we had reservations in Banff that couldn't be refunded, I was insistent that we continue on. So that is what we did, and that was the 2nd time the Subaru's were separated. 

Rachel and Evan of Subaru #2

Shortly after we hit the road we decided that to detour off to Seward wasn't too bad, about 60 miles, so we headed that way in order to surprise the other group as well as check that off the list of places we went. Seward was very similar to Homer, sitting bay-side, with dramatic snow capped mountains surrounding it in all directions. 

A picture from the shoreline of Seward

We eventually met up with the others in a valley of epic proportions that they had decided to spend the night in. By the time we got there they had started a fire that they had created around a fallen tree, because why not. It was in the middle of a mile wide gravel bar, so without worry of a fire hazard, we took that idea and ran with it. We went in search of more trees that had been stripped down and carried by the river, and we began to make a fire out of these giant 20 foot logs. Once the fire had taken hold, and we were too tired to carry/drag any more logs, we stood back and enjoyed our mad creation. 

Bret and Steve with a logTanner

Now I'm not quite sure how/why it started, but someone threw a rock at the fire, a large rock. It hit a fiery log just right so that it released an explosion of sparks and embers that bellowed up into the inky night sky. "Well that was cool", so what followed was a barrage of large rocks from all 7 of us, oohing and ahhing each time one of us caught a log just so. It was a little ridiculous, but it was a hell of a lot of fun. 

Trying to capture the embers after a direct hit with a rock

Once night fell and the temps started to drop, we decided it was about time we be on our way. We said adios to Subaru #2 and took off towards Canada.