The sky was clear when we woke up this morning, so our plans to head off to Homer will commence. We got all packed up and then enjoyed a yummy breakfast of french toast, bacon and oj this morning! I was a little sad to leave the puppies because we had so much fun playing with them yesterday, but we will probably be back to Anchorage a day or two before our cruise leaves, so we will see them again. The ride down the hill from their house wore our break pads quite a bit, but it was still a pretty great downhill. Just as we were getting to the bottom of the hill, Joey hit a couple big bumps and the SPOT went for a tumble off his front handle bar bag, and then he accidentally ran it over. Luckily it is pretty tough and only got a little scratch. We rode to the grocery store to grab some food for the next week or so before heading out of town. It was pretty amazing to walk into the store and pay closer to "regular" price for groceries. We are definitely looking forward to the groceries on the west coast because they will probably be even cheaper! As we were leaving Anchorage, we rode on the Old Seward Highway for a while in order to miss some of the traffic and the section where it was a double lane road. The Seward Highway has definitely been one of the most scenic roads we have been on in Alaska with the inlet on one side and the mountains right against the road on the other. The road zig zagged as it followed the curvy coast line. The train tracks were between the road and the water. It was neat to watch the train go by because it looked like a giant snake slithering back and forth as it made its way along the coast. When we arrived in the area known as Indian, a bike path started that took us all the way to Girdwood! Around the 25 mile mark, we decided to eat lunch when we stumbled on a picnic table just off of the bike trail. We had some mac and cheese and then continued on. The ride today was really flat, but there were a lot of smaller hills along with one larger hill while riding on the bike path. There is an aweful lot of traffic on the Seward Hwy, so we were very thankful there was a bike path, and a really nice one at that. The asphalt was so smooth and there were little information boards and benches the whole way down the trail. There were signs about the beluga whales that lived in Cooks Cove and a lot of other interesting facts about this area. At one point, we found a pavilion with picnic tables right next to a set of vault toilets! The thought crossed our mind to just camp there since it looked like rain, but we decided to keep riding so we would be in Girdwood. We made a quick stop at the gas station/shops that were right on the Hwy and then decided to ride the few miles into the town of Girdwood to find a place to camp. Again, there was a bike path! The library was still open for about 20 minutes when we got there, so we made a quick stop there. We found a nice church that looked like it would make a good place to set up our tent for the night. There was a bicycle outside and we could see a lady through the working hard in the office, and even a really cute dog! When we asked if it would be ok to set up the tent she said "oh sure!" We were relieved, especially since there was a nice covered area we could hide under in case it rained. There were also a couple picnic tables there which helped for dinner. We cooked up some rice and snacked on a couple cookies before we decided it was getting to cold to sit outside anymore. Luckily it was nice and warm once we got into our sleeping bags. We rode 42.67 miles today. I have to admit, it feels nice to be back on the bike after sitting around yesterday (not that playing with the dogs or watching movies wasn't fun, because it was great!)
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