On a recent day off, I borrowed a friend's van (thanks, Joe!) and drove towards Homer. It was a great way to explore some of the Kenai Peninsula in just a day. I didn't make it all the way to Homer for two reasons. First, I just don't love driving that much. And second, I was distracted by way too many cool things along the way!
Highlights
Heading out the night before my day off was a great way to get closer to cool things for the next day.
I van camped for the first time! Joe's van has a lovely bed in back, so when I was ready to head to bed, I found a nice secluded turnout and put up some window reflectors, then went straight to bed! It was very relaxing and just so easy.
In the morning, I hunted down the Slaughter Ridge trailhead. It's largely unmarked, so I read two blog posts and asked several locals before successfully locating it. Once I found it, though, it was just incredible.
In Soldotna, I spent probably an hour at a lovely used book store – what a great time!
Finally, I had my first "real" Alaskan bear encounter all summer. On the Upper Kenai River trail, I took a short detour to dip my toes in the water. As I rounded a corner toward the river, I thought to myself "huh, someone else must be around, because there's a dog swimming in the water." On further inspection, it wasn't a dog. It was a small bear. About thirty feet away from me. Oops. In any case, loud singing got it to turn around, and I had bear spray as a fallback option if it had come to that. In retrospect, I wish I'd gotten a photo, though in the moment I had more important things to worry about.