July 10….”On the Road Again”

Dean, this one's for you....
Down town hope campground w/ bar where the "jam" was in the background
John & Karen, our hosts....had such fun!
Turnagain Arm (strange name?)
Yup....Hope on the banks of Resurrection Creek
Social Hall

We departed our friends about 10 a.m. after pictures, plenty of coffee, more laughs, and filling our water tank with nice, fresh mountain water. We made a couple grocery stops and then set our Garmen for Hope, Alaska. It is supposed to be one of the best preserved gold mining towns in southern Alaska. It was 56 degrees and overcast. We stopped for some beautiful pictures along Turnagain Arm. Strange name for a long body of water on the north side of the Kenai, between the Kenai and Anchorage. It looks like it empties into or gets water from the Cook Inlet. Anyway, the pictures turned out beautiful, but the water did not have the reflection of the mountains from the other side, like I saw yesterday. Perhaps on our way back.
We arrived in Hope about 4 p.m. after driving around in it…all of it…in about 10 minutes. Beautiful, quaint, log cabins. In the museum (all of these old towns seem to have a museum to document their interesting pasts) the lady told me that the town SANK 10-15 feet (!!) after the Good Friday, 1964 earthquake, so the tide came right up on main street and people had to take to boats. This town is on Resurrection Creek, which is only a matter of 40 feet from Turnagain Arm, which just happens to have one of the world’s most remarkably high tides. The lead of the tide (“bore” they call it) moving rapidly through a constricted opening like the Turnagain Arm from the Cook Inlet, can cause a foaming wall of water possibly reaching a height of 6 feet surging down Turnagain Arm. John & Karen told us that it is really a sight to see. Now I know when the low tide is in Anchorage, add 2 hours 15 min. + minutes to travel south and I’ll watch for it this morning! (writing this blog on Fri. am, July 10)
Turning again to Hope. It has its school which last year had 7 students in it. The Board of Education says that if they don’t have 10 students this year they will close the school. L The town has a still used social hall (c. 1902) and, of course, the usual restaurant and bar…which had a jam night last night. This little burg was really hopping (we’re right next to the bar camping); nice country and rock music. AND the street was lined with cars; can’t imagine where they all came from.
Until we "connect" again...