Bittersweet. After over 7,500 miles and nearly two months of living in Lennie, our road trip is coming to an end. Last night was the last of camping before we get to Anchorage and (hopefully) get keys to the house. And while the adventures of the Lovrich family in Alaska have just begun, I can’t help but feel a little melancholy. When will we ever have a chance to spend this much time together again? (Also, if we ever do find the time, will I be able to convince anyone to come along, knowing now what it entails?)

In the days after closing on the Hillsborough house, and before we wrapped things up in NC and hit the road for real, we stayed in a dump of an RV park called “Hidden Lake.” We just called it Hillbilly Heaven. How fitting, then, that our last campsite would also be in a place called Hidden Lake. 

We started out last night in Morgan’s Landing, a cool spot on the Kenai River. Since we had a fairly short distance to travel but wanted to spend one more night in Lennie before heading to Anchorage, we puttered around looking for a cool site.  More puttering than looking, really. We drove down just about every little spur off the Sterling Highway, hoping to find the perfect little spot to watch a bear fishing. Mostly we just got lost a lot.

Eventually we found ourselves on an endless stretch of dirt road, shaking Lennie apart one last time. Speed up a bit for the washboard sections, hard on the brakes for big potholes. Everybody loves it when I drive the big rig on dirt roads.

We finally came upon Hidden Lake (Part Deux), nestled along a big arctic lake that’s a residence for several species of salmon. And a great place for a swim! Olivia nearly swam, but common sense overcame her at the last moment. I swam around like it was the last lake on Earth. We found a secluded campsite and got Lennie situated while the girls explored a bit. They found an overlook at the top of a nearby rocky embankment, with a 360-degree view that just made our jaws drop. Out toward the sea in one direction, snow-capped volcanoes poking up their heads, and lush mountainsides all around. Our own little slice of heaven.
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Hidden Lake is fed by a salmon stream. At this time of year, there are literally thousands of salmon struggling up the stream to get to the lake to spawn. We watched a little spot of rapids and it was just like a scene out of National Geographic. The salmon cluster in the downstream eddies of big rocks, gathering their strength for the next push upstream. One dip of a net would snare a dozen giant fish. Their color and athleticism are so beautiful, and the bounty of their numbers is so overwhelming. I could have sat there all day. And I was glad to see that fishing in that area of the stream is forbidden. I mean, where is the challenge?

Hidden Lake is a gem of a spot (and we eventually found a much shorter way to get to it that bypasses most of the dicy-road mayhem), and close enough to Anchorage that it’s an easy weekend adventure. I’m sure we’ll be back.

But I’m reminded today that you can never really go back. It’s never the same adventure twice, and the time for adventure is so scarce once everyday busy-ness encroaches. It’s so important to savor these times. I think overall we’ve done a pretty good job of that this summer; there’s been lots of carpe in most of our diems. We will have inside jokes that persist for years, and a photo album full to bursting. We’ve had our share of minor mishaps, but really just enough to punctuate the incredible highs. It’s been an awesome summer, an awesome journey, an awesome adventure.

And yet, bittersweet.