Summer is not a lengthy visitor here in Alaska. While the “lower 48” are still enjoying summer, what little summer Alaska had this year is about at an end. I first realized this when my car showed a warning that I’d never seen before. My dashboard said “Drive carefully possible icy road conditions” I looked at the temperature and it was 33 degrees outside a few mornings ago. I love it! There’s nothing like waking up at 6:00AM to go look at bears or drive to my next destination with a few layers of clothing on and my Antarctica winter cap. I’ve been hanging on to the Teva’s for as long as possible, but I fear their days are numbered now.

Oh and by the end of the road I don’t mean the end of my trip, I mean the end of THE road, The Alaska Highway. Because of the route I’ve taken around Alaska, I drove the majority of the highway starting in Dawson Creek about a month ago and did make it to the end in Delta Junction several weeks ago as well, but I missed the section between Haines Junction, Yukon Territory and Haines Alaska. That was corrected yesterday. I can now say that I’ve driven the entire Alaska Highway! A very cool thing to add to my list of travel accomplishments.

The scenery everywhere has been beautiful for, well the entire summer, but the past few days have been particularly spectacular. If the snow covered mountains, glaciers and vast untouched forests weren’t enough to take my breath away, add in the fact that the landscape is now bursting with bright oranges, yellows and reds as far as the eye can see.

These photos are from Girdwood, Sheep Mountain, and the drive between Tok, Haines Junction and Haines. The past two days driving from Tok to Haines provided some of the best scenery of the entire trip. Both drives took twice as long to do as they were supposed to mostly because I kept pulling over to gawk. I’ll try to keep the photos to a reasonable number but its not going to be easy, so I’m not making any promises.

Sunrise Over Homer

Float Plane In The Early Morning Fog

Low Hanging Clouds Clinging To The Mountains on Kachemak Bay

Parasailing Over Girdwood

Hiking In Sheep Mountain

Somewhere Beautiful In Alaska!

Sittin On The Dock Of The Bay

OK, the rest of the photos don’t really need captions because they would all be the same, so you pick the one that you like the best as you’re looking through the photos or feel free to mix them up or even reuse a few:

Oh my gawd (Upper West Side NY accent is mandatory)

No way!

C’mon

*Silence* Mouth hanging open

Holy Sh*t

Wowwwwwwwwwwww wheeeeeeeeeeee

That just can’t be real

And Canada, especially the Yukon (and British Columbia)