I mentioned in the last post that the Naylors were real Alaskans. This is especially true of Andy's mom, Linda, who homesteaded in Cooper Landing with her family when she was two years old. I'll be nice and I won't tell you what year it was (she is my mother-in-law and I want to keep things peaceful), but I will tell you that it was before Alaska became a state and before they paved the highway out of Anchorage. For Christmas Andy's mom gave us a book of photos of growing up in Alaska and there are pictures of them homesteading with horses! And! They didn't even have running water until Linda was 11 years old! Here I am complaining about the color of my living room. Long story short - the Hamiltons* were hardcore. I'm also guessing that Andy and his siblings never got to whine about much since she has an infinite number of stories about walking uphill both ways in the snow (literally).
Cooper Landing is an adorable town right on the Kenai River and has a pretty cool history. You can go to this website and read about it, but unfortunately there's no mention of the Hamiltons even though they used to run the only store in town for a long time. Apparently there's a family feud there between the museum's proprietor, Mona, and Andy's grandpa Max. Small town politics I guess. More on the town later.
First stop on the tour of the area - a hike to the falls at Russian River. Apparently this is a hike Linda would take with other kids in town while the moms fell behind to gossip. I love it.
The hike was beautiful.
While Andy and I stopped to admire this cool tree, a pack of tourists stopped to gawk over our shoulders. "What's up in that tree???" They asked hopefully. "AN EAGLE'S NEST???" When we told them we were just taking a picture of the tree they looked at us like we'd punched an eagle right in front of them. Sorry tourists.
The shade was nice because it was a hot day - unfortunately the mosquitoes also love the shade. I think Andy, who is especially favored by the bugs, donated a pint of blood to the mosquitoes along the 5 mile (in and out) hike.
 |
| lupin! |
After 2 miles in bugs and sun, we hit the falls. More rapid-y than a traditional waterfall really.
You can see Andy in my glasses!
The highlight of the falls was watching the fish spawning. They were huge and leaping right out of the water. We saw a TON of fish.
Look how far they have to go! Poor fish. At least the scenery is nice.
Look at 'em go!
After the hike, we drove back into "town" to see the house where Linda first lived.
It's still standing! The little bit on the left was added on at some point. It doesn't seem like anyone lives there now. Maybe Andy and I should look into a vacation home?
Next we drove down the road a little way to the property where Andy's grandparents last lived. It's RIGHT on the Kenai River and it's just incredible. The pictures don't do the river any justice. In person it's this amazing teal blue color.
Check out this view!
At the end of the property is a little bench where all the kids used to hang out when they visited the grandparents. It's still there!
Peter went down to get a picture for himself and I made him extra happy by taking a picture of him taking a picture. This will become a theme for the trip. By the way, the dude in the picture who isn't Andy is Peter (in case you were wondering).
 |
| Yes, they are both wearing Game of Thrones themed t-shirts. Somehow they both found wives. |
While the view and the bench hasn't changed in 50 years, the house got a bit of a facelift:
After Andy's grandma passed away, the property was sold to a developer who built luxury timeshares. I'll take both for all the weekends, thanks.
When we stopped by the property to take pictures, the caretaker came out to try to shoo us away. Once Linda dropped the Hamilton name we were given free reign. I told you she was Cooper Landing royalty!
After the house we drove up to the cemetery to visit the family members who were buried there. It's the most beautiful cemetery I've ever seen.
And very Alaskan, too. Simple, rustic, to the point. This is kind of how people are up here. At least the old timers.
We also visited Hamilton's Place, Andy's grandparents' store in Cooper Landing. (We took these pictures on the way back to Anchorage a couple days later because everything was closed when we drove by, but it makes more sense to include them here.)
It's right on the river, too. Pretty much everything in Cooper Landing is.
In addition to the store, there's a gas station, restaurant (which is currently closed) and a number of additional buildings. It's for sale - who wants to go in on it with us?!
Since we'd hit all the hot spots, we headed back to the Princess Lodge, where we were staying, to dine and retreat to our suite.
The rooms were really nice and had wood stoves (not something that was appealing in 75+ degree weather) and little decks.
Our deck had a sweet view of the fitness center and the hot tub, which, after dinner and board games, was the site of much poor decision making on the part of Andy, Peter and myself.
After we stayed the night we headed to Gwin's for breakfast.
Gwin's is one of the oldest buildings in Cooper Landing and it makes a mean biscuits and gravy, which practically saved my life that morning after a night of hot tub wine consumption.
Inside Gwin's was a picture of Minnie the Moocher (hide-e-hide-e-hide-e-ho). Linda said she loved marshmallows the best. Who doesn't?
The inside was pretty basic, but the food was great. The highlight was definitely our waitress, Sarah, who was from Alabama and found her waitressing gig on "coolsummerjobs.com" or something similar. She drove up with her mom and had only been to Alaska once before coming up for the summer. I wish I had a picture of her because she was a big highlight of the trip, especially when she called the cook "ding dong" when he forgot our homefries.
The placemats were educational, which I also appreciated. Before eating at Gwin's I did not know that the state fossil was the Wooly Mammoth. Now I know.
This is probably the most appropriate picture I got of the two of them all week.
After we finished our breakfast and Andy's dad narrowly escaped capture by the surly old Irishman we met in the restaurant, we hit the road and continued the adventure. On to Homer!
So that's Cooper Landing. I just want to leave a little note about this part of the trip: Linda hadn't been back to Cooper Landing since her mom passed away about eight years ago. It was on her trip "bucket list" to visit the old town and we were really happy we could make the trip with her. Let me tell you, some of the stories were incredible and I can't even begin to replicate all of them on the blog. She needs to write a book. Linda - if you want to write a book, I'm telling you, I will be your scribe! The world needs to know about Red Smith and his rogue lion.
*yes Andy's mom's name was Linda Hamilton, no she was not the star of the Terminator franchise, but she does have incredible upper body strength, and Andy was this close to being named John Connor.
No comments:
Post a Comment