A Town Called Hope

The next three photos are not mine but I wanted to share them with you because they are what started our last minute adventure yesterday.

Yesterday morning I saw these amazing photos posted on The Alaska Life's Facebook page...

"Steven Meyer took these photos of a humpback whale beached in Hope yesterday. Speculation is that she got disoriented and lost her way or simply might have been hurt."

Photo credit: Steven Meyer

Photo credit: Steven Meyer

Photo credit: Steven Meyer

The tiny town of Hope is an hour and a half south of us. I already had a lunch packed because we were planning on going on a hike yesterday morning. But instead we decided to go see if we could find this whale! 

We had never been to Hope so it was fun to explore a new place. And the weather was gorgeous even though they had warned us about heavy rain starting that morning. Thankfully it didn't arrive until late evening. All day was sunny and warm where we were at. yay!

See the beach down there and how the tide is out? I think this is around the area where the whale had been. We found out this morning that by the time we got there the tide had washed it away.

Elijah took this picture of Ethan and I. Ethan said he would like to live in Hope and I agreed. Elijah said he wouldn't want to live way out there.

So while we didn't find the whale we still had a wonderful unexpected adventure together. We DID spot mountain goats along the Seward Highway on the way down and on the way home plus a few eagles. We also saw a black bear along the road when we were looking for a place to eat our picnic lunch. We decided that spot was NOT a good place for a picnic and moved on. :)

There were very few people around and lots of space to run and explore so we had a great time.

Hope was a mining camp for Resurrection Creek, established in 1896.
Today the population is only around 180.

We drove around historic Hope and found a little museum. This was the original school house (on the left) and blacksmith shop (on the right). The school house ran from 1904-1908 and had eight children.

The boy on the left in the yellow shirt is going into the 5th grade and was our tour guide. He did a great job!

Sometimes the unexpected adventures are the best adventures.