There are two roads out of Anchorage, one heading northward and one heading east and ultimately south where it splits into two roads, one headed to Seward and the other to the Kenai Peninsula. The road along the Turnagain Arm is classified an “All American Road,” of which there are 31 total in the US. Brian and I parked in the pullout across the road from where we procure our drinking water, which gushes generously at all times from the mountain rock.

The guardrail for the pullout is in the lower left, and both the road and the railroad track can be seen winding their way along the contour of the mountains. The waters of the Turnagain Arm are tidal and always shifting, sometimes glistening like thousands of diamonds in the sun. The town of Hope is to the right, on the other side of the Arm. Cordova is to the southeast, on the other side of the dark mountains (see previous word portrait post).