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There are some Saturday nights that are rare and require extended pages in your journal to retell. The kind where you and your best friend go out on the town, dance the night away, play a part in your typical girl meets boy at a bar fairytale, and then wake up late on Sunday morning and relive the exciting night before over plates of gigantic breakfasts with said bestie.

And then there are your typical Saturday nights. The kind where you spend the night at home, completely changed into your vintage PJ set, and like last night, where you spend the majority of the evening curled up on your favorite chair reading for hours on end (or watching multiple episodes of Dateline).

Yesterday was the latter. It's also the type of Saturday night that I'm more familiar with, as its basically engrained in my weekly routine.

What can I say? I'm old-fashioned that way.

But that's not to say that I don't enjoy those rare Saturday nights. See, what makes them so fun for me is the fact that I don't go out very often. I wait a few months, save the date for a "night out", and then it ends up completely making up those long months I spent playing a part in my typical Saturday night.

It's also nice to appreiate the quiet nights in. It's a time for reflection, solitude, and for furiously catching your journal up to date on the last Saturday night's adventure.

Until the next rare Saturday night out though, I'm afraid typical Saturday nights are pretty booked.

If you know what I mean.

There's this little town, a town of a couple hundred, that we always pass through on our way to Anchorage.

It's dubbed: Cooper Landing.

It's one of the most picturesque places to pass through on the Peninsula, a winding scenic drive that takes you past the glacial Kenai River and Kenai Lake. Aside from being a popular summer tourist spot, it's always remained one of the more mysterious places I've coasted through, for I had never really explored it.

I've eaten there (at the surprising number of tasty restaurants), stopped there many a time for restroom and snackie breaks (thank you Wildman's!), and hiked on a few of their popular trails, but I had yet to really explore what Cooper Landing had to offer.

Well, today, an opportunity arose for an adventure.

One of my best friends Caroline rolled into town for the weekend, and because we're both eager Alaskan explorers (who begin every trip with a stop for coffee at Kaladis), we decided to head up to Cooper Landing to wander about and enjoy the scenery.

And that's exactly what we did. We parked at multiple stops, would find our way down to the glacial water's edge, and then would go on to the next destination, most usually a place we had driven past and always wondered about visiting.

It was the perfect fall day for it too. The colors were brilliant against the richness of the river, there was a sprinkling of fresh rain, and I spent it with good company, a friend who appreciates and adores Alaska as much as I.

Again and again I'm being drawn into the magnetism of Alaska's beauty, continuing to question why I would ever want to leave.

While I don't know where my future will take me, whether Alaska will entice me to stay or eventually encourage me to explore other parts of the world (which I've done), I do know that whilst I'm here, I'm going to enjoy every moment of her majesty.

The first stop on our adventure (aside from Kaladis) was at the Princess Lodge, which sits up on the bluff and overlooks the Kenai River below. Hopping over "Keep Out" fences (we're rebels), we wandered down the leaf ridden path and came to the water's edge.

An absolute essential when hiking in Alaska: bear spray. I can't even bear to think of what would happen if an encounter were to go down. Lucky for us, no bears!