Valdez Alaska

Monday, July 5th
Hi Everyone,
Wow it's hard to believe its been a week since we last posted. After leaving Talkeetna/Palmer area we headed to Valdez. What a beautiful drive down into Valdez. I say "down into" as it will be a heck of a drive out...maybe 15-25 miles an hour if we're lucky, but hey we coasted all the way there! On the drive to Valdez we stopped and went river rafting. Once in Valdez we took another cruise (Sue hoping to see her Orca) and another kayaking trip. We also got to experience the 4th of July in a small town, with a parade, BBQ and fireworks. Since we had so much to show on this blog, we'll talk about the 4th of July and the celebrities we met on our next blog.

We're heading to Chitina/McCarthy/Kennecott area. We are hoping it clears up (it's pouring right now) so we can take our flight around St.Elias/Wrangell mountain (this is the largest national park in the U.S.).

As always thanks for checking and keeping in touch. Love Sue, Vern and Dug

P.S. There are lots of pictures!!

This was at Allison Point (across from Valdez) where Pink Salmon are coming home. There were thousands of them. We had heard there was a momma grizzly and 3 cubs in the area. We got up early Monday in the rain and waited an hour and didn't see her.

Valdez Oil terminal, across from the city. This is where the Alaskan Pipeline ends.

We took a kayak trip to Valdez Glacier. This glacier is dumping in to a fresh water lake rather than the ocean. We beached (or rocked) the kayaks so that we could walk on a floating glacier. Vern is on top of the glacier that broke off from the face of the Valdez glacier two weeks earlier. It was so strange to see this huge glacier floating in a lake.

Ice anyone? This beautiful chunk of blue ice was floating in the lake and we were able to paddle right next to it.

This was absolutely the most blue iceberg we had seen. How it carved out a hole in the glacier we don't know but it was spectacular to stand inside something so beautiful that used to be a chunk of ice attached to a glacier that's millions of years old.

Sue trying to explain to Vern it's the front person who's the "lead" person and controls when to paddle!! It was sprinkling and we were glad we had our rain gear on and dry packs which had extra clothing, food and camera equipment.

Here we are underneath an overhang of a glacier...I guess it could fall off on top of us, but we didn't care....we're adventurers!! These kayaks were different than the ones we used before. The ones before were hard plastic, we sat inside and used a spray skirt to keep dry. These kayaks were rubber and were blown up and we sat on top and used rain gear to stay dry. This one is much more sturdy as Vern had to turn around a couple of times to adjust his seat back and the boat hardly moved at all.

We saw this Horned Puffin on our cruise.

On the cruise Sue finally saw this beautiful Orca....she was so excited she could hardly control herself. Unfortunately for her, it was just a photograph of WHAT she could have seen. Still on the hunt for Orcas!!

We saw many of these Rafts of Otters (This is what the official name is). Some of them had their babies sitting on their stomachs (very cute).

We saw many Bald Eagles, some just standing on icebergs and others flying. They are difficult to get a decent photo of. Beautiful birds though.

Same as above.

This was taken on our 9 hour Columbia/Meares Glaciers Tour. There were so many icebergs that we could only get within 12 miles of the glacier.

Here is a very cute baby otter on her mother's stomach. I guess this is the safest way for them to travel until they can fend for themselves.

This mother has a good grip on her baby as they swim.

Here are two Sea Otters praying for some food, or as least that is what it looks like.

Here is our trusted White Water Rafting guide Laurie glad to have us back safe and sound.

Here we are powering through some massive rapids and getting soaked. What a blast though. That is Sue to my left with the blue helmet. You can't see it from this photo but she had the biggest smile on her face the whole trip.

P.S. Vern forgot to tell you that it was about 45 degrees outside and the water was about 35 degrees. Thank goodness for dry suits as rain gear wouldn't have worked here!!

P.S.S. To Sheila and Holly, it was just like Colorado, the front seats seemed to get those "buckets" of water after even the smallest rapid!!