We finally got the gun and headed off to Valdez. The drive down was spectacular! Valdez is called "Little Switzerland". A lot of the road ran through gorges between these huge mountain ranges some of which were 10,000 feet or more high. Then we would round a corner and there would be beautiful alpine valleys stretching for miles in to the distance. Many different glaciers and lots of gorgeous waterfalls. We even saw a bear and 2 moose! We were excited. Valdez has a lot of history. In 1964 the old town of Valdez was the epicenter for a 9.4 earthquake which wiped out the town. It had been built at the time of the gold rush as it was thought the gold miners could climb up the Valdez Glacier and cross the icefield as a shorter route to the Klondick. Unfortunately that wasn't any easier a route than crossing the mountains from Skagway up to the Klondike. We also got our first glimpses of part of the pipieline as it ends in Valdez. The old town was built on silt and permafrost so when the earthquake hit the land simply liquified. Instead of rebuilding the town it was relocated several miles further to the West and was completely rebuilt. The houses that weren't destroyed in the earthquake were moved to the new town. Everything else was burned to the ground.
Of course we all know about the oilspill that took place in there in 1989. The town was quite nice. There were 7 RV parks there. If they were all full the RV's would outnumber the people in the town. We spent the night at the Harbor. While we were having dinner that night a couple drove up in front of us towing a trailerable sailboat boat that they had just purchased. Garry and I watched while Peter tried to get it rigged. As you can imagine Garry couldn't stand watching him struggle so he went out after dinner and offered to help him. Peter was very thankful and gave us a couple of beers when they were finished. It was now about 10:30 at night and he and his wife Sarah and 3 year old Chance were going to launch it and motor around the harbor for an hour or so to test it out. Seems strange given the time of night but remember we are in Alaska and it stays light until after midnight so it made perfect sense?!!!! The next day we toured the Remembering Old Town Valdez museum and the Valdez Museum which talked about the gold rush and the pipeline. As we headed out of town we stopped by the terminus of the pipeline. we then started on our way to Anchorage. We spent the night in an RV park as we needed to get plugged in to rechrage the phones, cameras and the computer.
We arrived in Anchorage on Sunday and are visiting with our new found sailing friends Mary and John. Both are pilots and have had several airplanes. We had met them at the laundromat in Ketchikan. Thay have been so gracious to us. I did 3 loads of laudry last night and we actually soaked in a bath and slept in a queen size bed last night. It was hard to get use to all the space! This morning we toured the Ulu knife factory in Anchorage after which they gave us a tour of the city. Unfortunately we had a cloud cover and we have not been able to see Mt. McKinley. Maybe tomorrow.
We then drove down to Lake Stenard and Lake Hood which are connected by 2 canels one of which is used for taxiing and the other is used for take off of seaplanes. The lake fronts are surrounded with seaplane slips which had little plane sheds next to the slipways. Just like boats but planes instead. In the winter the floats come off and ski's are put on as the lakes freeze in the winter. This odd looking car is what they use to pul the planes out of the water when the planes need some maintenance. This is the Travellift for planes. We then toured the Aviation Heritage Museum which has a lot of WWII planes in various stages of restoration. It was a fun day and we are all tired. We will see what mischief we can get into here tomorrow. After dinner the sun came out and the cloud cover was breaking up. John thought we had a 50/50 chance of seeing Mt. McKinley so off we went to take a drive. He also thought we might see moose and mountain goats. We also went out to beluga Point hoping to see Beluga Whales. It was 10:00 at night. We saw a glimpse of the mountain through the haze but were not able to get a good picture. We were rewarded with the moose photo below, but not goats. We actually saw two moose from only 15 feet away, so we got up close and personal with them.
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