I got a neat email from my friend and former colleague, Dennis McIntyre. He has been following the blog, and being a former social studies teacher, he came up with a way to map our progress. I told him I'd appoint him Chief Cartographer. Here it is: Dennis McIntyre tracks the Albertsens
Knock, knock, knock on the camper door. "Good morning! Here's your breakfast." Peggy and I each got 4 sourdough pancakes and 2 slabs of reindeer sausage. Very good, but the pancakes may be a wee bit to vinegary for my taste. I want my S-I-L, Tyler, to know that the sausage reminded me of the wurst his family makes, so you know that this sausage was very good!
We packed up and on down the road to Valdez we go. I haven't given much credit to my mate and CFO/navigator and sometimes photographer. Peggy sits with a variety of maps, books, and camera in her lap or at hand for much of our traveling. She hasn't missed a beat when it comes to knowing ahead where the gas stations, campgrounds, and points of interest are. And we have only gotten lost once which required us to turn around and go the other direction. And I was equal to making the wrong turn. Time out for this commercial message: If any of you ever make this trip, I highly recommend you get The Milepost. It is the ultimate in everything you need to know about going to Alaska by road!
Any pictures you see that have a road in them were taken on the fly by Peggy. She has to wait for just that opportune moment before focusing and snapping the picture. I told her to shoot as many as she wants as digital pixs can as easily be deleted.
We headed south out of Tok on the Tok Cutoff highway. It leads us down to Glenallen, AK where we turn and head towards Valdez on Hwy 4. The farther south we go the deeper the snow is getting in the ditches. We are now west of the Wrangell Mt Range and stop to take some photos. To the south of us we can see the Chugach Mts covered with blazing white snow in the sunlight.
And as we continue south the snow depth increases. We stop at pullouts to read about glaciers on the mountainsides. However, there is so much snow you can't tell snow from glaciers. We make it over Thompson Pass and OMG...everything, I mean everything is buried in snow! The only thing cleared of snow is the road, fortunately. I know we are well south of the Arctic Circle, but this must be what the Arctic looks like.
We get into Valdez which has 3 campgrounds. The first one is still buried in snow! We enter the town and find a church parking lot where we park. Peggy calls the 2nd campground and whew, they have some cleared spaces. While she is on the phone the priest from the church comes out to see if we need anything. Very thoughtful of him! He said that Valdez had over 400 inches of snow this winter. Hmmm? Wonder how many snow days from school that would convert into.
We get to the campground and get set up. The temp is 53º so I know we are not in the Arctic! And the campground has strong, fast wifi so life is good, even with snow around us 3 feet deep! The campground host has recommended several good eateries, museums and other things to take in. We only booked ourselves for 2 days since we will not be able to do any hiking with all the snow.
I do have a concern with a trailer tire which has lost some air. I refilled it and will monitor it to see if I need to find a tire repair shop. Time to get out, get some food and see the sights. I'll probably add more to this post later.
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We went to the Valdez Visitors Center to get some info on the area. Ended up at the bay called Port of Valdez and took some pixs. Drove around and found the harbor area and walked around. Came back to our campground and yup, got a leaky tire on the trailer so first thing in the morning will take the tire off and to a repair shop.
Our neighbors in the campground have been in Valdez several times before. They pointed out a mountain adjacent to the campground that we were able to see bears on the mountain side using binoculars. Very cool to see them!
Got halibut to eat from a small diner right next door to our campground. Good food!! And this campground gets an A+ rating from us as they had plowed out campsites for use, have the strongest, fastest wifi and even cable TV.
Peggy and I are now off to drive closer to the mountain to see if we can see the bears and also to look for the tire repair shop.
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Just returned from a drive northeast of Valdez about 2 miles to locate a tire repair service. On the way back we happened to find 4 black bears on the mountain side. Two of the sows had a cub each. One of the bears was about 50 yards away so I got some reasonable close ups of it. Another good day in Alaska!
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