Valdez, Alaska

We arrived in Valdez on Saturday and signed up for a Glacier Cruise on Sunday. It started raining Saturday night and continued into Sunday morning. After checking the weather forcast on the internet, I rescheduled our cruise for Monday. Sometime in the early afternoon Sunday it stopped raining so we took a short walk around town. It was a very short walk because the town is really small and not really touristy with little shops, bakeries, etc. Rosie took the opportunity to catch up on the laundry and I caught up on computer stuff. I also headed out to the large boat docks for some dock fishing. A nice guy that was fishing there gave me a frozen squid to use as bait and I got to wet a line for a couple of hours; to no avail, of course.

Monday we were picked up at the RV Park office by the cruise company at 8:00 am. The cruise boat holds about 85 persons and was completely covered. There was enough inside seating for everybody. Rosie is really getting past the motion sickness thing she has had in the past. So the boating experience was great for both of us. First thing going out of the harbor we came upon a group of about 15 sea otters. These critters are absolutely cute and adorable. Once out of the harbor into the greater Prince William Sound, we saw a bunch of seals hanging on the beach; followed by several sightings of humpback whales. Ultimately, there was one time with 3 whales on the left side of the boat and 2 more on the right side of the boat. After the whale sightings, we headed into the glacier area. We were really surprised at how many icebergs there were in the water as we approached the Columbia Glacier. On two occasions, there was an eagle perched on the top of an iceberg. The eagle appeared to be posing for us as the Captain took the boat close enough for pictures. After getting as close to the glacier as was safe, we turned around and headed back to the port. After 7 hours out, we docked and caught the bus back to the RV Park.

We paid the nice lady who took Sammy out twice while we were out. We are headed out for Tok tomorrow morning. The original plan was to drive from Tok to Dawson City on Wednesday. However, due to an overabundance of booze and fresh fruits and vegetables that we don't want to throw out before crossing into Canada, we decided to spend Wednesday night at an RV Park in Chicken, Alaska. Chicken has a reputation for being a crazy and unusual place, so what the heck. We will let you know how that works out.

We are on the downhill side of this journey and will be back home in Idaho Falls two weeks from Wednesday on the 9th of July.