Sunday in Valdez

Remember that beautiful waterfall from yesterday. Well, here it is today after all the rain. It is a raging torrent of water rushing down hill.

This one is not as bad but still more than yesterday.

The eagle is still sitting on a dead tree in the field and this time he had company.

After we went to the fish hatchery we drove over to the Original Town Site of Valdez. The whole town was moved 4 miles west after the 1964 earthquake.

This is the slab where the old Post Office stood. Any buildings left standing that were uninhabitable were burnt to the ground. A few buildings were moved to the new site.

Here are some old posts and a piece of equipment. The fog gave it a ghostly appearance.

Here are Mike and Patty taking a picture of me taking a picture of them.

This is where the old port was. I guess this boat was just abandoned.

Couldn't tell for sure what this bird was but it was keeping watch over the old city.

You can still tell where the old streets were but that's about all that tells you that a city was here.

We drove back to the Small Boat Harbor to watch the fishermen come in. They have some whimsical art work here and there along the harbor.

Here are Wayne and Mike checking out the fish.

Tomorrow Patty and I will shop while the men go out for halibut.

Saturday in Valdez

We met up about noon and went over to the Totem Inn for lunch. It is an interesting place with lots of things to look at like this moose head over the fireplace.

They had little painted houses all around the room.

They had a large Big Horn Sheep in a glass box with little stuffed ones for sale above it.

The food was good but pricey as is everything here. then we drove out to the fish spawning viewing area and saw a few fish trying to make their way upstream.

Then we drove to the Valdez Glacier. The fog was so low that it gave it a very eerie feeling.

From there we drove out to the weir near the fish hatchery. There were thousands of dead fish that had tried to get upstream and failed. On the left side of the water is a fish ladder for the fish to climb to the fish hatchery. There they are stripped of the eggs and sperm and they raise them to be released again the following year. The ones that don't make it to the fish hatchery become food for the bears or die and become food for the sea gulls.

We walked down closer to the water and you could see that there were thousands of fish still trying to make it upstream.

This group were trapped in a corner but they were still trying.

Its amazing how persistent they are. Once they get the scent of the stream where they were born (in this case the hatchery) they do all that they can to get back there.

There is a beautiful waterfall coming down at the weir.

On the way back we got a picture of an eagle we had spotted on the way up. They also go after the fish.

Later we walked back into town and I took this picture of a silver salmon that is at one store.

It has been a nice but cloudy day.

Friday in Valdez

We mostly just hung out on Thursday. We did walk down to the docks to see the fishermen come in and saw this RV with boat in the parking lot. It looked so funny that I had to take a picture of it.



On Friday, Wayne worked on the RV and Mike went fishing. We all went down to the dock when he came in to see his big catch.

We had fixed soup for dinner so Mike and Patty came over for wine and dinner.

We aren't making plans until the morning of each day because of the weather.

Anchorage to Valdez

Today we left Anchorage to drive to Valdez on the Prince William Sound. We had been told that it was an absolutely beautiful ride and it proved to be just that. There may be more pictures than words in this blog -- starting with this one.

We followed rivers part of the way.

The first glacier of the day.

This is another glacier that comes out almost to the road.

Notice the sprinkling of new snow on the mountains.

There were so many glaciers that we could see from the roadway. And then there were also waterfalls.

They liken Valdez to Switzerland and I can certainly see why. We had mostly clear skies on the way down and then when we got into Valdez it started to rain.

Anchorage again

Friday, we drove back to Anchorage and stayed at Elmendorf AFB. Their FamCamp is very nice. It had electricity and water and nice level sites in a wooded area. The area was supposed to be full of moose but they were elusive and we didn't see any.

The first day that we got there we met Wayne's cousin, Genie, at Applebee's for supper.

Sunday we went over to the Golden Nugget to see Jack and Ruth and Mike and Patty. Mike and Patty had gone to Salmon Glacier but we had a nice visit with Jack and Ruth.

Monday Genie had off so we met her at her work place so she could introduce us to her co-workers and boss. Then we went to downtown Anchorage for lunch and to walk around town. We also went to the Earthquake Experience theatre.

Genie came back to the motorhome with us and I finally got a picture of her

and of her and Wayne together.

We really had a good time meeting her and visiting with her.

We did lots of shopping at the commissary and BX as well as some places in town. On Wednesday we will head to Valdez for two weeks.

Trip from Soldatna to see the Spawning Salmon

On the last day in Soldatna we drove out to Quartz Creek to see the spawning salmon. As I got to the creek I spotted this family of ducks.



These are the salmon spawning. They have changed colors dramatically on there trip back to where they were born. The male and female pair guard the eggs until they die.

The salmon were everywhere in the creek spawning.

This is a view of the river that the creek feeds.

Tomorrow we head to Anchorage.

Kenai after the tour is over

Jack and Ruth and his daughter and grandson, Mike and Patty, Al and Karen, Rod and Wayne and I all decided to stay for a few days longer in Kenai. Wayne, Rod, Jack, and Mike when salmon fishing on the Kenai. The netting season is over.


We finally had time to sit around, have a glass of wine and a campfire.

The weather cleared up enough to see the mountains and glacier across to our right.

Mike, Rod, and Wayne have decided to move to Soldotna to be closer to the fishing on the Kenai.