Fox Pup's AK Vacation - Day 8: Bridal Veils and Horse Tails

Back on the road today… we’re now off toward Valdez, right along Prince William Sound.  More golden birch trees brighten up the hillsides, and we got to drive through the Wrangell-St. Elias mountains.  Part of this drive took us through Thompson Pass, which was absolutely beautiful!  So much of the scenery we’re seeing on this trip is so hard to put into words.  Beautiful, gorgeous, pretty, great, exciting, and awesome just don’t cut it.  The word “Wow…” comes out of our mouths quite often. 

South of Thompson Pass, we came upon a couple of awesome waterfalls… one named “Bridal Veil Waterfall” and the other named “Horsetail Waterfall”.  Surprise, surprise… photos don’t do them justice.  But the names are quite representative, actually.  We met a couple of professional photographers at Horsetail Waterfall who live between Wasilla and Palmer, and they were sharing some of their stories about Valdez with us… telling us about a road by the pipeline where you can see otters and sea lions along with some other great scenery.  Really?  We’ll have to find that!

From there, we continued on toward Valdez.  We passed by a road that had a sign saying “Old Valdez Town Site” with an arrow pointing down the road.  I had forgotten that the entire town had to be relocated after the 1964 earthquake that caused ground level to sink something like 10 feet.  Could be something to check out tomorrow.  Our first task as we got into Valdez was to find lodging for the night.  As I made reservations several months ago, I was not able to make reservations at the B&B we hoped for in Valdez because the host said she doesn’t take reservations after Sept. 15^th but we wouldn’t have trouble getting a room.  Well, of course now we can’t get in touch with her.  We called a few other places and finally settled upon an Inn.  When we were trying to figure out which direction we needed to go to get there, we realized it was RIGHT behind the parking lot we were sitting in.  Valdez sure isn’t a large town, but we didn’t realize everything was within about a 2 block radius of where we were sitting! Funny.

After dinner, we decided to roam around the harbor a bit.  As we were walking down there, a bunch of fish were suddenly jumping out of the water and we saw something brown chasing after them.  Someone told us it was an otter.  And the fish were salmon.  Those salmon continued to jump out of the water one by one the entire time we were there… I didn’t know they did that (I’m certainly no fisherman though)!  We tried to get pictures of them doing that, but our reaction time was always just a bit too slow.  We did find a local kitty named Poppy who was very friendly, and while we were giving her attention, we realized an otter was right behind us in the water.  Ooh!!  He was apparently getting muscles off the dock and totally enjoying them… making little happy noises and all.  We were following him around getting pictures of him.  A couple of times he was right near the dock as he was eating and swimming, so even though I only had my wide angle lens I could still get some good, close shots of him.

Poppy, the harbor kitty

 As he swam away from us, we meandered around the docks a bit more and eventually came across something else coming out of the water and blowing spray into the air.  Not a whale, but what is it??  It looked like a dog sticking its head out of the water.  It was a sea lion!  Unfortunately, it would only stick its head up, stay for a moment, and then go back under water.  Kind of hard to get any real photos of them that way!  It was still neat to see them though, and enjoy the scenery and sea smells around us.  As it got dark, we finally let it go and went back to our room… we have a whole other day to find more photo ops around town.

The Small Boat Harbor at Valdez

Fox Pup's AK Vacation - Day 7: "We Have Clouds Today!"

Short post today...

As we woke up and ventured outside, my friend says, “MB, we have clouds today!” in reference to a few cirrus clouds in the sky.  That pretty much sums up the beautiful weather we’ve had.  Day 7, and all we've seen is a few wisps of clouds in the sky on a couple days.  We’re absolutely spoiled!  People are talking about past years when they’ve had snow on the ground at this time already… and they’re enjoying summer in September this year.  We’ll take it!

Today has been deemed a relaxing day at the lake.  No driving… no shopping… just a walk, some photography, and plenty of relaxing outside by the lake.  Other than some parents who obviously would prefer their children to be much better behaved, it was a very nice day!   Playing cards, writing in my journal, watching a float plane land on the lake and take off a couple times, and reminiscing about our childhood memories… I don’t get to do this stuff very often!  Sometimes it’s nice to take a step back from my normal, busy life and truly relax for a day.

A float plane landing on Lake Louise

Fox Pup's AK Vacation - Day 6: Time To Head South Again

As we left our latest temporary home, we drove north to the town of Fox so we could see the Alaska Pipeline.  We got there just ahead of 4 tour buses full of people… good timing!  It was neat to see the pipeline and learn a little about how it contains “pigs” that help the oil flow through the pipe.  From there, we headed south through North Pole (which screams tourist trap with everything set up like Santa’s village!) and on toward Glennallen.  We got to see a couple bald eagles, some more magpie, and even a few snowshoe hare.  It was another beautiful drive with lots of views of golden birch trees. 

 



Our lodging for tonight is right on Lake Louise, which is about 30 miles west of the town of Glennallen.  It’s a pretty lake!  We’re in a “rustic cabin”… I was actually excited to find out there is electricity and heat in our cabin!  One of the beds lacks some support (to say the least), but it’s great to have a roof over our heads for the night! :)

Fox Pup's AK Vacation - Day 5: A Little of This… a Little of That

We were told that the northern lights were supposed to be very good last night.  Our host said she usually checks for them before going to bed and again at 3am, and she asked one of us to get up at 1am to check.  I volunteered, but when I looked at 1am, all I could see was a very faint band of maybe greenish light across the sky.  Much more striking were all the stars… the big dipper was bigger and brighter than I’ve ever seen before.  I expected to be woken up at 3am with better lights, but instead I woke up in the morning.  Apparently the lights weren’t nearly as good as they were expected to be, but what I saw at 1am was in fact the lights, albeit very faint. 

Breakfast this morning was “moose ears and nuggets”… very tasty!  We then set out into town and explored the botanical garden at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks.  We were able to get a lot of flower photos since the weather has remained so warm and sunny this far into September.  We then explored a fabric store… did some laundry… and got some ice cream at a place named “Hot Licks”.  We heard Pioneer Park would be great to explore, so we went to check it out.  Turns out… most of it is already closed so we didn’t spend much time there.  We did a little shopping and explored the Visitor’s Center… and then went to the historic “Pump House” for dinner. 

At the end of yet another spectacular day, I learned that the weather in Wichita hasn’t been quite as quiet as here in Alaska.  A severe thunderstorm brought up to softball size hail to parts of Wichita… including where my car is patiently awaiting my return.  I guess I get to work on fixing that one before moving to Alaska in a couple weeks.  What interesting timing!

Fox Pup's AK Vacation - Day 4: Sled Dog Puppies!!!

9 week old Alaskan Husky

Today we started our day going to Jeff King’s homestead just south of Denali National Park.  Jeff King has won the Iditarod 4 times… one of only a few to make that accomplishment.  We met at a lodge near the park, and Jeff’s wife Donna brought us to their home.  As we pulled up to the front of the house, we saw a few people bringing over some adorable puppies… most of them about 7 weeks old!  As we got off the van, we were handed a puppy to cuddle with.  Donna warned us before we even got off the van that they know how many puppies they start out with, and we are not allowed to bring one home.  Darn. ;)  They were quite cuddly, and very hard to return to their rightful owners.  After we had our fill of the puppies, Jeff, Donna, and Tessa (Jeff and Donna’s daughter) shared with us a lot of information about raising the dogs, racing the dogs, and great stories from their many years of experience.  The dogs are all Alaskan Huskies, which are long distance runners and therefore small, strong, and actually not as furry as you might expect.  Pretty neat to see them and hear their stories.  Those dogs are well loved and obviously enjoy what they do! 

Alaskan Fall Foliage

After the sled dog tour, we drove on toward Fairbanks.  This time, our drive was during the day, so we got to see much more beautiful scenery.   The birch trees are just golden, and there were lots of hillsides filled with golden birch trees.  So pretty!  We took many photos along the way, but they just don’t capture what we were seeing.  That doesn’t stop us from snapping away though!

 

We decided to go to the Silver Gulch Brewery for dinner, which meant a drive on a scenic road northeast toward Fox.  On the way there, we came across a plane parked in a lot next to the road.  Not a bush plane... but a commercial jet.  We have no idea how it got there, but when we stopped to take pictures of it, we also found a couple moose in someone's front yard.  Neat!

Our lodging for the next two nights is a log home B&B, and it’s beautiful.  Our hosts are very hospitable, too!  Can’t wait to explore Fairbanks tomorrow.