Valdez

On the way south from Tok, we pass a big mountain range called the Wrangell Mtns. There is a road into the interior that starts out paved, goes to gravel, and then degrades to potholes. We travelled this road past the first "creek crossing", which was really just a widening and deepening of the gravel on the road - it looks like a wash-out made of gravel: large gravel as far as you can see either way. The second crossing had water in it, and although it was not wide, the water was fast and deep. We could have "four-wheeled" through it, but we decided that discretion was the better part of valour and turned back. Along this road were several free campsites. We chose one not too far from the mainroad, as it had a fishing creek. During the day it had rained a bit, hailed a bit, and cleared a bit. But the bugs never abated! Black flies and mosquitoes are out in Alaska.

We stayed at this spot for 2 nights, having fresh trout and fresh bug bites both days.

The morning that we moved on was cloudy. We packed up early, but not early enough. It started to rain before all was taken down, so we bundled up faster as the rain came down harder. We saw a moose, trumpeter swans, and thankfully, sun on the way south. We also saw 26 miles of gravel on the main highway construction zone. A big motorhome spit up a rock, and now we have a stone chip in our windshield the size of the end of my thumb.

The road down to the port of Valdez passes 3 glaciers visible from the highway, and goes through a canyon with at least two waterfalls. It was beautiful and we promised to stop on the way back out. Our immediate concern was fixing our windshield before it started cracking. Did you know it was a long weekend in Alaska? Something about Independence. The town was full of visitors and partiers, but the auto glass people were gone. We found a nice campsite up towards the closest glacier, left a message for the auto glass guy, and crossed our fingers. As we were drying out our tents and shelter from our natural showers this morning, the campers beside us were roasting up a BBQ snack that smelled wonderful. We must have been too loud in our appreciation of the smells coming our way, because they soon sent over a plate!

We took a quick trip back to town for supplies. The man at the grocery was exclaiming about the sun and lovely weather they were having. I asked how long we could expect it to last, and he said "Twenty minutes!" Weather changes quickly here. Sure enough, it was starting to cloud over before we got back to our campsite. We finished putting up our dry tent. And before the evening was over, we repaid our kind neighbors by lending them a tarp for over their picnic table.

Rainy days are good for museums and libraries, which is why I'm able to catch up on my blogging today. Tomorrow we intend to drive on to Anchorage, which has a Speedy Auto Glass. Hopefully, we don't hit too many big bumps on the way!

W