Alaska Trip 2013

Yesterday we traveled all day from Anchorage to camp about 90 miles outside of Valdez so we could unhitch the car and go to Valdez for the day. Valdez is a one way in and one way out kinda place. Of course it is also a harbor town so you can ferry, boat, cruise and ship in and out of there as well. Remember this is the place of the famous oil spill in 1989. Coming in on the highway there is beautiful mountains and tundra that reminded us of Silverton. So many huge, beautiful waterfalls. It should be called land of the thousand falls...another glacier, Worthington. Around the other side of the harbor there is a fish hatchery and many sea lions and seals. The sea lions weren't the lazy ones laying around on the rocks or beach, they were swimming and fishing and posing for pictures. On the side of a bridge there was a condo for sea gulls. The funniest thing! Probably 50 sea gulls made their nest along the ledge of the bridge and had babies they were feeding. I saw a few eagles but this condo looked like a great safe place of safety for their nests. The mosquitoes are HUGE here, they picked Dad up under both arms and carried him off into a field and had their way with him....LOL my, oh my they are many and huge!! You hear a jet flying over head and look to see a mosquito going in for the landing on your shoulder! There is a restaurant called The Totem. If ever you are in Valdez we highly recommend it! Best dog gone omlettes!! Tomorrow we head out for Tok where we will wash the RV and car and then head for Whitehorse.

Today was unbelievable! We started our day with a plane ride in an Otter, built in 1958. It has a turbo prop, seats 11 people. It took an hour and 30 minutes, lots of fog and so we weren't sure we would be able to land but we did and it was a great landing. Yesterday in Soldotna a plane crashed and all 10 people were killed, we were alittle nervous, but a great pilot we had! Then the King Salmon jumping to go up the falls to lay their eggs. I can't express how big and powerful these fish are! They were magnificent!! It was raining all day so standing at the Falls and not seeing a bear in sight for probably 45 ,invites, you start to get nervous they won't be here. Enter Grizzlies...they walked up the river and jumped, dove and ran in the river to come up with fish in their mouths. They would skin them, eat the skin and the brains and their eggs and the rest let the Eagles and the seagulls have the rest.you could see fish filets laying all over on the ground that the bears had left after they got what they wanted.

We had to be back at the plane at 3:30 so Craig & I started back around 3:00. You have platforms to walk on for most of the trails but sometimes you are just in the woods with the bears. If you run into a bear you need to back away and let the bear have the trail. We ran into a momma and three yearlings on the trail, we backed up and let them pass us, WOW how often do you get close enough to a bear, let alone a GRIZZLY to reach out and touch and not feel scared? They could care less we are around, we talk to them to let them Know we are there and then give them the trails. It's so cool!! Then we continued down the trail and another Momma with 3 cubs comes out and they are babies...so cute I can't even say I words how adorable these 4 bears were! We finally get to the last platform to cross a bridge and a congregation of probably 15 bears start to gather. HUGE males chasing the younger females and the momma's with cubs. Yes, the males will eat the cubs. BAD, MALES!!!so we got stuck on the bridge platform for 1 1/2 hours watching males interact with each other and males chasing the females. Some even took naps along the the path and blocked our way thru. You have to let the bears do whatever they want. The biggest ones we saw were around 700-800 lbs. they will put on another 4-5 hundred pounds in the next two months!

So enjoy these photos and know what a wonderful world our God has created for us to live in and ENJOY! How blessed we are!! I am in awe that I saw what I saw today! I so wish you could have been here too!! HUGS!!! BEAR HUUGS!!!