Travel Day–Kenny Lake to Valdez

This was a nice drive (!) down the Richardson Highway. ‘Construction R us’ was at work in many spots on the roadway. We had a 10 or 12 gravel breaks in the highway. Thompson Pass gave us the required fog with low visibility and rain. But we managed to make it with little traffic that 90 miles.

Sport and Suite Pea took a stop here to look at the river and fireweed. There had been several gravel breaks and some fishermen and campers were in a hurry, so they decided to pull off for a break.



 

Just after Mtn Billy Jack, Sport and Suite Pea decided that a break was in line. Their drivers were asking for ‘rest’ breaks so they gave in and allowed them a break. Their drivers took some photos too while on break. They geared up to go up and around Wrightson Glacier and over Thompson Pass and down past ‘bridle veil falls’ and ‘horse tail falls’ and right on into Valdez and stop at the USFG information center. They waited while the drivers looked at the falls, birds, and spawning salmon and got some information on the area.

They took off south toward the RV Park and got there and Suite Pea got backed in and then Sport came up and backed in and finally Herbie got tucked in place.

We were all together in this really nice small RV Park which our RVing sistah, Beth, is staying this summer.



Liz and I took off to look at the local fish hatchery that was recommended by the information center and Allison Point RV Park across the bay. We made note to stop at the front of the bay on the way back, and went down to Dayville Rd and on out to the fish hatchery. Lots of signs on the road in various spots to ‘give wildlife a break’, ‘do not stop in the next 1500 feet’ (yep, there were people stopped there). Turns out that there is where the bears are coming down to fish. People want to get up close and personal with the bears. I guess it had gotten to be a zoo and the local officials were concerned that someone was going to get mauled and maybe eaten (if they tasted better than spawning salmon or even salmon or blue berries). But we stopped at the fish hatchery. See the following blog posts one for my birding friends and one for my fishing friends. That was a neat stop. While we were there it started to sprinkle a little, after all we were in Valdez at the coast! It’s a rain forest here.

This is a neat little town. We came back and waited for Beth to get home. Then we went walking with her and Peaches. We called it a night about 10:30 p.m.