Valdez

After our stops in the Fairbanks area, we headed south, through Delta Junction, headed for Glenallen and on to Valdez. We stopped for the night at a very nice pullout across the road from the very quiet Allen Army Airfield.

We stopped in Glenallen to enjoy some excellent Thai food from the Thai restaurant. It's progressed from a food truck to a small building, but it's still a take-out only operation.

As we continued south we started getting into glacier country approaching Thompson Pass.

Blueberry Lake State Recreation Area had been recommended to us, and it was a beautiful setting, especially if you had a day with clear skies. Unfortunately, the state has licensed it to a local organization that's trying to keep it going but the increased prices and decreased services, along with the cool weather, led us to look for something else.

The other disadvantage of Blueberry Lake was that is was still quite a distance to town. Even when you got to the welcome sign, it was still 22 miles to city center.

That was 22 miles of outstanding beauty, however, with waterfalls that were several hundred feet tall.

Earth caches took us to some interesting places including Valdez Lake, complete with icebergs at the base of Valdez Glacier, barely seen up the valley in the background.

As usual, I enjoy checking out the marinas, but what really caught my eye was the beautiful flower baskets everywhere.

One of the reasons I wanted to visit Valdez was because it is know for bear watching. We didn't see any bears in spite of the huge number of humpies entering the creek. We did see people who couldn't read...

And, as luck would have it, we did spot one bear. There are several RV Parks in town, most located at or very near busy intersections near the center of town. We opted for the KOA about 5 miles out of town since the layout wasn't as crowded and it was closer to the bear viewing area. Rarely a fan of KOA, but we were very pleased with this one!

One of the things we did while in town was to visit the local museum. I'd highly recommend it, especially for the film they've done about the history of the town.

While there, we observed a stuffed version of the very rare fur fish, "It's fur coat is an adaptation to the frigid glacial waters of the area." "New information just in suggests that the Fur Fish is still alive! It has gone through further adaptation since this specimen was caught. It is rumored that one caught recently was not fur covered, but was instead covered with Gore-Tex with a Thinsulate liner!"

After three days in Valdez, we had the first of five road construction stops at same place that we thought was so beautiful going the other direction. Everyone was taking advantage of the wait to take pictures.

We'd planned to stop for the night at a State Recreation Area just east of Tok but there was bridge construction adjacent to it so we opted for another very nice roadside area on the west shore of the Tanana River.

Next stop Skagway.