Hello again!
Day 16
Saturday was a bit on the boring side. We got up to tear down camp and pretty much just sit around and wait for the ferry to come in. The ferry ride was uneventful.
When we got back to Juneau, we braved the mosquitoes the "size of Texas", according to Ashley, and set up camp in the Mendenhall Campground again. Nothing else of note really happened. We went to sleep, and it was actually quite warm.
Day 17
We got up rather lackadaisically. We got breakfast. We did a little shopping. Then we broke camp and went to wait at the ferry terminal.
It felt like we waited forever. We got there on time, 2:30 pm, and I don't think we got on the boat until around 4, when we're supposed to leave at 4:30. They did pull that off, but I was a little surprised.
This ferry ride was on the oldest ferry we had been on. It was built in the early 1960s and renovated in the 1970s. It smelled a little funny, and you couldn't eat in the forward lounge, but... It was safe and that's all that really matters. Oh, and we were headed up to Haines, AK. From there we head up into the Interior!
We met two rather adorable older couples. One couple was from Ohio, and I think the other was from England. They were both great and talkative and gave us some great pointers on places to go. Otherwise, the ferry ride was pretty normal. I did see one humpback's tail fairly close, but that was about it nature-wise. We may have spotted seals or sea lions, but they were too far away to be sure.
We got to Haines rather late, so we slipped into our hotel and crashed. Before we fell asleep tho, we watched one episode of Mythbusters. Now we know that if you get a flat tire and don't have a spare or AAA, it is plausible to stuff your tire with hay and be able to make it to your destination. Hahahaha! But I'm being completely serious.
Day 18
In Haines, we started on the walking tour of the place. There was a Fort there, but it doesn't exist anymore. One brochure called this town, "The greatest place to live if you don't have to make a living." And I think this is true for two reasons. One, I don't know what anyone actually does there. Two, Haines has the highest population of artists per capita in the country. It is beautiful country, that's for sure.
We went to two museums in Haines. One...hahahaha...is the Hammer Museum. It is a house with three main rooms, full of nothing but hammers. Of all sorts. Over fourteen hundred HAMMERS. With a gigantic hammer in the front yard. Ridiculous. :)
The second museum we went to was the Bald Eagle Foundation. This museum was chock full of stuffed animals. Moose heads, bears, a lot of eagles and other birds. There were two live birds. One was an owl, and it looked really scared. One eye was bigger than the other. Then there was a falcon. It was nice, but a little creepy too.
We went for one hike that was supposed to be "family-friendly". The trail was about 90% roots. It was tricky to say the least. Not family-friendly. But it did lead down to a nice little rock beach. It was pretty, as everything is up here.
Then we hit the road. At around 4pm. Now...it's something like 700 miles from Haines to Valdez. So, thinking as East Coasties would, we thought, oh max 10 hours. No. Not even close. So, we haven't, actually, had much experience with Alaskan roads yet. Everywhere we've been so far, Ketchikan (where we didn't drive), Juneau (where the road ends), and Sitka (on an island) all had normal roads as far as we could tell because they were in closed environments. They were all towns were the population had to be able to get around like anyone else in the country. The road from Haines to the North, Haines Highway (so original, I know), is not a closed environment. In fact, it is the middle of NOWHERE. I'm pretty sure we went over an hour once without seeing another human soul.
But that does not mean we were alone. Oh no. We saw four bears last night. And we saw a porcupine. And I think we probably saw some more animals last night, but I'm just a bit sleepy now because we didn't get much sleep last night. We saw all of these animals, I think, because we were going about 35 miles an hour down Haines Highway and Alaska Highway. There are dips almost as big as our van in the road. There are small mountains in the road. Parts of the road is just loose gravel. It felt like we were going nowhere.
Day 19
We drove until around 1 am this morning. Ashley told some...interesting...depressing...stories. I fell asleep. We stopped at this campground, pull in place for a little bit. I think we slept there for 3 hours. Have I mentioned before that it doesn't get dark up here? Dad woke up some and kept driving. And we kept driving and driving and driving. Despite the rainy, icky day, we did see two sets of mommy and baby moose and one young bull moose. His horns were just growing. I think we also saw a grizzly bear this morning? I'm not sure... I kept waking up when the van stopped but I wasn't always 100% with it...hahaha.
We stopped at Worthington glacier once we were closer to Valdez. It was chilly. There were also several waterfalls we stopped at, but for some reason I was just pretty knocked out today. I could not wake up. We stopped for awhile across the sound from Valdez. We just saw where the oil goes to get shipped out. Oh yeah, we saw the big pipeline that brings the oil down from the Arctic. This pipeline ends across the sound from Valdez and ships from there. Ashley and I hung out in the van while Mom and Dad went for a walk along the Sound. Ashley and I saw some seals.
Finally, finally, finally we made it into the teeny tiny town of Valdez. There's really not much here. If it weren't for the big oil spill in 1989, I don't know how many people would know about it. Well, it is the entrance to the Prince William Sound which is quite beautiful, and we're going in there tomorrow. But you can only really go in there via boat. So that's what we're doing.
We got our tire changed (the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad roads up here managed to strip one of our tires down to the cords). Then we checked in to the Keystone Hotel. Apparently the workers who helped clean up from the Exxon-Valdez oil spill stayed here while they were cleaning everything up. It's interesting...but Ashley and I have our own bed for the next two nights, there's running water, cable, and internet, so we aren't complaining.
Tomorrow we head off into Prince William Sound for some more glaciers and hopefully some closer views of whales and such. We'll see!
