To Valdez and back - #52-17

August 8, 2005 (Mon)
Anchorage, AK to Palmer, AK (46/7252 miles) Q019557

There was a caravan in the campground and leaving this morning so we weren't in a hurry to get off. Also the campground provided WiFi was having problems with download/upload of email and the DSL cable was locked in the office until 9:00. The temperature was 54° when we got up at 6:30 and up to 62° by the time we pulled out of the campground at 9:15.

After getting set up in the campground in Palmer we all piled into Ed and Kathy's toad and headed for the musk ox farm. It was an interesting tour and we learned a lot about musk ox - their fur is combed and spun into yarn - but barely worth the $7.00 fee to get in. After lunch we drove (in two cars) up into Hatcher Pass to the Independence Mine State Historical Park. This is the site of a large hard rock gold mining operation, now defunct, deteriorating, and being restored. The interpretive displays were very interesting and the drive up was one of the most spectacular of our trip. On the way back we stopped to sample the self proclaimed "best ice cream in the world". It turned out to be an old soft ice cream dispenser (chocolate out of order) in a convince store. We didn't get any.

Matanuska River Campground, Palmer, AK #71 dry $10 B

Matanuska River Campground is a municipal campground and quite small. But it is very nice. Palmer is known for its giant cabbages and there are some being grown in the park. There is also rhubarb, red and yellow raspberries, squash and other vegetables. We are free to harvest what is ripe. Only the rhubarb and raspberries are.

August 9, 2005 (Tue)
Palmer, AK to Copper Center, AK (180/7432 miles) Q019737

We forgot to have the fresh raspberries on our cereal! Oh well, there'll be another day. We took the Glen Highway east along the Matanuska River stopping once to take pictures of the Matanuska Glacier in the distance. Although we could have taken a walking trail to the glacier from another turn out, we chose not to. The scenery was spectacular. But the views going south toward Valdez on the Richardson Highway were awesome. We began to see the Wrangell Mountains - Sanford, Drum, Wrangell, and Blackburn - as ghost images of white on white. The snow covered peaks only slightly whiter than the hazy sky and the rock below only slightly darker. Barely visible, they seemed to float several hundred feet above the hazy horizon.

Kenny Lake Mercantile and R.V. Park, Copper Center, AK #9 dry $14.00 B-

We chose this campground "in Copper Center" because one of the promised village attractions was a garden model railroad layout. It turned out that the campground is some 25 miles south of Copper Center. We drove back after setting up camp only to find that the layout is in a bar that is open only between 6 and 12 pm. The campground fees are "ala carte". We are paying $12 for a basic no hookup site (really quite a nice site in the woods) plus $2 for permission to dump our holding tanks. Another $2 would have allowed us to take on water (we didn't need it) and for another $4 we could hook up to electricity. A $4 token would buy 7 1/2 minutes of shower time.

August 10, 2005 (Wed)
Copper Center, AK to Valdez, AK (110/7542 miles) Q019847

Yesterday afternoon the temperature got up into the 80s (much appreciated!) This morning when we got up at 6:00, it was 50°. Quite a change! As I write this the thermometer reads 75°. In keeping with these latitudes, it's too warm for sweatshirts in the sun but the breeze makes it too cool to not wear them.

The consensus of our maps and personal judgment indicated that our best route could be found by turning left out of the campground. It took us 5 or 6 miles to determine that the one guidebook (The Milepost) that indicated that we should turn right, had it right. Even Henry mislead us because we were closer to the "turn off" than we thought. The campground drive was actually on the road we were looking for. He would have complained had he been on duty, but he wasn't. Turning around was easy for Q, not so easy for the larger motor homes with cars in tow.

Once headed in the right direction we found the Richardson Highway with no trouble and turned south. What a beautiful drive it was. It seems like I say that about every road we go on - because it's true. We were completely surrounded by glacier bearing mountains, some with slopes coming right down to the road. When they were further away we could see the oil pipeline snaking through the forest not far away. We stopped at Worthington Glacier State Recreational Area to take pictures and hike out to the glacier - well, all but Mark hiked. He's having a back problem - and Joy actually got to touch it. She retreated rather quickly, though, when it groaned loudly.

Valdez is one of many places where salmon come to spawn and die. We stopped at a view point on the way in to town and saw hundreds of dead and dying fish. Interesting, depressing and smelly!

Sea Otter RV Park, Valdez, AK #59 w/e $25 A+

This campground in Valdez is like those in Homer and Seward in that we are right on the water - an arm of Prince William Sound here - where we can look out and watch the sea life (wild and otherwise). There are mountains with glaciers all around us. Across the water we can see the huge tanks that are used to store the oil coming down the pipeline from up north and with binoculars we can even see one of the supertankers in port to be loaded with the oil.

August 11, 2005 (Thu)
Sea Otter RV Park, Valdez, AK (2)

The Valdez Museum is showing the 21st annual Quilt & Fiber Expressions exhibit "Stitches in Time" that goes all summer. The quilts were all of excellent quality. Among the museum's historical displays were two horse drawn fire engines beautifully restored. One was a 10 man hand pumper and the other a steam powered pumper. The museum annex had a 1:20 scale model of what Valdez looked like before the 1964 earthquake. The village is now four miles from where it was at the time of the earthquake. We also saw movies about the earthquake and the building of the oil pipeline.

After lunch we went with Ed and Kathy to the site of the old Valdez (nothing there now except for a few interpretive signs) and the operations control facility for the pipeline (closed to visitors since 9/11) On the way back we stopped to do some grocery shopping and dropped Joy off at the quilt shop in town while the rest of us went back to the campground. Joy walked the mile and a half back glad for freedom to shop without feeling rushed and for the exercise. Watching the sea otters play in the sound by a (smoky) fire was our late afternoon entertainment. Dominoes in the evening.

August 12, 2005 (Fri)
Valdez, AK to Copper Center, AK (97/7634 miles) Q019944

53° @ 6:30, 59.7° @ 8:00, 94° @ 4:00. The smell of dead fish in the sound was particularly bad this morning making leaving this beautiful place a little easier. The drive back over Thompson Pass and through Keystone Canyon was as beautiful as it was on the way in. Finding the Kenny Lake campground was much easier this time so we all arrived in better spirits.

Kenny Lake Mercantile and R.V. Park, Copper Center, AK #11 elec $14.40p B

After lunch Mark, Bob, Pat, and Ed took off to find the fish wheels in the Copper River in the tiny village of Chitina, at the end of civilization 30 miles on down the road. Fish wheels, powered by the flow of the river, rotate scooping salmon out of the water and shunting them into waiting baskets. Native Alaskans are allowed 500 fish (per person per year?) for their own use. To get to the fishing area we had to drive over a very rocky dry river bottom and park some distance from the wheels - there were 8 to 10 of them. As we stood there watching, a woman who was working alone at one of the wheels filleting fish waded through knee deep water over to us and asked if we wanted fish. It turned out she was offering to give us some fillets - if we wanted whole fish she was required to sell them to us. We chose the free fillets. She waded back out to her filleting table and returned with about 5 - 6 pounds of them! We had barbecued salmon for dinner and there's enough left over for another meal or two.