Valdez Weekend

Since we have several friends that like to take advantage of the siblings that work at Peter Pan to get fish, we planned a road trip to pick up the orders (saves on shipping), with the additional benefit that I get to see Sara one more time before she leaves Valdez. Yay! Unfortunately, I remembered (when we were 4 hours from home) that I left my camera on the table. All the pictures in this post are courtesy of Greg (and his fancy-pants camera). =)

Greg & I drove down (over?) after work on Friday, which means we didn't hit town until 1am Saturday morning. Sara was able to get us a nice "room" (really an apartment-style place, with it's own bathroom and a kitchen to boot!) at the cannery. It had a lovely view of the marina (above), and was a very nice place to hang our hats - for the little bit of time that we were actually in it.

Sara had to work for a bit Saturday morning, so while we were waiting we went to breakfast. Then picked her up to wander around town and spend some time together. Before the trip, Greg downloaded some cache coordinates, so we headed out to find some new things to see. It was a grey, drizzly day - but still relatively nice. Not so much rain that we got drenched, and warm enough that I wore sandals and a jacket. We saw a glacial lake with floating chunks of ice (above), and another cache was at a small waterfall (below).

Sara had to go back to work for a couple hours, so Greg & I wandered around some more while she was gone. We saw two black bears, and took some turns down roads we'd never traveled before. We took advantage of the 4-wheel drive on Sully (thanks to Sheri for helping to name my car!) to get to some of the areas. Valdez is a lovely spot - even in the overcast and rain - although I can't imagine the winter, where I've heard they get snow that can pile up to the rooftops. I'll stick to the summer excursions! =)

For the evening entertainment, we took a ride on one of the cruise ships. It happened to be a fund-raising event for the visitor's center - a murder-mystery set in the 1920's. We didn't have costumes, but it was fun to see the locals all decked out, and of course the scenery from the boat was amazing.

Sunday morning we were able to spend a bit more time with Sara for breakfast, then it was time to load up the fish and head back home (I still had laundry to do before the workweek began). We stopped at the crest of Thompson Pass and did a little more off-roading. The pass is always a good spot for spectacular scenery. When it's clear, it's like you can see the world below you. When it's cloudy, it's like you're shrouded in mystery. And it's always as if you're at the top of the world. (I have pictures at the pass here where it's sunnier with Sheri.)

We made a short stop at Harding Glacier too (mostly so I could use the restrooms), and got updated pictures. In the post here, I have pictures from 2007 - and if you click on one of them you can just make out three people climbing the ice. It's still awe-inspiring to be so close to such a magnificent view.

We stopped a couple more times on the road home (for some of Greg's caches), and got to enjoy the beautiful fall colors. Alaska is a beautiful place, and I'm extremely glad we've had such a wonderful summer! (Hopefully that doesn't mean we're in for a terrible winter...)

It was a lovely, if quick, weekend. Very nice to spend more time with Sara - and a fun road trip, to boot! She'll be at the house to visit in less than a week, but she doesn't get to spend as much time with me as she used to, so I'm really glad that we were able to get together a couple times over the summer. =)