Kings on the Road

Hawaii – Part 2, Maui

Posted on December 27, 2015 by Kings On the Road

Our first stop on the cruise was Maui. The view from the ship was impressive – beautiful beaches, green mountains. We picked up our rental car and took the “Road to Hana”. This is a famous 52 mile drive with over 620 curves, 46 one lane bridges and jungle all the way. It takes 3 hours each way and it is not relaxing. But it is incredible and there are hidden gems along the way. Looking back we think we’d like to spend a few days in Hana.

R & D at Hana Bay

Hana village

Volcanic coast near Hana

Black sand beach near Hana

Lava tube

Rainbow Eucalyptus tree on the road to Hana

On our second day on Maui we went to the historic town of Lahaina. Lahaina is known as a port for the huge New England whaling fleet. Our favorite Irish band Gaelic Storm recently recorded an old whaling song “The Road to Old Maui”. The song is mentioned in the Lahaina history museum. The town is also known for a banyan tree that provides a 200 foot circle of shade. We visited a Boston missionary home, the Baldwin house, and a historic Chinese temple, Wo Hing. Both tell a amazing tales of the influences these far flung cultures had on Hawaii.

Baldwin house

Wo Hing temple

After visiting Lahaina we traveled back to the port city of Kahului and visited Iao Valley, home to the Iao Needle and site of a historic battle between Kamehameha and warriors defending Maui. Legend says the battle was so fierce that bodies dammed the river. We also saw gardens celebrating different cultures of Maui including Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Puerto Rican.

The Iao Needle

Japanese garden

Maui has a lot to offer. There is even a Whole Foods market. We didn’t get to the Haleakala Volcano National Park and the Lahaina Ka’anapali & Pacific Railroad aka the Sugar Cane Train was closed for repairs during our visit. Just two reasons to return to Maui.

Sugar Cane Train

Posted in Cruises, Hawaii | 4 Comments

Hawaii – Part 1, Honolulu

Posted on December 22, 2015 by Kings On the Road

Honolulu and Oahu

Alaska and Hawaii were two of our first goals after deciding to go full time in the RV. We thought “why not knock these two off the to-do list in 2015”. A great way to start the full time lifestyle, living without the burden of a house.

We decided to fly from Oakland California to Honolulu, spend a few days, then take a Norwegian Cruise Line “Pride of America” 7 day cruise. This is the only cruise ship that visits 4 ports on 3 islands over 6 days. We would have 2 days in Maui, 2 days in Kuaui and 2 different ports on the big island Hawaii. We thought it would be a great sampler tour since we had never been before. Our friends from Pine Island, Sharon and Mike, decided to join us.
We read some history and guidebooks before the trip so we had an idea what we wanted to do. We flew Hawaiian Airlines on a wide body plane, the service was great. They even provided a meal!!!

Honolulu immediately impressed with the traffic congestion. We had heard it was bad and it is. But it is a beautiful setting for a city. Tradewinds diminish the affect of the humidity and the temperature was a comfortably warm 80 degrees. Could this be paradise? Our AirBnB room was as advertised on a hill above the city. Our hosts, Robert and Beverly were very welcoming.

We met Sharon and Mike the next morning and set off for Pearl Harbor, the most visited site in Hawaii. We took the boat to the Arizona Memorial and visited 2 of the museums telling the story. The memorial is right over the rusting hulk of the ship where it sank. 1177 people doomed inside. Oil still seeps slowly to the surface. Very solemn place.

Arizona Memorial

Gun turret of the sunken ship

Rather than sit in traffic back in Honolulu, we continued into the back country of Oahu headed for the fabled North Shore. The waves are truly incredible and the surfers are there. We couldn’t get to the bonzai pipeline as the World Cup Surfing Championships were being held and the place was all roped off. We did get off to some beautiful beaches with gorgeous mountain backdrops. We wound up circling Oahu before heading back to Honolulu.

North Shore waves

Look Out behind us!

Typical Oahu beach

View from Nu-ulani lookout

The next day we toured the Iolani Palace, the only former royal palace on American soil. Of course, history will show it was stolen from the Hawaiian people. It is a beautiful building and a story of a wonderful royal family. Very artistic, very happy and very caring of the people. Unfortunately they ran afoul of some American businessmen and lost their country. We also hiked to the top of Diamond Head, the big rock overlooking Waikiki Beach. Short, steep hike with great views.

Iolani Palace

Hawaiian Royal Throne until 1893

Lighthouse at Diamond Head

Waikiki from Diamond Head

Overall, we felt the over-development of Honolulu made this place un-interesting but it is still a beautiful paradise of an island, can’t wait to see more.

Posted in Cruises, Hawaii | 6 Comments

RVing in Alaska

Posted on November 21, 2015 by Kings On the Road

RVing in Alaska is so different it is a story to tell. First of all you notice RVs are everywhere. Everyone seems to be traveling in an RV. Then you notice nothing is crowded. Except of course the Fred Meyer Supermarket parking lot in Soldotna. But that is a whole other story.

Alaska is a big state yet there are surprisingly few roads. Really just about 4 major roads take you to all of Alaska you can visit by road. A few more if you include roads to Prudhoe Bay on the Arctic Ocean and some isolated towns North of Fairbanks. Most of Alaska can be seen driving just a handful of roads. There are campgrounds everywhere. Just about every motel and gas station has some RV sites. Alaska State Parks have lots of campgrounds as does BLM and USFS. And almost all rest areas in the state are perfectly good (some are great) places to spend the night. Prices are good too. From $0 to $20 for dry camping to $15 to $40 for hookups.

One item of special interest is that Verizon smart phones from the lower 48 don’t work in Alaska. Verizon is the most popular cellphone for RVers since they have the best coverage, but not in Alaska. Thankfully we have our backup Trac-fone flip phone which does work where there is signal. Unfortunately it is a “pay as you go” phone and we quickly used all our minutes roaming.

Back at the Fred Meyer Superstore in Soldotna, there is a large part of the large parking lot set aside for RVs. RVs are welcome to park there overnight and possibly for days. Management often sends a person out to direct traffic. We saw dozens of RVs the day we were there and it was crowded. It was a bit much for our taste but then we tend to drift toward the quiet side.

Our Holiday Rambler suited Alaska just fine. We have always heard “You’ve got to go to Alaska” “The ultimate RV trip”. And we agree, every Rver should do it at least once.

Plenty of RV parking

Free Wildlife Refuge campsite

Free rest area campsite

Wonderful National Forest campsite

Alaska State Park campsite

RVs congregate in Homer

All kinds of RVs

Typical Alaskan road

Posted in Alaska, RV, RV Travel | Tagged Fred Meyer, Holiday Rambler, Trac-fone, Verizon | 5 Comments

Leaving Alaska Heading South – The Return Trip

Posted on October 2, 2015 by Kings On the Road

Returning to the outside, the lower 48 of the USA.

After another doctor’s appointment Dianne was cleared to travel south on August 19th.

We pulled out of the RV park in Wasilla and headed northeast on the Glenn highway out of Palmer, a winding up and down road thru the Matanuska Valley. We had lunch along the highway with a 5 star view of mountains and glacier. Then the weather turned rainy and cool. We spent the night at our favorite rest area just south of Glennallen on the Richardson highway.

Lunch view along Glennallen Hwy

Matanuska Glacier

Day 2 of the return we took a side trip in the car down the Nabesna road into Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. The road is only paved for 15 miles then it became squishy with creeks crossing the road so we turned around. We did find tons of fresh low bush cranberries and some blueberries along the road. Good picking and good views on the way back to our RV parked in a rest area. Then we stayed at the Tundra RV park in Tok.

Typical Alaskan landscape along the Nabesna road

Fall color along the Alaskan Hwy.

Day 3 we planned to pick up our forwarded mail at the post office in Northway off the Alaska highway 30 miles from the Canadian border. Unfortunately the sign on the door said the P.O. would be closed Monday and Tuesday. (Who closes a Post Office!) We’d have to try again Wednesday morning. Fortunately there was the Tetlin Wildlife Refuge campground just down the road. Deadman Lake C.G. is a no fee campground with 15 sites and an observation trail. We fit in just right and loved it. The refuge has lots of information about the flora and fauna of the area. We found lots of berries and 4 varieties of edible mushrooms including birch bolete, puffball, hawkwing and a new one for us, the hedgehog, a kind of toothed mushroom.

Deadman Lake sunset

August snow in Wrangell St. Elias National Park

Deadman Lake

Beaver

Red Squirrel

The rest of the trip south confirmed why we had to leave when we did. It was getting pretty cool. Many mornings in the high 30s. Tis a very a very short summer in the far north.

Fresh snow at Haines Junction

The shortest route south is the Cassair Highway, the most recently completed and shortest route to Alaska from Seattle. The original Alaskan military highway could have used this route but it was feared to close to the coast and therefore more vulnerable to a Japanese attack during World War 2. A couple hours into the day the road was closed due to an accident. Fortunately, the barricades were put up at Jade City, a tourist attraction offering free dry camping and of course jade art and jewelry. Backtracking to another route would have taken us hundreds of miles out of our way, so we all just waited. These things can happen in the far north but we had our one-bedroom apartment with us and more food than we could possibly eat so it was no problem. There must have been 40 Rvs stopped there for the day and night. After 18 hours the road re-opened.

Jade City

Waiting in style

From Jade City the road south was mostly very good if winding, hilly with no shoulder or center line. The nicest RV park of the whole trip was Mountain Shadow RV Park in Iskut BC. Great views and nature trails.

RVing with a view.

Lakes and mountains

Our next stop was Hyder, AK. Hyder is unique in that the only road access is from Stewart BC. There is no US customs post and they use Pacific time not Alaska time. It is also famous for the bears feeding on salmon and easily viewed from the US Fish and Wildlife station. Unfortunately, there were no bears the 3 or 4 times we checked during our stay. The nearby Salmon Glacier views were spectacular. A gravel forest road led to amazing views. The highway to Hyder was beautiful.

Waterfall on the way to Hyder

Salmon Glacier

From Hyder the Cassair Highway took us to many First Nation communities including Gitanyow and Hazelton. In this area we learned there is a large wild mushroom business. Hundreds of collectors hit the forest collecting wild mushrooms primarily for export to Japan. The prized mushroom is the Pine or Matsutake. We saw “Mushroom Buyers” in many towns. We met one collector who gave us some “pines” to try. They are delicious!! Another variety to seek.

Matsutake mushrooms

Wild mushrooms bought here

We noticed a big change once we left the Cassair Highway and headed east on the Yellowhead Highway. Fences! Civilization! Only then did we realize we had become accustomed to endless miles of landscape unmarked by the hand of man. That is one huge difference between Alaska, the Yukon and northern BC and so much of the rest of North America. We could honestly think we were seeing North America as it has been for thousands of years.

The rest of the journey south we found nice free and inexpensive campgrounds. As we got closer to the border the weather finally started to warm. The last day of our trip back to Seattle we traveled from Clinton BC to Vancouver thru the Fraser River Canyon. It was a spectacular drive on a narrow, winding road. The views were amazing. We spotted the famous Canadian Rocky Mountaineer passenger train enjoying the views as well.

Rocky Mountaineer in the Fraser Canyon

Shooting the train

We crossed the border around 5PM on Labor Day. Who wants to cross borders on Labor Day? Well, we did it with only a 5 minute wait. Then took the short drive south to the very RV friendly ($0) Tulalip Casino for the night. We spent 17 days on the return trip, Wasilla to Washington.

Altogether we traveled over 6650 miles since leaving Washington state June 17th. We crossed the border at Sumas WA on September 7th. Other than the usual costs of living in our RV we spent USD$2011 on diesel fuel. With Dianne’s injury, we couldn’t do everything we hoped to do on this trip . There is so much more to see but it is a very long drive.

Posted in Alaska, British Columbia, Canada, RV Travel | Tagged foraging, glaciers, mushrooms, trains, waterfalls, wildlife | 8 Comments

Homer and the Kenai Peninsula

Posted on September 23, 2015 by Kings On the Road

The Kenai Peninsula is Alaska’s playground. Located south of Anchorage it is easily accessible to locals and visitors. We found it to be the busiest area of Alaska. We visited with our grandson, Graham, from July 15 to July 23.

Portage Glacier

Ptarmigan

Glacier up close

Portage Glacier is one of the most visited glaciers in all Alaska. Its retreat is very famous too. Today one must board the Ptarmigan tour ship to see the glacier which was very much larger and closer in our lifetime.

Russian River

Fishing the Kenai

The Russian River in the Kenai Peninsula is famous for salmon. It was one of the few places we actually needed to reserve a campsite as we were arriving at the peak of the red (sockeye) salmon run. Hundreds of fishermen and women lined the Russian River and the Kenai River catching spawning red salmon. We heard there were bears participating as well but didn’t see any. It was very exciting to watch and we found good hiking to get to some great views.

Cook Inlet

Homer Spit and Kachemak Bay

The western shore of the Kenai faces Cook Inlet, named of course by that Captain Cook who seems to have been everywhere. All along the coast its all about fishing. We stayed near Ninilchik, a small fishing village about half way down the west coast of the Kenai. From there we visited Homer and Kenai (the town). The first Europeans to visit this coast were the Russians and there are still beautiful Russian Orthodox Churches and small congregations. The area is hugely popular for the halibut and salmon.

Russian Orthodox Church – Kenai

Ninilchik, Alaska

Moose along the road to Kenai

Homer spit is a famous sandbar jutting out into Kachemak Bay. It is an eclectic mix of fisherfolk, artists and campers. It is reputed to be the Halibut Capital of the World and we saw lots of halibut caught and displayed. Homer also features Nick Dudiak lagoon where just about anyone can try to catch spawning salmon. Graham and Randy spent an afternoon fishing the lagoon and caught 2 beautiful silver (coho) salmon on their last herring. 9 year old Graham was ecstatic and Randy was pretty happy too.

Eclectic Homer

Halibut capital

Nick Dudiak Lagoon

Happy fishermen

Further along in our exploration of the Kenai we visited Seward and Kenai Fjords National Park. There we hiked in the rain to see Exit Glacier. We also took Graham to see I Did A Ride, the summer tourist version of the famous Ididarod dog sled race. We met the dogs and rode a wheeled sled pulled by a bunch of dogs from the family who have won the race the last 2 years. It was pretty amazing.

I Did A Ride

Our tour of the Kenai ended with a visit to an animal rehab center where we got to see many of the wildest animals up close.

Black bear at rehab center

Grizzly at rehab center

Lynx at rehab center

Kenai is Alaska’s playground for a lot of good reasons. While it was the busiest place we visited there were still many many places so quiet and peaceful and wild you could hear a pin drop.

Posted in Alaska, national parks, RV, RV Travel | 6 Comments

Summit Lake and Liard Hot Springs

Posted on September 16, 2015 by Kings On the Road

The Alaska Highway took us through a good part of northeast British Columbia. Starting at Dawson Creek the landscape was prairie like but soon we entered an area known as the Northern Rocky Mountains. Fort Nelson has a wonderful visitor center equipped with wi-fi and a first class dump station. A stop there got us ready for Stone Mountain Provincial Park and Summit Lake.

Camping at Summit Lake

Home view

Backyard view

Arriving a the Summit Lake campground we found a campsite with jaw dropping views. The lake itself is a beautiful color with clear water and a stream running into it right behind our rig. Mountains all around completed the picture. The next day we completed a half day hike up to Spring Flower Lake. Its an alpine lake above the tree line. It was a beautiful trail through wildflowers.

Muncho Lake

Just down the road from Stone Mountain we drove by Muncho Lake with its 3 campgrounds and more beautiful views. Then we arrived at Liard Hot Springs Provincial Park. The hot springs have been popular for thousands of years. BC Parks has created a comfortable yet rustic experience for visitors. The hot pool is around 125 degrees and the next pool around 103. The pools are surrounded by vegetation with a sandy bottom. Amazingly one can find cooler water just by walking a few yards downstream. The hot pool is extreme and only a few use it but the rest is popular with everyone. The campground at Liard is very nice with well separated sites and lots of big trees. Its only a short walk to the pools.

Liard Hot Springs

Upon leaving Liard the highway takes you through a habitat of Wood Bison. This is one of only a few herds of these huge native animals. The wood bison are larger than their plains relatives and very comfortable walking along the highway. The adults can be as large as 1500 pounds. Fortunately we had endless sunshine while we were there. We imagine it could be very dangerous driving at night with these beasts on the road.

Wood bison

Wood Bison

This part of the journey ended at Watson Lake, Yukon Territory. Watson Lake is famous for the Signpost Forest. In 1942 a worker on the Alcan Highway project hammered a sign to a post to remember his hometown. People have been adding signs ever since. At last count there were over 72,000 signs from all over the world.

Signpost Forest

We visited this area June 26 – 30, 2015.

Posted in British Columbia, Canada, RV Travel, State Parks | 4 Comments

Denali

Posted on September 9, 2015 by Kings On the Road

Mt. McKinley, Denali

Scooter girl at Eielson Visitor Center

Denali is one word that conjures many thoughts and images. Denali is one goal of any visit to Alaska. In spite of our setbacks, we made it to Denali. We think we will have to return again. The plan had been to visit Denali as part of our Alaska tour with our grandson Graham. As you probably know, Dianne had an accident that left her with a broken leg. Surgery and rehab left Denali out of the picture for Graham’s visit and limited our visit weeks later. We visited August 14 to 17, 2015.

Nevertheless, Denali is awesome. Mt. McKinley National Park was established in 1917, 42 years before Alaska became a state. It was the first national park created for the expressed purpose of preserving wildlife. The National Park Service does a great job preserving the wildness of the place in spite of the hundreds of thousands of visitors from all over the world. A big part of this is limiting the access by car. There is only one road and it is almost entirely restricted to park buses. The park is helped in a big way by the fact that Denali visitors arrive by tour buses, cruise line buses and Alaska Railroad train much more than any other major national park. This is a big deal. It seems the majority of Denali’s visitors do not arrive via their own vehicle. This helps with congestion, pollution, noise. Just look at Yellowstone and Yosemite.

Bull moose

Brown Grizzly Bear

another grizzly

grizzly 2 again

Caribou

2 boos

Dall sheep specks

We took a shuttle bus into the interior of the park to see Grizzlys, Moose, Caribou mostly wild, unaffected by human visitors. We saw Dall sheep up in the mountains and hoped to see wolves. We collected wild berries and wild mushrooms. We saw North America’s highest mountain, Mt. McKinley aka Denali, peaking through the clouds. There are many beautiful trails in the entrance area and more in the interior for the more adventurous. Bears, particularly grizzlys, are pretty common and while we were there they were in their hyperphagia mode – packing in the food before winter. Eating 200,000 berries per day! Of course if something else comes along they will eat just about anything. We learned grizzlys are usually found in open country hence the normal reaction to fight any challenge. Whereas black bears found in the forest will flee to disappear into the forest when confronted. These are normal behaviors, your results may vary. The landscape varies from boreal forest to taiga forest to tundra. It is sub-alpine to alpine. At this latitude the treeline is around 3000 feet.

Scooter bus rider

Alaska Railroad Denali Star train

Wild mushroom picker

wild cranberry picker

Denali deserves the hype it receives. It is a majestic, awesome place worthy of repeated visits.

Posted in Alaska, food, national parks, RV Travel, trains | 4 Comments

Skagway and the White Pass & Yukon Route

Posted on September 2, 2015 by Kings On the Road

We first visited Skagway Alaska while on a Royal Caribbean Inside Passage cruise in 1998. The entire town is a National Park Historic Site, the Klondike Gold Rush. The day we arrived was exactly the 100th anniversary of the death of Soapy Smith the legendary outlaw sheriff of the town. The White Pass & Yukon Route railroad is a historic narrow gauge train running excursions with vintage steam and diesel locomotives. History and trains, we were enthralled and knew we would return.

The road to Skagway

Skagway cruiseport

We arrived in our motorhome July 1st, 2015. The drive from the Yukon towns of Tagish and Carcross was beautiful. We traveled through the coastal mountain pass in dense fog and dropping temps, then rain. Skagway is still the National Historic Park which preserves and presents much of the history. On the other hand the cruise industry has taken over much of the shopping with the usual zillion jewelry stores. The good news is that their success feeds the National Park Service efforts to restore and preserve the history. A percentage of store sales goes directly to the local NPS efforts.

Arctic Brotherhood built 1889

Founder Moore’s homestead

The White Pass & Yukon Route does a great job running many trains daily and a steam train several times per week. We rode the train to Lake Bennet and chased the steam train up toward White Pass. The railroad was built in 1899-1900 to serve the mines of the Klondike near Dawson City Yukon. The Klondike Gold Rush was worldwide sensation drawing stampeders to the shortest route to the goldfields. Skagway sits at the end of a long fjord, the Lynn Canal, in Southeast Alaska still accessible only by ship or the one highway from the Yukon.

GE Diesels built 1954

Alco Diesels built in 1969, retrieved from Columbia

1947 Baldwin built Mikado 2-8-2

WP&YR Passenger Car

Ferroeqinologist chasing trains

While staying in Skagway we took the fast ferry to visit the town of Haines Alaska. Haines also has an interesting history and gorgeous location. We also toured the historic site of Dyea, a town eclipsed by Skagway with the advent of the railroad. There are many great hiking trails around Skagway and NPS ranger led hikes. Skagway is a great tourist destination with a story to tell.

Lynn Canal

Haines Alaska

Native Tlingit building-Haines

Posted in Alaska, RV Travel, trains | 5 Comments

The Okanagan

Posted on August 27, 2015 by Kings On the Road

BC’s Okanagan Valley was a beautiful way to start our journey North from Washington state to Alaska. We visited in late June 2015.

Lake Okanagan Provincial Park

The Okanagan Valley in south central BC is the banana belt of western Canada. It is also called Napa North since its home to a zillion wineries. The Okanagan starts at the US border and runs North along Okanagan Lake. The lake is a beautiful deep blue with rocky mountains running down to the water. Besides vineyards, the area has tremendous fruit production featuring cherries, apples, blueberries and apricots.

Lake Okanagan

We stayed in the lovely south campground at Okanagan Lake Provincial Park. It is right on the lake and central to a lot of things to do. The nearest town is Summerland. Everyone we met was friendly and helpful. It was just a nice place to be.

The Kettle Valley Steam Railway runs a famous 2-8-0 Consolidation locomotive number 3716, formerly named Port Coquitlam. We took the 90 minute ride and found the staff friendly and informative. The locomotive is gorgeous and provided a full smoke runby prior to the trip.

Kettle Valley Steam Railway

Another feature in the valley is the Myra Trestles Trail. Its a “rails to trails” park that can be walked or biked. The trail is 12 km long with 18 trestles and 2 tunnels. It is an absolute blast to ride. A forest fire in 2003 burned most of the trestles but intrepid volunteers rebuilt them all. This rail route was another part of the Kettle Valley Railway that has been saved in another way. This has to be one of the finest rails to trails projects in North America.

Myra Canyon Trestle Rider

Posted in British Columbia, Canada, RV Travel, State Parks, trains | 4 Comments

Valdez Alaska

Posted on August 20, 2015 by Kings On the Road

As many of you know, Dianne suffered a broken leg at a campground near Anchorage. We found a top notch orthopedic and got her patched up but she is dealing with many follow-up appointments and a long recovery. It definitely changed our plans. In between appointments, our first venture post accident was to Valdez.

Valdez has everything you come to see in Alaska – all in one place. Located on the south coast on Prince William Sound, Valdez has wildlife, glaciers, mountains, fishing, history and adventure. Wildlife includes black bears, brown (grizzly) bears, eagles, terns, ptarmigan, puffins, whales, orcas, porpoise, seals, sea lions, and otters. The scenery around Valdez is spectacular. The drive into town on the Richardson Highway takes you through Keystone Canyon with its countless waterfalls. The mountains surrounding it include 9 of the 16 tallest in North America. The nearby Columbia Glacier is the second largest tidewater glacier. The icefield in nearby Wrangell-St. Elias National Park is the largest non polar ice field on earth.

Fishing is a big deal in Valdez. There are fishing derbys all Summer. The local salmon fishery has a set goal of 10 million returning pink salmon each year, along with 10,000 silvers and 1000 kings. Halibut fishing is popular. The forest service protects a very small stream where visitors can watch pink salmon struggling upstream in their quest to spawn. The stream so shallow many times their backs are completely out of the water. The fish are so close you could reach out and grab them. The stream is so short the sea is just 100 yards away. Yet they battle to reach that gravel bed where they were born, there to lay eggs in the gravel and die. This scenario is played out all over Alaska often on a much grander scale. Some salmon swim up the Yukon River over 2800 KM to spawn and die. And of course they don’t eat anything along the way. Theirs is a single minded pursuit. It is amazing to see. Alaska hatcheries add to the salmon numbers releasing millions of smolts each year. And then each year millions of salmon try to find their birthplace to spawn only to be harvested by anglers or the hatcheries or bears or eagles.

The history of Valdez is marked by 2 major events. The 9.2 earthquake of March 1964 and the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989. The earthquake is the strongest in the recorded history of North America. The tsunami from the quake did major damage to Crescent City California. The town of Valdez was heavily damaged, 33 people died. After the quake the townsite was found to be unstable and the entire town had to move to a new location nearby. The old townsite is marked with plaques as nature takes it back. We all remember the devastation of the oil spill when the Exxon Valdez ran aground. Prince William Sound is one of the most pristine ecosystems on earth. The spill should never be forgotten. The trans Alaska oil pipeline ends in Valdez and still operates today.

We stayed in a beautiful Alaska State Park, Blueberry Lake. Our site was right on the lake surrounded by mountains. Blueberry picking was great and is a popular Alaskan outdoor activity. You just have to watch for bears, its their favorite food.