5 21 VALDEZ

Today we went to Valdez, a town started with a lie. During the gold rush of 1898, someone put an ad in the newspapers saying there was a faster route to the goldfields from Valdez. There wasn’t. Thousands of people came and tried the longer harder route and many died. The town prospered. Of course it is also the end of the Alaskan Pipeline and where the Exxon Valdez sailed from. It was not affected by the spill. A very strange thing happened to us at the museum. Some local ladies were going to perform a cancan at the museum, so Arleen went in to find out more info. When inside, the executive director of the museum said “Are you from Telluride?”. Totally shocked, she said yes, then the director, Kathryn Hurtley said “Are you Arleen?” Well turns out she was the director of the Telluride Council for the Arts. Both Arleen and Duane dealt blackjack at her casino nites and she remembered. How cool is that, meeting someone from Telluride in Valdez, Alaska. We spent most of the day at a bakery using the internet and watching and listening to the locals. Lots of fun. Duane took a walk around the dock area.

This is what they call Skunk Cabbage in Alaska. It is the first thing bears look for when they come out o hibernation in the spring. it serves as a Laxitive and helps them clean out their system and get things flowing again.

We weretreated to a Cancan dance by some of the younger resdents of Valdez. The one in the center is Maggie, the owner of The Magpie Bakery. Arleen spent most of her time there working on the blog and internet and getting Maggies' receipe for sugarfree truffles. Duane took a nice hike around the Habor island taking pictures.

Hard to see but right in the middle of the picture below is and eagle in flight, alittle black between two white spots.

Ships and snow with waterfalls in between. such is life in Valdez. The pipeline comes into Valdez on the other side of the bay and they are not sure how much longer the oil will keep flowing so tourism and fishing are again becoming important to Valdez,s economy.

The view as we leave Valdez. It is that little smudge of smoke to the left hand side of the picture. We never see the port as we arrive early in the morning and are never out of our cabin in time. What a lovely place to live. It looked like that in all directions.

An Iceberg on the way out. Not quite of titanic portions but still gets the captain's eye.

The Tidewater glacier the iceberg came from. Its clear in the backbetween the two dark selves of land. The ice in the foreground are more icebergs on the way out. Obviously this glacier is still advancing. We think this is the Columbia Glacier, one of Alaska's largest.

Sunset out of Valdez. and the only Cobra we saw in Alaska.