Valdez, Alaska

July 25,  Did laundry this morning, had lunch and then walked down along the harbor and back to campsite.  Really didn’t do much, relaxing for the travel tomorrow.

July 26,  Awoke this morning to rain, decided to stay another day.  Went downtown for lunch to the Potato Restaurant, the food was the best that we ate since we arrived in town.  After lunch we went to Maxine & Jesse Whitney Museum, which is held in the collage, this huge collection in a state of the art facility, features an amazing array of Alaska animal mounts, including 2 full sized polar bears, black bear and grizzly bears, musk ox, moose and more, Native dolls, an Eskimo kayak, prehistoric artifacts and a one of a kind collection of Native carved ivory, made by a guy from Pennsylvania.  After our walk through the museum, we went to another room and watched a movie about the oil spill.  We then drove over to the fish hatchery, it was low tide, and I waited to see how low the water was and see what animals we would see.  Saw more salmon spawning, eagles, seagulls, seals, black birds, kittiwakes, sat and watched the water coming back in for 2 hours, had a great day.

July 27,  Got up to it raining again today, we talked about staying another day but decided to continue on our way.  We pulled out of campground around 10 am heading north out of Valdez on Route 4, drove about 2 hours before coming to Route 10, Edgerton Highway, towards McCarthy.  Stopped in Kenny Lake for a few days so we could visit McCarthy and Kennecott.  We got set up and then went for a drive to Chitina, was a railroad town and once a bustling outpost that was in the running for becoming the capital of Alaska.  Trains arrived here from the port town of Cordova, bringing goods for the interior, as well as Kennicott.  Today, Chitina is a ghost town and many of the original buildings are still standing.  Drove through Chitina, which is a destination known today as a dipnetting Copper River red salmon, which is only open to Alaska residents.  Going out of town you must drive through a rock cut, only one lane of traffic, very interesting, drove down to a bridge where a lot of people are parked and are fishing, saw some people that caught 3 huge salmons, went down to the river and talked to a native Indian lady originally from Nome, Alaska.  Ask her about her ring she had on, made of one piece of gold that her husband had found in the waters at Nome, she had 8 birthstones on it, she said that it was old that she has had 8 more kids since that ring was made, 16 kids, can you image having that many kids, not me, she didn’t look that old.  We then came back to camp, walked over and talked to another couple for about an hours