Okok... we lied :-)

Hello everyone!

Hope you haven't got squared eyes from all the couchblogging you've been doing lately! :-)

Now, BIG NEWS! We have to tell you guys all about Valdez and Cordova! Remember? Oil Tanker "Exxon Valdez" left the Valdez port and sunk, out in Prince William Sound! The outcomes of that catastropghic event were a disaster! Today though you won't be able to see anything any more, although they say that marine life has changed and that some species have not come back (yet...). So that's where we went by car from Seward!

Yes you heard right! From Seward to Valdez by car :-) It's only like an eight hour drive... :) But taking the ferry from Whittier (opposite Valdez in Prince William Sound) would have been more expensive... . So here we are in the car, driving all the way on the Glenn Highway and from there, on the Richardson highway. Loooots of really nice scenery!! I would say that it's not the destination that made our drive worthwhile, but the drive in itself! valdez is nice, a fishing harbour, but there is just nothing either to see or to do there! :) Except get free internet at the Library... obviously :) although we had a couple of really good Pizza's inValdez, now that I think of it!

Anyway... Valdez was more of a stop along our way to Cordova (remember? The town where you can only get to by plane or ferry and from where there's absolutely no where to go! :)) So that's where I'm writing from, now! :) I looove that town, I love the people and most of all I like it a lot that there seems to be no police here to check on speed limits :) Haha... pretty funny... davy thought that maybe the one's from Valdez had to draw straws to see who was the unlucky one that had to go on the ferry and disappear for a month/week to Cordova :-) I dare say I found that slightly unrealistic, though it would be really funny :-)

So when we arrived here (remember! Valdez was our first night in a hotel!), we checked into the Orca Adventure Lodge, where we had booked two nights, then we would sleep one night on a campground next to the Childs Glacier and after that we were to come back to the Lodge for one last night. But... when we arrived here, we were just like... well, it is nice to have a bed, a room and a shower... it really is, but there's just nothing really exciting to it really... So we decided on this:

Davy went down to the front desk and asked if it would be possible to only spend one the first and the last night of our stay in their Lodge, thus canceling our second night there... So the lady asked what we would do, where we would go and where we would sleep instead of at the Lodge. " Well, Davy said, we just booked the Mc Kinley Lake Cabin, over at the Pipeline and Mc Kinley trail, on the Copper River Highway, so we're planning on hiking up there and spending the night." "Wow!! You should definitely do that! That is an amazing cabin, and those trails are really nice too!! Good for you! You got that cabin on such short notice, usually people don't get them!" So as you can see the Lady was all happy for us, not bothering at all that we  just cancelled a night at her Lodge... now THAT is Alaska! :-) Love it! :)

So then, here's the part we lied about... We said we were back in civilization, and we were... up until we changed our mind and thought nature, hiking and camping would be the better choice :-) So sorry for that, but it was really worth it! Those past two days, man they were really fun! (even though it didn't stop raining, temperatures dropped and wind came up pretty strong) :-)

So there you go, in town that afternoon we had lunch at Baja Taco's (the picture with the red bus (that's their kitchen :) ), food was really good! There we met a nice couple, Dan and Christine from Cordova, although they moved to Anchorage when their son was 9, and now they spend half a year in Anchorage and half a year in Cordova, she being a teacher and he a fisherman! :-) Really interesting people who told us a lot about Alaska, Cordova, nature, bears, moose (meese), etc. so that was a nice thing to do, as long as it was raining outside :)

Then we eventually drove off and started to hike up to the Mc Kinley Lake cabin, taking the Pipeline trail up and coming back down the Mc Kinley trail the next day. The Pipeline trail was basically loooong wooden logs lying on the mud, covered with fish nets so you wouldn't fall off the wet wood (genious! :) ) (yes it's all wetland there! Cordova has the biggest wetlands in Alaska! :) And the forest is kind of like a tropical rainforest without the tropical plants and temperatures :-) So what you need to imagine is a real forest, extremely rainy, loots of moisture and rain and then some really nice colours like greens, brown, orange, red, pink... So yes, say hello to the mosquito's! But we were lucky, because of the rain they were scarce...

So then we finally reached the cabin!! :) A wooden stove, wooden bunks a table and that's about it :) oh and the toilet was about 20 meters away... Niiiice :-) No really!! That cabin was awesome!! :) we saw the salmon jumping up and down in the lake :) And then we also saw loooots of bald eagles (to Davy's delight) :-) But then it started raining during the night and didn't stop, like at all :) so we played UNO, Mastermind and the battleship game :-) Loads of fun :-) Haha...

So then, the next morning, no what am I saying! even in the afternoon it hadn't stopped raining at all, so we decided to head off to the car that was parked at the trail head... Now here's the story about my shoes! I have really nice hiking boots, blue one's, my first real hiking boots :) so I like them a lot, BUT it so happens that they are pretty old, and old leather gets tricky, and doesn't cope too well with loooots of water (even though I sprayed them... whatever :-) )

Sooo, arriving at the cabin through the RAINforest, my hiking boots were soaked! Fortunately it only took them like a night and a whole morning to completely dry (can you believer that!!?) :D So then, back at the car they were obviously, AGAIN, totally soaked! And there's nothing worse than wet and cold feet when you know you are going to sleep another night out in the wild, next to the Glacier :-) So fortunately for me we had to drive another 30 miles to the glacier... time enough to put the heating on maximum temperature, direct it towards my boots, which dried in like, an hour's time!

So, with warm feet and new socks we got out of the car (by the way!! seat heating is absolutely wonderful! :) ) and visited Child's Glacier. MAN!! That glacier literally blows your mind! It's huge!! And advancing every year! Huge chunks fall off every five minutes or so and they make so much noise you'd think there's someone trying to blow up a mountain with dynamite!! Sometime's even those falling chunks of ice make the earth shake so much you can actually feel it !! I can testify, because we slept next to the glacier, and even though I was wearing wax ear plugs I still heard the roaring sound of the ice falling off and I felt the waves/shakes!

So after spending another night in our tent, we woke up this morning when we saw that it still hadn't stopped raining!! So hey, this is alaska, you do not come here if you're looking for sunny weather :) Cordova has an eight out of ten rate of getting overcast weather and showers :-) so I guess we knew what we were getting ourselves into :-) Haha.

And yet again, putting on new clothes, we drove all the way back to Cordova, kinda looking forward to be able to check into a Lodge with electricity, running water AND free wifi :-)  Man how you enjoy that once you're out of the bush :-)

Oh! And by the way!! On our way to Childs Glacier we saw a grizzly! :) Davy was driving carefully, because the "well-maintained" gravel road had loads of potholes in it which made driving quite difficult, as you had to zig zag around them. Fortunately there's no one going that direction so you're alone on the highway, which means you can feel free to drive either side of the road, whichever one you like best :-) So back to the brown bear! Davy was driving when I said: D There's a bear in the water right next to us! Stop the car!" So he stopped and the bear was right nest to us, maybe 8 meters away, standing in the whitewater fishing for his lunch :-) It was so funny looking at him catch that huge fish! Pretty amazing! :) And those claws he had!! I just remember saying in my head, oh look at those fluffy ears, such a nice animal top look at, though  seeing those claws, wow!! I wouldn't wanna get caught in them!! Do you know Wolverine, that movie? when he gets his claws out? Well ok, these are not that long, but still... :-)

Oh yes! And back in Cordova, I just had enough of my boots that got wet way too fast, so I took Davy to THE shop (I say "the" because it's the only one :-) ) to buy a pair of Gumboots! The owner of the shop was sooo nice! Plus he told us a really interesting story! Can you imagine he worked at the Youthhostel in Zermatt, Switzerland during winter to go to southern France or Morocco during the summer! :) Amazing! Now my boots are fantastic!! Plus everyone wears them over here! Mine are fancy colored (check the last picture!) and doubled with neoprene! So I will not get wet or cold feet ever again :) Just to tell you how happy I was about that, here's what I did: I jumped right into every puddle of water I could find :-) (not getting wet feet... obviously :-) )

So yeah, that's the latest news from the both of us :D I hope you enjoyed reading the post and we'll be back from Kennecott (old abandoned Mine) or Delta Junction (a place where there's nothing to do except spend the night there and drive off in the morning, which is what we'll do) :-)

Talk to you soon!! Take care!

AnD

PS: Sorry I had to downsize my pictures... but the internet here at the
Lodge is terribly slow... :-/

driving from Seward to Valdez over the Glenn Highway

Valdez harbour

oil tanks opposite the Valdez harbour

for once it's not meese or bear that we had to watch out for but ducks :-)

Valdez Harbour

arrival in Cordova by Ferry (Marine Highway)

random Cordova road

Baja Taco (favorite restaurant)

along the Pipeline trail

Pipeline lakes

wooden stove in the Mc Kinley lake cabin

Mc Kinley lake cabin

night night :-)

the Grizzly

see the hump on the back? ;)

he got the salmon!! :)

Childs Glacier

Childs Glacier

the Million Dollar Bridge (google the history! )

our Orca Adventure Lodge (look at my Gumboots :-) Haha)