Valdez

 When I lived in Hoonah, I used to watch the news at night and listen as the announcer spoke of the various cities around Alaska. It wasn't until we moved north to Wasilla and could drive to many of the places that I'd only heard of that we finally visited.

This past September Jan and I and our two daughters, Autumn and Liz and their husbands took a trip down to Valdez. The trip down was breathtaking, with the fall colors becoming more evident as we traveled closer to the coast.

I was shocked at how much renting a room in a bed and breakfast was. Between the three families we dropped over $1200. 00 for two nights. There was nothing fancy about the place, and the breakfast was a kind of help yourself thing, no fancy pancakes or breakfast rolls. Cereal, juice and boiled eggs and of course coffee. They kind of had us by the short hairs though, so we paid up and kept quiet.

Even though it was at the end of the salmon season, Dayville Road, where the public has access to the beach was filled on both sides of the road for several miles with cars and campers. It was bizarre. 

The beach is such that you just about have to have waders to get out to deeper water and hope you can snag a Coho. There is a large population of sealions waiting to take your fish if you should be lucky enough to get one on, which we didn't.

There is a hatchery right by a waterfall that the salmon go up and are directed into. The pink ( Humpy) run had already come and gone, and their white, rotting bodies were littering the beach by the tens of thousands. Fortunately I can't smell much, so it didn't bother me. However, I called Jan and the girls to come to the hatchery and look at the giant sealions that were parked right in the waterway waiting for a fresh coho to come in. When Liz and Jan came down, they both almost got sick. One of the pictures above is of Liz trying unsuccessfully to keep the stench from her nostrils. I don't think the smell bothered Autumn as much and I believe she got some good pictures.

 Because we were there at the end of the season, the restaurants were running out of food. The first night we managed to find a place that was out of everything but pizza. We waited over an hour, but finally got something to eat. I can't recall what we did the next night, I think we might have bought something to microwave at the B&B, since there was no stove to cook on. Overall, it was quite an experience. At first I said I'd probably never go back again, but the scenery was so breathtaking, that I might change my mind and make the trip again. I may bring my own food though, and perhaps a stick of dynamite to fish with.