Alaska 2014 Week 5

June 22 we left Whitehorse and continued on the Alaska Highway.  All this time we have been pleasantly surprised that the Alaska Highway has been paved, but we have started to experience 3 mile stretches of gravel roads and lots of ice heaves.  We just took it slow and had no problems with the heaves.  We are still seeing lots of wildlife.   

June 23.  We spent the night in a roadside turnout.  We had a quiet evening and a nice peaceful view.

June 24.  We made it to Tok, Alaska today but not before we saw an awesome grizzly bear along the side of the road.  We pulled over and watched this huge animal for a good 20 minutes and he was about 15 feet from our RV.  He could care less about us he was enjoying the flowers along the road thank goodness.  At Tok we went to dinner at Ed’s Restaurant recommended by a lady at the visitor center.  It was a very good recommendation, they had the best burgers. 

June 25.  From Tok we traveled to Valdez, Alaska.  What a lovely town.   Jim and I have always wanted to go to Valdez ever since we heard about it after the big Exxon oil spill.  We both thought it was a big town.  But it is a very small fishing village.  One of the things that surprised us the most was when we went to the two museums in town there was very little information about the Exxon oil spill.  Most of the history is about the 1964 earthquake that caused the people of Valdez to have to move the town and caused the death of 32 people.  It is an amazing story of how the people literally rebuilt their town after the earthquake.

June 26.  We are still in Valdez.  Even though it is a small town, we are enjoying out stay here.  The people here are so nice.  We had dinner at the Fat Mermaid and the owner came over to our table and talked to us and told us how she got her restaurant started.  She was joking around with her brother to come up with a name for the restaurant and she wanted a name that people would remember and they came up with the Fat Mermaid and they both liked it and she’s been in business for 25 years. The owner of the campground we are staying at feeds the eagles nesting in the trees surrounding the campground every evening.  He puts on quite the show.  He stands out in the parking lot and holds a fish up in the air, when the eagles see it and fly toward him he throws the fish on the ground and the eagle swoops in and picks it up.  It is quite the sight.  One morning we woke up to watch an eagle giving himself a bath in the lagoon in front of our motorhome.

June 27. We went down to the wharf to watch the people fish and we ran into some guys fishing and one of the quys we met told us he plays music for the Fat Mermaid so we told him we were camped across the street from the Fat Mermaid so we would come  see him play.  That evening, we went over to the Fat Mermaid and it turns out some of the local nurses and college professors were celebrating a birthday party and included us in their party and we had a good time.  The guy we met at the wharf is a Hawaiian and we asked if he knew any of Iz’s songs and he did so he was playing requests for us.  His name is Ty and he lives in Vegas in the winter and we got his card and we are going to look him up when we go to Vegas this winter so I guess we will be his groupies now haha.