Totem Inn Valdez

This afternoon we went geocaching again, but we decided to do it up in the mountains. We drove up Ric******* Highway for about 30 miles, stopping every 15 feet or so to take pictures. We stopped at waterfalls, caves, and even old horse trails. We even went off-road in the Trailblazer to see stuff, and I got to walk on tundra. Talk about awesome views...check out the pictures. We came across some little rodent-type creature, but still no bears. The chipmunk thingy was really cute and he let me...

No, I didn't get soaked on this jump...I was just pulling my pants up to make it across to the Worthington Glacier.We climbed up to Worthington Glacier but we didn't have crampons on so we didn't go onto the glacier itself. Even though I didn't fall in the glacier stream I did get soaked when we climbed a nearby mountain to go geocaching...I was so mad, especially since I went to all the trouble to not get wet at the glacier. The mountain rose at about a 45 degree angle (or at least it seemed...

Yesterday was so busy I didn't get to blog at all, and today was just about as busy. Talk about an awesome birthday present. Not too many people get to go to Alaska for 2 weeks as their birthday present and on their birthday get to SEE BEAR!!! Whooo Hooo!!! I put the closest picture on here. We were about 40 feet away from the bear at one point. Scared the bejeezus out of me, actually. The cubs were supercute though. I just wanted to ruffle them, they were so adorable. We hung out there for a...

We didn't do a whole lot today. For the first time I got to sleep in past 7:00 so I was pretty happy. Vance went on his glacier tour so Todd and I were at a loss as to what to do. I didn't feel like geocaching since we've been every single day since we got here. Makes for some long days but the time passes by like nothing. We decided to go get breakfast, do a little downtown sightseeing/shopping and head back to the hotel, where I played my videogame and read my book. I'm all excited to have ...

Today was an awesome day. We started our day off with breakfast at the Totem, then we went geocaching locally. After we came back to the hotel we took a brief rest time and then went on our cruise to the Columbia Glacier. I took the best pictures. We saw sea otters, sea lions, puffins, a humpback whale, ice floes, glaciers and an arctic jellyfish. I also got to see some incredible mountain and bay views. I can't believe how not-cold it was. The only time I got really cold was when we were by ...

Today we drove all day long. We started out heading toward Glenallen, but made quite a few stops before and after. We really didn't have much fun in Glenallen itself but the rest of the trip was fun. Along the way we did some geocaching, of course, and drove through Copper River, where we got some good tips from the owner of the Copper River Roadhouse. We then drove through Glenallen (all 3 blocks of it) but we weren't impressed so we turned around and headed to Chitina. Talk about redneckvil...

Today I stayed in until Todd came home for lunch. We got to have lunch at Mai Thai and it was YUMMY!!! I had the pad thai and it was different than any other that I've had, but it was really good. We then went geocaching with Vance again. It was raining as hard as it was yesterday, but I had my rain gear today so I was a lot less miserable walking around. We found about 5 or 6 geocaches out of the 8 or so we looked for. We got wet but it was still beautiful. We ended up walking around in bear...

Drove rhe Ric******* Highway form Fairbanks to Valdez. Saw a few moose. Great mountain views. Some of us climbed to stand on Worthington Glacier.

Took a 9 hour boat tour of Prince William Sound. Spent some time on tankers and learning about the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Highlights of the trip were marine mammals and birds; and seeing glaciers up close. We saw whales, orcas, otters, seals, sea lions, puffins, bald eagles and other assorted wildlife. Saw glaciers (including calving) and lots of icebergs. It was very cold at times. We had a very good day.