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My old friend from GA, Sarah, and her husband, Michal (Mee-how... he's Polish), came up to AK to see the state and visit. They galavanted off through Denali and the Kenai Peninsula, but I went down to Seward to pick them up and from there, we embarked on a little adventure to Cordova, AK.
Cordova is a small town to the Southeast of here and home of the Copper River Delta, from which yearly harvests of the infamous Copper River Salmon are made. Cordova is also home to a giant glacier, which calves into the river and a "Million Dollar Bridge" built back in the day to get to the Kennecott Mine up near McCarthy. So why not?
From Seward, we left and made the hour and a half drive back up to Whittier. We got to the Whittier tunnel at 11:47, 2 minutes after it had closed. The tunnel is one way, alternating directions and cars have to compete for time with the train. It's a neat tunnel, but a pain to drive through. Also costs money, which is always a drag. But we figured getting to the tunnel an hour in advance of the ferry would be fine. It almost wasn't. The next tunnel opening for our side would be at 12:30, fiften minutes before the ferry was to leave. Sarah and Michal anxiously rocked the car and I turned up the music on my ipod, trying to get them to chill out. It was quite a bit of money that was spent on ferry tickets and it wouldn't do well to waste them on a missed boat. But at this point, there was nothing we could do. So we waited.
Once given the signal (we were first) we jetted through, cruising just above the speed limit, and rushed down the terminal. Michal and Sarah rushed in while I waited in "temporary" parking. They caught the window as it was closing and told me to go ahead and leave the car there since we would only be gone one night. As soon as we walked in, they called foot passengers to board.
We cruised across the Prince William Sound, admiring white mountains, blue waters, and searching for signs of wildlife. Michal swears he saw a whale's tail. The weather was warm, sunny, and we spent some time on the deck, sipping chosen alcoholic beverages.
At Cordova, we disembarked and waited for our rental car to arrive. It turned out to be a minivan. We declined an offer of a "cooler" car and made our way out of town, towards the dirt road that winds through the partially dried out Copper River Delta. It's about 50 miles long and we saw a bazillion eagles along the way, not to mention the awesome scenery. The glacier was amazing, the bridge interesting, the company wonderful. But we couldn't find any fish or fishermen. Not even in the restaurant where we ate at sunset overlooking the harbor. Apparently, fishing was not open on that day.
After checking the city campground and finding hoardes of campers and Mennonite children running around, we decided to go out towards the glacier again and find camp there. Not at the glacier, as everything was covered in snow there and we were ill prepared for snow camping. We camped among mossy trees in quiet woods, made a fire, and relaxed. The next morning, we piled into the van again and made off back to the ferry, where we once again cruised through sunny waters. This time, we caught sight of multiple sea otters and a pod of porpoises making their way through the sound. We had a stopover in Valdez, where we disembarked and wondered around town for thirty minutes. I slept much of the way back and was still tired when we drove back to Seward.
In Seward again, I showed them Exit Glacier, where I've been before. The hike up was partially snowy, but was a great walk, though we had to avoid melting piles of moose poop.
After our walk, we wondered into town again, had a dinner, and cruised back to Anchorage. My job... was done.
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