We started our first day in Valdez with a nine hour boat ride, well that just about consumed our whole day in Valdez. I would say it is a must do if you find yourself along the coast in Alaska. This is the marina where we caught our ride.
Liz and Grandma getting all situated. We had the youngest kids by far on the boat and there was a lot of musical chairs going on but for being on the boat for 9 hours they did pretty well. Elizabeth broke a record and spilled her drink 7 times. We were oh so proud.
We actually got to see the Northwestern, which if you watch Deadliest Catch at all you will know is one of the boats on the show. I used to watch the show when it first came out and I had very little else going on.
During our boat ride we saw all kinds of beautiful nature, my favorite of course are all the amazing waterfalls that nestle up in the sides of the mountains. Now imagine this place at 40 below F. We saw pictures of people "rock climbing" on one of the larger waterfalls during the winter but they were climbing the frozen water that was stuck in time falling down.
Grandma and Lizzy out getting some fresh air. It was a bit chilly...
Some of the animals we saw...seal giving us a photo op
It was a little scary but we had to cross through the ice. The captain that had been all along giving us a lovely narration of history and fun facts came over the speaker and says, I need to concentrate so I'm not talking for the next few minutes. When the boat hit a large chunk of ice everyone is thinking "iceberg, straight ahead"! But for all the ice you see, they say that's only 10 % of the chunk, the rest is under water.
Another little piece of nature, pretty little otter playing in the water.
The pinnacle of our boat trip, a glacier up close. It was AMAZING. The picture does not do it justice. The neatest part was watching the large chunks of ice fall off the glacier and make a huge KA-BOOM into the water, it was as if the loudest thunder you have ever heard echoing.
Lizzy enjoying the glacier (for a minute)
A lovely bald eagle. Ok I took this picture after we got back from the boat trip but I thought I'd slip it in with all the other nature
Anna Kate figuring out the binoculars. Not so bad for 2 and half years old, haha. Not sure what she is looking at or if she is able to actually focus on anything.
One of the coolest pieces of ice, most likely had just flipped over and this is what was hanging out underneath.
After we made it back to land, collected the other half of our group (they went fishing) and had dinner, we were discussing our plans for hiking the next day. This is when the light will mess with you, we decided to just knock the hike out right then instead of waiting. So 10pm we start out for this hike, just myself, Lew, Ralph, Kenny, Terry and Mollie went cause it was a little scary at points, not G rated. We climbed straight up rocks, some rocks faces actually had ropes to help you up and we yelled out to try to scare away any bears (we saw none). All this and the foliage was so high and thick we mostly could not see the path below our feet but up and up we went until we go to this point.
The boys
The girls
Probably the most amazing day of the trip and the hike was my favorite moment of the trip.
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