Today was a cloudy, drizzly day. We slept in, which really felt good. Since no one is camped behind us, I opened the back window shade. It reminded me of when we have been on cruises. This is the view that I saw. The town of Valdez is across the water and to the far left. There is a harbor and some other businesses near the middle of the shore across from us. The way that the clouds are layered is very interesting, I think. There is also snow on the mountains.
After breakfast, I went out and took some pictures of our camp and surroundings. This is our campsite at Allison Point Access Campground in Valdez, Alaska. You can see some of the activity across the water, to the left of the second picture.
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I took Bumble out for some fresh air and to see some of her relatives who were flying around the beautiful fireweed. Fireweed is interesting in that it blooms from the bottom of the stalk to the top, starting in spring and lasting until fall. Once the last of the blossoms have bloomed, the leaves turn a brilliant red, in the fall. I tried to get the bees when they were on the flowers near Bumble, but they were faster than my reflexes to take the picture. I did get a few that you can tell that there is a bee on the flower. Can you see the real bee in the second picture?
There are two bees on these flowers. Can you see them? More scenery near our trailer.
Just before lunch, I happened to look out the window and saw a sea otter swimming just off shore. I tried to take a photo of it several times before I got one that sort of looks like an otter. If you enlarge it much more, it gets pretty blurry and looks nothing like an otter. It didn’t help that I was taking the picture through the window. As time went by and we continued looking off shore, there were many otters in the area. Some were playing with each other and diving and coming back up. Other times, they would dive and we would not see them again. They must swim underwater and come up far away from where they were seen going under.
We took a drive into town to get some groceries and fuel for the truck. When we pulled into the gas station, there were three old cars getting gas (the third one is at the pump near the white truck). There must be some event going on in the area, because we saw them yesterday, during our drive to Valdez.
Valdez was a thriving port town before the 1964 Good Friday 9.2 earthquake. That earthquake did a great deal of damage to the entire coast of Alaska. It wiped out much of the town of Valdez with most damage caused by the tsunami waves. The town has marked the area where the old town was with plaques and signs stating what was at that location before the quake. There is not much remaining except for some foundations, Some of the damaged buildings were salvaged and moved to the new town site. Here are a couple things that can be seen. The before photos are on the sign and there is nothing there now.
The Post Office had just been completed and dedicated about a year and a half before the quake. Remember, Alaska had just become a state in 1959. All that is left is the foundation under the sign. The gravel road lead to the harbor. It was the main road at the time. Houses and businesses were there once.
It was starting to rain harder, so we headed back to the trailer. On our way back, after we had gotten almost all the way back to where we were camped, we saw this sight on the mud flats of low tide. There were a lot of bald eagles just standing on the mud flats or on drift wood. None of them seemed to be eating right then, so I don’t know if they were waiting for the tide to bring in fresh food or if they had gorged on what was left on the mud flats after the tide went out.
The brown birds are young eagles. They don’t get their white feathers until they reach around five years old. The bird in the second picture is the same one as above. He just turned his head, so I took another picture. The water has a sort of silky look to it. The tide was just starting to come back in, so it wasn't very deep at that location. The other thing is that there is a lot of glacial flour or dust in the water. As the glaciers melt, the ground up rock that the glacier has collected washes down with the melt water, causing the water to be filled with silt. It causes a variety of colors in the lakes and streams where they run off the mountains from the glacier.
So, even though it was a dreary day, we saw some interesting things. It is supposed to rain for the next few days. Hopefully, it will stop long enough for us to see some more sights.
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