July 23…The end of the pipeline that is.  Today we reached Valdez and we stayed at Eagles Rest.  I really enjoyed our stay at this campground. It had a lot to do with our wonderful neighbors who live in North Pole, Ak. (you know who you are ;-).  We were unable to book a charter for halibut fishing and they were nice enough to swap some of their halibut for some of our sockeye (red) salmon.  The boys and I haven’t been able to try the halibut yet, but Nana said it was delicious.  We hope our lovely neighbors keep in touch with us. They had recommended eating at Old Town Burgers and it was delicious.  Nana had fried halibut (shocking) and the boys and I enjoyed our burgers.

July 24 – Our second day here we went on a Stan Stephens Tour of the Prince William Sound.  We had a great time even though the tour was for nine hours to see the Mears Glacier.  I had hoped to go on the Columbia Glacier tour as it’s six hours but there were no available seats.  There were several caravans in the area so we were just happy to be able to get a tour without much advance notice.

We truly had a great time on the tour.  We were able to see several rafts of otters lying on their backs resting in the water, puffins swimming and flying around the water, sea lions lazing about soaking in the sun, a humpback whale and her calf, and the most exciting site of all, a glacier calving.  I am not sure what my mom or the kids liked best, but I was thrilled to see the whale and her calf.  Since whales can be under water significant amounts of time, we were fortunate to see one with a calf.  Since she had her calf, she surfaced whenever her calf needed to.

July 25 – We spent today doing some laundry and general housekeeping on the RV.  Nana and I dragged the kids to eat lunch at the Totem Pole.  This is a hotel with a restaurant and gift shop in it.  Nana was glad to see a shop as it’s pretty much the only gift shop in town (in the traditional gift shop format).  There were some small multipurpose stores that seemed to be a couple businesses combined.

Tomorrow we begin our journey towards Haines, AK.   Pictures will be uploaded when we have a more consistent internet signal.

Later Y’all