North to Alaska: Valdez

Valdez is a very quaint little village which sits right on the water and is surrounded by mountains and glaciers. It is also known as the snow capital of Alaska. We never could figure out what it was about Valdez; the people, weather, scenery or what made us fall in love with this little town. Valdez has everything, sightseeing, fishing, great places to eat and more. Oh, did we mention, no Walmart, Target, fast food dives, etc., just a quaint little town. Even with all these shortcomings, it was hard not to fall in love with Valdez like we did. However, instead of the snow capital, we called it the rabbit capital of Alaska.

Everywhere we went we saw rabbits, mostly big black rabbits. As the story goes, a gentleman used to raise rabbits in Valdez and one day he decided he didn’t want to bother with them any longer so he let them go and the rest is history… As we stated earlier, Valdez is a beautiful little town on the water surrounded by mountains and glaciers. Standing on the ferry docks one day we counted 12 glaciers. During the time we were in Valdez, the pink salmon were spawning and it was unbelievable how many fish there were. We went fishing a couple days and it was easier to catch a fish than not catch a fish… No kidding, the fish were so thick it was hard to reel your lure through the water without hooking a fish. One day I casted 20 times and caught 16 fish, at one time, 10 in a row. Another part about Valdez we liked was watching the black bears catch the salmon in the streams feeding the bay. We really enjoyed watching a black bear sow with three small cubs teaching them how to fish. To really make our adventures in Valdez complete, our friends Al and Debbie

joined us in Valdez to enjoy this little village together.

These next four pictures are scenes from around Valdez

One small snow plow

These places always seem to attract Gypsy and I. There were several of these places in Valdez...Maybe that explains our love for Valdez???

Fishing anyone? I'm not kidding, if you like Pink Salmon you could catch a thousand, this might be a little conservative...However, I believe the limit was 6 a day or 6 a trip or 6 something. anyway check out some of these pictures...

Hooked up again... I think this is my Alaska theme?

Little Pink

Again

Another Pink

I hope you can see the fish in these pictures. These fish are all Pink and Chum Salmon trying to get up river to spawn.(You can click on the picture to enlarge)

This should read Park Ranger Crossing... Oops?

Park Rangers enforcing the catch limit. Sometimes I think they were taking an advantage of their position.

New Park Rangers in training...

Guess where I found Linda and Gypsy

Linda and Debbie checking out some of Valdez's snow removal equipment.

Our next truck camper???

We enjoyed spending our afternoons here on the ferry dock looking at all the beautiful scenery and even doing a little fishing

Beautiful flowers and colorfully painted murals were everywhere in town

Al an I sporting our shirts we got for joining the "BIG RED" club. You have to catch a RED to be eligible. Our friend Charlie is also a member of the club, but was not present to get his picture taken...