Moving’ on up
The weather cleared a little in Seward. It stopped raining and the clouds lifted so we could see the bay and the mountains. It lifted our moods too. We explored town some more and did a speed hike to the toe of Exit Glacier. It was a speed hike because we had only an hour to hike the nearly 3 miles and get back to the campground before check-out. The hike was fun and the glacier was neat to see. It was also in a national park, so we got another stamp in our Passport book. It’s fun to see how many national parks we’ve been to.
It was a really tough decision to leave Seward. We are disappointed in that we may miss doing any sea adventures. We really aren’t excited about doing any sea adventures in cold temps and high waves, especially since we are both prone to seasickness and we can do the same and see nearly the same things in OR or when we go to Hawaii later this year. We narrowed what we’ll really miss to the glaciers and the puffins. We want to be in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park sometime around Tuesday when the sun comes back out, so we decided to get closer and go north to Whittier, even though the weather forecast wasn’t good there either. It’s not good anywhere until Tuesday. Whittier gives us another opportunity sea kayak or take a glacier tour and/or take the ferry to Valdez.
To get to Whittier requires going through a long, single-lane tunnel that traffic shares with a train. When trains aren’t scheduled, the tunnel allows traffic to go in one direction for 15 minutes every hour. And there’s a $20 fee. The kicker for us was that we were really weren’t sure about the camping in Whittier. Our travel books and camping iPhone app said there was only a parking lot for camping but also maybe a 6-site campground without road access, which we interpreted to perhaps mean tent camping only. We decided to risk it. The tunnel was cool. It looked like just a hole blasted out of the side of the mountain, with rock close on both sides the entire way.
Whittier is a small, fishing village that can be described as “shanty”, but we both kind of like it. We found the campground by luck. Upon entering the town, it was difficult to orient ourselves because the map we received from the guy who took our tunnel fee said that we were on the second road running parallel from the water. We couldn’t see the closest road to the water but we could see the water. Huh? We figured out what road we were on and focused on finding the “campground” mentioned on the map but without directions. We found ourselves at what appeared to be a deadend. We didn’t want to take the Casita up a single-lane, bumpy, dirt road that didn’t look like it went anywhere, so I put on my rain jacket and ran up the road. It was dumping rain. The road was actually one entrance to the very-well hidden campground. The campground is quite primitive but by a stream and the backdrop is lovely. We are at the base of mountains that surround the town with many gushing waterfalls.
This was our toughest set-up yet. We’ve actually figured out the trick to reversing and setting-up the Casita. I am outside while Mike drives and I, mostly, just stay out of his way except to give him small corrections to align the Casita balance or tell him when he’s going to hit something. That didn’t happen here. After giving up on a site for just being too uneven, we thought a second site would work better. There was no shouting but it took us several, several tries to get it parked and balanced. Every time I tried to adjust the level by propping up a tire on a leveler or two, the damn bubble on the level didn’t change. The ground is so wet here, the leveler just sunk when the tire drove on it. And remember, it’s dumping rain and I’m outside trying to get it level. After multiple tries, we got it and I was soaked!
We decided a touch-down beer was necessary but had none. We went to the grocery store, but it didn’t sell beer. We had to go to the hardware/auto rental/fishing supplies/grocery/liquor store to pay $13 for a 6-pack of Alaska beer. To get to that store, we had to find that first, closer road to the water. It was hilarious. We finally figured out that the “road” was really a lane in a parking lot. Customers weren’t allowed in the alcohol section of the store. Mike had to ask the guy behind the counter to get our beer, who instantly knew we were out-of-towners (maybe because the population here is like barely over 200). At this point, I was starting to enjoy this rain-soaked, small, fishing town and Mike was looking forward to that beer. We found a small corner of town with a couple restaurants (a fish place and a Chinese place). We tried the fish place, which was really a fried fish place. We loved it. The halibut and fries were really good and not too greasy. I’ve been looking for an Alaskan sweatshirt that called to me. I barely passed up their “Return of the Sockeye” one with storm troopers riding sockeye salmon for one showing their restaurant.
As we sit here, me typing the blog and wearing my new sweatshirt, and Mike laughing over the description of Prince William Sound in our Alaska book that we’ve had for about a year but are just now reading (the book says it “pours” rain here a lot), we are super happy and content.
