Anchorage to Valdez
Day 9
Anchorage is a fairly modern town. I would like to say we left at the crack of dawn, but for the last week or so we haven’t had any nights, so when is dawn? It has been a very interesting time. All the hotels had black-out curtains for sleeping. Anyway, we left heading south along the pictures coast line of the Cook Inlet to the turn off that goes through a tunnel to Whittier.
This is a single lane 2.5 mile tunnel with a working train track running through as well. This is one of the few times that motorcycles go last. Anyway, by the time we neared the end of the tunnel, all the cars were gone and all you could see was the three headlights of a train and you are riding down the middle of the train tracks towards a train light.
Talk about a light at the end of the tunnel or a cartoon script. The town of Whittier is a small town that used to be a hideout for the navy because of the closeness of the mountains and the general overcast weather.
Now, we waited in line for a ferry to go across Prince William Sound to Valdez. While waiting in the rain at the ferry terminal, one of those funny moments happened, should have got the camera out. A chopper coming up the ramp exiting the ferry bottomed out and lifted the back wheel off the ground and needed a push.
We crossed Prince William Sound to Valdez which is one end of the Alaska Pipeline.
This is a coastal town full of campers and sports fishing boats. We stayed in a hotel made up of modular units, clean small rooms.
This was the end of this rest day. 100 km.