July 17 - Tok, AK to Valdez, AK - 260 miles

We rode to Valdez to be ready to take the Alaska Marine Highway ferry the next day, as well as to see the scenery along the way.  

This drive is once again a very beautiful one, with lots of mountains having snow patches on top of very rocky mountains.  The route took us along the Wrangell mountain range, and later through the Shugach mountain range.

The day was sunny with broken clouds in the morning, so we had perfect visibility and good riding weather.  The temperatures though, were in the 50^oF to 60^oF range, so it was cool.

In the afternoon, as we approached the final range of mountains separating the inland from the coast, it started to rain.  We only had 20 miles or so to get to Valdez, but we ran into bad construction which not only took lots of time, but was a real challenge to keep the shiny side up.  Trucks were spreading the now familiar dirt/chip-seal/binder on the highway, and it was like riding through sand mixed with pea gravel.

Along the way, we stopped at our first big accessible glacier in Alaska.  It had lots of the peculiar blue streaks where the ice is under tremendous pressure, so it was very interesting.

In Valdez, we booked a two hour tour of the Alaska Pipeline Terminal, and it was fascinating.  We had forgotten how long ago the pipeline was completed - 23 years ago!  We were fortunate in seeing two tankers getting oil pumped in, a "smaller" one of 900,000 barrel capacity (a "barrel" of oil is 42 gallons), and one of the newest and largest tankers which has a capacity of 2,000,000 barrels of oil!

Now for the Wildlife Report.  We finally saw a moose!  It was a cow (Ms. Moose?), just contentedly eating underwater plants from a small water basin in the forest.  It was neat to see her so close - about 30 yards away,

Arriving  in the rain at our Bed and Breakfast, others told us that the weather had been rainy for two weeks in Valdez, so we were glad to be moving on.

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