July 18 - Valdez, AK to Soldotna, AK - 140 miles

Today started out with a ride on the Alaskan Marine Highway ferry, from Valdez to Whittier, AK.  This was a 7-hour ride, and covered about 70 miles.  We rode along the Inland Waterway, past beautifully forested mountains and islands, and lots of mountains close to the seaway with many snow patches on top.  Many mountains in that area have  glaciers on top.  Quite a view!  (We found some literature that says Alaska has 10,000 glaciers, small and large!)  You can see that it was quite cold on the deck of the ferry, with us needing our good warm riding coats on.

The best area of glacier viewing was at the outlet of the bay containing the Columbia Glacier.  This was really special, because the ferry pilot threaded his way through literally hundreds of small icebergs!  (We were told that a floating piece of ice from a glacier was not officially called an iceberg unless it had more than fifteen feet sticking out of the water.   Almost all of these were smaller than that.  However, it was a real thrill to see hundreds of floating pieces.)

On the ferry we also saw whales and sea otters, and on one beach saw about two hundred sea lions.  These were said to be Stellar sea lions, and were considerably bigger than California sea lions.

Then at Whittier, we got to go through the new tunnel for vehicles getting off the ferry.  (It used to be that all vehicles were loaded on flat cars for the journey through a very long set of tunnels.)  Now, this tunnel was probably the scariest thing we have ridden yet!  The reason was that the train tracks are still there, and one has to ride the motorcycle in the middle of the train tracks - in the DARK!!  Picture yourself having to ride in the dark for two and a half miles on a cement track, on longitudinal GROVES with water on them, and staying in a track where you only have about one foot of leeway on either side.  Boy, talk about an exercise in control to make yourself relax while riding a difficult and long track!!

Then, on to Soldotna, on the Kenai Peninsula, where Deane's big excitement for the day was ALMOST GETTING HIT BY A MOOSE !!  Yes, the moose almost hit me on the Gold Wing, NOT I almost hit the moose!!

It was about 5 PM, we were riding along the Kenai Peninsula to our destination of Soldotna, it was raining lightly, and we were on a four-lane divided road doing the speed limit of 55mph.  I was following a big motor home, about 4 seconds behind him, a propane tank truck was following me, about 2 seconds behind, and Norm was following a car behind the propane tank truck.  The visibility was not good, because of overcast and slight rain on the windshield of the motorcycle, but I was scanning with my eyes the best I could.

All of a sudden, out of the corner of my right eye, I saw a blur of brown, and quickly turning my head to the right, I could see distinctly a cow moose's whole big head, her shoulders pumping her legs, and the legs at full gallop!!  Her head was only about SIX FEET AWAY and she was coming FULL TILT at me on the motorcycle.  I could also hear distinctly the clippity-clop of her hooves on the pavement to my right.

I had no time to put on brakes, or swerve, or anything.  And its a good thing I didn't, because my speed and the cow moose's speed were such that she JUST missed the rear end of my Gold Wing.  She missed by NOT MORE than an arm's length, and more like a foot or less!!!

The moose kept running across the road, in front of the tank truck behind me, and across the other lane of opposing traffic!  The tank truck did not hit her, even though it was following me closely, and while the opposing lane of traffic was fairly heavy, no cars hit the moose there.  The first time Norm saw the moose was when she went across the opposing lane of traffic and ran up the slope on the other side of the road.  What made her run so fast from the side, I have no idea, but now I believe those stories about deer and moose knocking people off motorcycles.

I was a little shaken, but it all happened so fast I wasn't really scared.  However when I thought about what could have happened, my heart was going pitty-pat, so Norm and I stopped for a few minutes.  What a lucky me, and what a lucky moose!!!

Well, another exciting day in the Big Adventure.

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