Bev and I
awoke to cloudy skies(!) and a bit of a shower (!!) as we packed up and said
good bye to our second night in Portage RV Park’s Cabin #4. We loaded up our new,
maroon Nissan Sentra
Alamo rental car and headed for our final journey of this trip
along the
gorgeous Turnagain Arm Highway
to have a grand breakfast at the Alyeska
Hotel, back in Girdwood.
The cloudy
drizzle abated somewhat as we were seated in a dining room at the great
hotel,
with a fine view of the mountain, up-side-down hanging flower pots, and the
frog-stocked pond. We both enjoyed the
$20 per person buffet and filled up big
time.
If fortune shines on us ever again and allows us to return to Alaska, I want to
make a
stay at the Alyeska Hotel a definite part of that revisit.
From Girdwood,
we drove through the one-way-only tunnel to reach the coastal town
of Whittier, site of the
Alaska Inland Marine Highway Ferry Terminal.
The town
of Whittier
exists only to accept, process, and transfer freight and cruise ship
passengers. There is absolutely nothing
to see or do of any interest there, and I spent
the hour that we languished
there before we could check in for our ferry journey to
Valdez aimlessly
wandering around the outskirts of the rail yard and looking out at the
drizzly
harbor.
It wasn’t
until 1 o’clock that the Ferry Terminal Office began accepting check-ins for
the 1:45 P.M. ferry. We properly
registered ourselves and our car and drove onto the
ship and settled into our
comfortable seats for the 6-hour crossing of Prince William
Sound to Valdez. Beautiful views of the mountains, floating
glacial ice in the Sound,
and the many wooded islands throughout the voyage
made for some good but challenging
photographic opportunities during the windy,
cloudy, and rainy trip aboard the .
We arrived in
Valdez, relaxed
but hungry and we came upon a wonder Mexican
restaurant with a super gracious
waitress and owner/chef. We complimented
them
on one of the best and most memorable meals in recent memory, commenting
that
we wished they would open a similar restaurant in Philadelphia.
They beamed
with pleasure at receiving such praise for their good and
tasty work.
We settled
into our comfortable Best Western Hotel for a comfy overnight rest.
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