21 Palmer into Valdez
In the last post, we mentioned the produce grown in the Palmer, Alaska area. This sign shows some of the record items grown.
Some of the sights along the road. The glacier is Matanuska Glacier.
Valdez is a very nice city, its economy based on the Alaska Pipeline terminal where oil is received from the pipeline from Prudoe Bay, held, and loaded into tankers. Fishing (commercial and sportsman) and tourism are the other contributors. Valdez suffered a major earthquake in 1964 (8.6 on Richter scale) which completely wiped out the city, causing it to be relocated and rebuilt.
The oil terminal.
We took a boat tour to Columbia and Mears Glaciers. During this tour we passed quite a bit of sealife and saw the great glaciers.
Sea otters.
Sea lions.
Columbia Glacier
Is it really summer??? Don’t think so!!!
Bald eagle
A commercial fishing boat laying a seine net for catching salmon,
Seals on icebergs.
Mears Glacier. To us this was the better of the two. Reason is that Columbia Glacier has pushed its moraine material (the rocks, gravel, and dirt it pushes ahead of it while moving) into the water and virually forming a dam so that the face of the glacier is pretty much hidden behind the piles of ice.
A bit of calving action. This is where pieces of ice fall off the face of a glacier with very loud sound.
Time for some humpback whales.
This is either Captain Nemo’s submarine the Nautalus or is the head of a humpback. Didn’t realize we had gotten this picture.
Sea Lions
