Ambling with Annie: Tok Cutoff, Glenallen Highway to Lake Louise, AK, and Richardson Highway to Valdez

Riding and sightseeing for most of every day has become our new normal. Even Annie is still willingly getting in the truck each morning and after every stop. I guess we haven't really been putting on that many miles the last few days, but the roads are very slow with frost heaves, road construction, and pull outs to stop and see the vistas. Both Canada and Alaska have pull outs/rest areas every few miles, so it makes it easy to stop, walk around, make a sandwich for lunch, and just hang out whenever we feel like it.

Yesterday morning we left Tok and were headed to Valdez. Since we don't have a planned itinerary and no reservations anywhere, we can decide last minute to take side trips, which is what happened yesterday afternoon. Randy was really ready to fish, and I found a campground in The Milepost that looked promising. So we took the road less traveled and ended up at Lake Louise State Recreation Campground somewhere outside of Glenallen, which wasn't really on our way to Valdez but not too far off the path. It took us an hour to drive 20 miles on a paved but extremely frost heaved road, and the views along the way were unbelievable! We saw one large bull moose on the drive in (no picture) and LOTS of moose poop in the campground. It was a nice, quiet campground with a really large lake. Once again, Annie got to go for a dip & retrieve sticks, one of her very favorite things to do. I guess it's worth putting up with a wet, smelly dog to get some of the steam worn out of her. Randy got skunked fishing...this time.

This morning we hit the road to Valdez. I just can't believe the scenery that is all around no matter which direction you look. There is still lots of snow on the mountains in this area, and we could see a few smaller glaciers. The closer we got to Worthington Glacier, the foggier it became, so we'll stop and visit there on our way back out or in a few weeks when we're back this way. It was really, really hard to see the road due to the fog, and then we drove out of it & saw Bridal Veil Falls. We're now at a gravel lot campground in Valdez, which is not usually our style, but it's nice to have electric heat as the weather is much colder here. The campground is very nice, and the owner feeds the eagles every day around 5pm. It was fun to watch him throw the fish in the air and more and more eagles swooping in for the catch. It started with 3, and there were probably a dozen or so before he was done for the evening. Randy and Annie are over at the community campfire checking out who knows where the best fishing spots are while I'm in the camper watching the tide come in to the marshy bird sanctuary area. There are mountains all around us with clouds/fog hanging down low, and what beauty we have out of every window!

Tomorrow we plan on walking around Valdez, checking out the tour boat schedules for later this summer, and generally just touristing about. After that, who knows which road we'll take! There aren't that many around here from which to choose, but there are fun things on each of them.