MONDAY, AUGUST 5

MONDAY, AUGUST 5:  OUR 7^th ANNIVERSARY!! 

     God gave us a wonderful anniversary present:  a window of decent weather to do our kayaking around Valdez Glacier!  Drizzling when we got up, but thought we saw a promise of skies lightening, so we paid for another night and waited it out.  Fixed breakfast, did some computer stuff, etc. 

     Around noon, it did clear up some – even saw some patches of blue and occasional splashes of sunshine.  So we took off.  In the water around 12:30.   Easy paddling for about 2 ½ hours among the ice.

 

 

Didn’t think we better push it and go deeper into the ice back to the glacier’s face. This wasn’t a stunning setting like we’ve seen before in glacier lakes, particularly in Petersburg –this was much smaller, with lots of gravel on the icebergs. But very easily accessible. So we just enjoyed the briskness of the air, the interesting ice caves around the shoreline, and the quiet.

 

 

  I scooped up a miniature ice sculpture that was floating in the water when we were on our way back!  

 

       We met a few other people on shore when we got back, and shared kayaking and travel stories from around Alaska.

                                                 A bear's been here, raiding the garbage can!

                                                    Ethereal setting - like a Wagnerian opera.
   

       Picked up a nice steak and bottle of wine for our anniversary dinner tonight.  And wouldn’t you know  - within a couple of hours of being home, it started raining again!  Not hard, but enough where it sure wouldn’t have been fun out on the lake!